| When Belgian artist Jean
Berame came to Sinai in 1980, the theme song for the work he did here
might have been "Don't it make your brown rocks blue." Armed with ten
tons of UN-blue paint, making enormous brown boulders blue (the color of
peace) was exactly what Berame did. The result is an extraordinary
installation between St. Catherine and Dahab in which the artist has
used the landscape of Sinai -- once a battleground in the 1967 war
between Egypt and Israel -- as a canvas to honor the realization of
peace between the two nations. The Blue Desert, however, transcends its functionality as a peace monument. The four miles of painted stones, some of which rise to heights of over 30 feet, is a vision in which Berame has used color to successfully alter the substance of the rocks. At times they appear more like giant balloons, or great gobs of cast-out chewing gum. The stones contrast vividly with the reds, browns, and yellows of the desert, and masterfully compliment Sinai's deep-blue sky. |
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