Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. 2015
The neon work Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin quotes the mysterious inscription that appears in Rembrandt’s Belshazzar's Feast, depicting a passage from the Old Testament in which a premonitory inscription appears on the wall in front of the Babylonian king during a feast. Daniel, who has served the king’s office told him that he will be punished because of blasphemy and the kingdom will be divided and given to the Medes and Persians. That very night king Belshazzar was murdered, and Darius the Mede became the new king. The text in Hebrew is written in columns instead on lines, and reads from right to left. Tim Parchikov temporarily abandons the photographic tradition, decontextualizing a prophetic idiom to turn it into a glowing neon advert.