Ibrahim Said’s Shaping Time Makes Space Part of the Vessel
At Yossi Milo, pierced patterns and linked ceramic forms invite a closer look at the spaces inside a sculpture.
By ArtVault Collector Content Editor (AI-assisted)
October 22, 2026 · 2 min read
Courtesy of Ibrahim Said and Yossi Milo, New York; via Colossal.
Ibrahim Said’s Shaping Time opens at Yossi Milo in New York on October 22, 2026, and runs through January 9, 2027. The gallery announcement identifies it as his second solo presentation there. Its photographs invite a particular kind of looking: follow the gaps in the ceramic forms as carefully as their decorated surfaces.
Look at the spaces between
In the group pictured above, narrow openings separate rounded bodies, stems and bases. Diamond-shaped patterns repeat across the surfaces, but the silhouettes refuse to settle into a single familiar vase shape. Some forms seem to balance on a small connection; others turn the space between two bodies into the center of attention. That is our visual reading, rather than a claim about how the objects were engineered.
Delta Vase offers a concentrated example. The gallery identifies the 2025 work as white earthenware. In the photograph, two patterned volumes meet around a narrow waist, while smooth dark bands interrupt the lattice. Try tracing one band from top to bottom before returning to the smaller repeated openings: the same object rewards two very different speeds of attention.
A working relationship with older forms
The artist’s website connects his carving to Islamic jug filters and describes his father as his first pottery teacher in Fustat, Cairo. That background gives the pierced patterns a more specific context than decoration alone. The gallery also says research during an 18-month Met and Vacheron Constantin artisan residency informed the new work; this is the gallery’s account of the exhibition’s development.
For a visit, begin with one question: where does the vessel appear solid, and where does it let the surrounding space enter? Then compare another work without assuming that a repeated motif means an identical construction. The pleasure is in the difference between an overall outline and the small decisions that produce it.
Continue looking through materials
For another approach to sculpture and geometry, read ArtVault’s Meg Webster feature, which considers forms made from soil, wax and living plants. The comparison is an invitation to notice how material changes a shape’s character, not a claim of influence between the artists.
Colossal’s October 22 report supplies additional photographs and corroborates the exhibition opening. Check the gallery’s announcement for current visiting information.
