Serendipity Arts Foundation returns to Panaji, Goa with their flagship arts initiative – the Serendipity Arts Festival from the 15 – 22 December 2019. The annual, multi-disciplinary Festival is open to all, and this year will host over 90 dynamic projects with over 1200 artists highlighting India’s rich traditions of music, dance and theatre, alongside photography, culinary arts, craft, and visual arts exhibitions.

Register online at www.serendipityartsfestival.com to attend the Serendipity Arts Festival from the 15th to the 22nd of December 2019 in Panaji, Goa. Entry is free and open for all.

For his fourth solo exhibition at the gallery, the painter, sculptor and photo artist HIROYUKI MASYAMA focuses on perspectives from the Free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg, in an attempt to redefine the relationship between space and time. The conceptual approach of Hiroyuki Masuyama is always based on his interest in crafting an image, as well as in the beauty of the original subjects. His work is characterized by a romantic approach paired with deconstruction of the objects: for a new series of works, he repeatedly traced the contours of the shadow of individual flower petals and of a tree leaf with a pencil, at specific times.

Courtesy of  Sfeir-Semler Gallery.

Exhibiting in the UAE for the first time since 2013, Leila Heller is proud to present a semi-retrospective of Persian-American artist Reza Derakshani in “EMANATIONS,” including works from the artist’s personal collection, the Hunting Series, and Garden Party Series. In his paintings, Derakshani recalls forgotten tales and symbols of Iran’s cultural heritage, at a time where traditions and practices are under threat and often outlawed. Through a rich iconography drawing from medieval Persian poetry, classical literature, miniature painting, and sacred architectural sites laden with meaning, Derakshani’s work celebrates both ornamentation and color fields, as the artist finds a space for figural representation in abstract aesthetics.

Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery.

This is an exhibition of silence. Sound is imagined, or, rather, its instruments appear, yet sound itself has been stifled. The exhibition unfolds in the headspace of reading. Madhusudhanan’s images are read as much as they are seen. The exhibition is read at two speeds—as filmic succession and as gradual contemplation. Rushes, storyboards, sequences, flows. Images flit by and yet our view freeze-frames each window, each unique charcoaled or painted stab at history. Light beams through the oily fusain strokes – steady, beckoning. Or illuminates the dented face of a pocket watch, the feather of a wing, the contour of a thigh.

Confronted with the violence of partition, the insidiously destructive might of capital, the sheer decrepitude of history, how can Ghandi be relevant? Madhusudhanan proceeds by synecdoche, and we are tasked with piecing together his image of history: the microphone stands in for the dictator’s voice; the bullhorn, police state bellowing; the boot, fascist intimidation.

Courtesy of 1×1 Art Gallery.

Amar Dawod is an influential artist of the generally known as the “80’s generation” in Iraq. His seven years in Poland and life in Sweden, for the past thirty two years, have shaped his person and artwork into the Eclecticism style. Dawod draws from the different cultures and philosophies that he was exposed to and which he relished to fully absorb. One is compelled to know that fact as one experiences his work.  While he is a master of printmaking and sculpture, he regards painting to be the pages where he records and impregnates it with his philosophy. ‘If one day I decide to abandon painting, nobody will feel its impact; neither will society recognize the need for my work.”

Courtesy of Karim Gallery.

Open Cube by Hamra Abbas follows her earlier exhibition Kaaba Picture as a Misprint, shown at Lawrie Shabibi in 2014, featuring new prints and marble inlay works that focus on form, line, and colour in the context of religious iconography, architecture, and geometric abstraction. While referencing specific cultural metaphors, Abbas here is in dialogue with the conceptual work of Sol LeWitt, notably his engagement with the cube (i.e. Incomplete Open Cubes). Abbas’ intervention is a play on formalism within the context of Mughal art and design. The use of parchinkari (marble inlay – a compositional technique mastered by the Mughal artisans in the 17th century) gives new material identity and meaning to the existing variations on the cube by LeWitt, along with presenting a brand new variation in the form of a marble floor piece.

Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi.

The second edition of FOCAL POINT art book fair will present printed matter by artists and publishers from the region and across the world. As part of the broader presentation, this year’s content will include a special focus on zines and comics.

Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual art book fair, FOCAL POINT, returns for its second edition with a wide range of printed matter and a larger representation of independent publishers. The platform caters to the interdisciplinary nature of art publishing and aims to present a focus on independent and alternative publishing practices presented alongside a select number of larger, more established publishing houses.

The three-day fair will feature regional and international artists and publishers who will present their content individually or within curated sections. As part of the broader presentation, this year’s content will include a special focus on zines and comics.

FOCAL POINT 2019 will take place from 14 to 16 November 2019 and will be returning to the heritage building of Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, in the Sharjah Arts Area.

Timings:
Thursday, 14 November 2019
4:00 – 10:00 pm
Friday, 15 November 2019
4:00 – 10:00 pm
Saturday, 16 November 2019
2:00 – 9:00 pm

Anima Gallery cordially invites you to the exhibition Intersection.

United by my interest in materiality and rich surface textures, I use my work to explore topical urban issues, documenting everyday city people who are often neglected and displaced in the drive toward excessive urbanization, rapid modern development and the growing global economy. The focus of this exhibition is on the global issues of migration [paintings] and free speech [sculptures]. I have employed materials such as Dhurrie Rugs, dyed and stitched heavy cotton in the paintings, bronze and stone in the sculptures.
The sculptures in this exhibition highlight the issues of free speech. These anonymous almost faceless sculptures in bronze and stone are created to start a discourse around freedom of speech, which is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community. Alimi Adewale.

Courtesy of Anima Gallery

This exhibition is organized with the exceptional support of the Musée national Picasso-Paris in the framework of “Picasso-Méditerranée,” and with the collaboration of the Lebanese Ministry of Culture.

With the generous contribution of Danièle Edgar de Picciotto and the support of Cyril Karaoglan.

Picasso et la famille explores Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) relationship to the notion of the family nucleus, encompassing everything from motherhood to children’s games, from the representation of conceptual intimacy to the numerous experiences of a fatherhood spent under the spotlight. Bringing together drawings, etchings, paintings, and sculptures, the exhibition spans seventy-seven years of creation, from 1895 to 1972, through a selection of works marking notable moments in the artist’s long emotional and family life, whose variety of forms illustrates the constant reinvention of his artistic vocabulary. For Picasso, the word “family” evokes, first and foremost, its Spanish meaning of a restricted, intimate and discreet circle, and a fertile source of inspiration for developing themes such as the love of femininity, the image of the couple, the mysteries of childhood, the simple pleasure of sharing, and the solemnity of private moments. Yet the family is also a means to explore even more universal themes such as the cruelty of war and the passing of time, and to reflect on the history of art and its motifs. Through this lens, theoeuvre of the Spanish master appears in a particular light, independent of periods and styles, rather evoking an immediacy of creation.

Picasso et la famille is curated by Camille Frasca and Yasmine Chemali.

Courtesy of Sursock Museum.