Ebecho Muslimova’s Scenes in the Sublevel

Review by Molly Cranston

Scenes in the Sublevel marks Ebecho Muslimova’s first solo museum exhibition, on view at NY’s The Drawing Center. Muslimova presents ten large-scale mixed-media drawings reflecting the subconscious impulse as vividly enacted by the artist’s recurring alter-ego, Fatebe. Muslimova’s precise black lines depict a nude Fatebe in messes of limbs and elastic orifices, each piece mirroring the architectural space of the gallery. Looking into Muslimova’s windows, we find another dimension, filled with multiple Fatebes wreaking havoc. 

Fatebe is curious, gleeful and a total liability. In the gallery space, she is the complete antithesis to the quietly defensive ‘I could do that’ comment, instead she does that, possessing and interrupting different artworks no matter how compromising. She absorbs information through her body – through touch, taste, and seeing what she can fit in her vagina. Muslimova puts Fatebe through her paces as she hangs precariously from beaded string curtains, attempts to engulf a curved chesterfield sofa, and contorts impossibly into a bleeding tomato, always with a smile playing around her wide eyes. Fatebe is an aspirational figure, boundless and unashamed as she embodies her desires.

There’s a Cool World chaos of competing styles of work, where the realms of the real and imagined collide – architectural renderings meet Sunday comics meet explicit technicolour. This layering of styles within an interior space is important in Muslimova’s work and speaks to her interest in the structure of psyche. We build the distorted narratives of our experience through collaging together bits of knowledge and memory. Architectural spaces provide an important metaphor for theories of memory and the subconscious, “where the mental drama unfolds”, both anxious and ecstatic. In the mauve distance, Fatebe is peeing on the floor. Scenes in the Sublevel is on view until May 23.

Fatebe Beaded Curtain, 2020
Enamel on Dibond aluminum
96 x 96 in

Fatebe Heirloom, 2020
Enamel and oil paint on Dibond aluminum 96 x 48 in

Fatebe Ultrafragola, 2020
Enamel and oil paint on Dibond aluminum 96 x 48 in

Fatebe Sister Booth A, 2020
Enamel and oil paint on Dibond aluminum
96 x 48 in, &

Fatebe Sister Booth B, 2020
Enamel and oil paint on Dibond aluminum
96 x 48 in


Fatebe Wet Mold, 2020
Enamel and oil paint on Dibond aluminum
96 x 48 in

Fatebe Phantom Cage, 2020
Enamel and oil paint on Dibond aluminum
96 x 144 in

Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Maria Berheim, Zürich and Magenta Plains, NY. Photos by Daniel Terna, Shark Senesac, Matt Grubb//Object Studies