Etel Adnan wished this exhibition as a splash of hope amidst the current severe political and economic crisis Lebanon is witnessing. With this in mind, the gallery has produced the show against all odds, a gesture of cultural resilience that is meant to contribute, on our modest scale, to the sustainability of the arts sector in Beirut. The title of the exhibition, The uprising of colors, therefore refers to art’s capacity to bring colors into a grim quotidian. The exhibition proposes an overview of Etel Adnan’s multidimensional practice: her small format paintings fill the space; and with simple lines and colors, her compositions flow naturally, painted in one sitting with a knife palette. The spontaneous act results in work that is never contrived, and that radiates joy. A series of leporellos bridges between her writings and her visual art work: they unfold, filled with words alternating with abstract colors and shapes.

Courtesy of Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Serwan Baran’s recent body of work extends the formal and political preoccupations of Fatherland, the solo exhibition with which he represented Iraq at the Venice Biennale in 2019. In addition to a large series of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, he has produced a work of staggering proportions to complement his equally monumental painting from the pavilion, entitled The Last Meal. In his current exhibition, Baran provides a counternarrative to the artworks he was obligated to produce as a war artist in the Iraqi army. While he was instructed to represent the nation and its leaders as beautiful and triumphant then, he now seeks to show the destruction that is absent is such state-mandated political propaganda.

Courtesy of Saleh Barakat Gallery

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, along with Alexander Gray Associates, New York and gb agency, Paris, announce Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist, a retrospective of Hassan Sharif’s work curated by Hoor Al Qasimi and Krist Gruijthuijsen at KW Institute, Berlin, Germany. In spring 2020, KW will present the first major retrospective of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) artist Hassan Sharif in Europe. Sharif was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century from the Middle East. He is discussed as a leading force in the field of Conceptual Art, which rethought a conventional understanding of time, space, form, and social interactions.

The Persian word konj-kav means “curious” (literally “digging into corners”). Sépànd Danesh has been digging into corners for nearly a decade now, giving them painted form with the vertical junction of two walls meeting, floor-less and ceiling-less. In his new exhibition at Backslash, the motifs that previously adorned his corners have given way to curious characters whose mindsets and moods we feel we recognise and sense. His figures are made up of identical fragments (tiny three-dimensional pixels), bringing to mind a poem by 13th-century Persian poet Saadi:

All human beings are in truth akin.
All in creation share one origin.
When fate allots a member pangs and pains,
No ease for other members then remains.
If, unperturbed, another’s grief canst scan,
Thou are not worthy of the name of man.

This cube-based stylized technique can be compared to the artistic experiments of Pointillist painters in the early 20th century: when a pointillist painting is observed from a certain distance, the coloured dots are impossible to tell apart, creating the optical effect of blending into each other. The same principle was adopted years later to create the digital raster image with the pixel as its base unit, its smallest element. Sépànd Danesh takes us into the world of the infinitely small, with the pixellation of the figures, as well as the infinitely large, with the universalisation of human emotions.
The artist explains his approach: “In my work, I try to tackle the question (…) by using the pixel in its oncological form, as an object for reflection devising ever-new combinations and variations.”

For his third exhibition at Backslash, Sépànd Danesh is turning the corner into an open book, proposing a fresh interpretation of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Me, my eagle and my snake narrates the adventures of a lone traveller, perched atop the mountains of enchantment, who sees all life as an eternal recurrence and metamorphosis. The love felt by this traveller, half-animal, half-superhuman, for bleak and barren nature makes the eagle and the snake ideal companions. The eagle is proud and the snake is crafty. The eagle is sharp-eyed, defies gravity and dwells among the highest peaks. The snake delivers the kiss of death, changes skin and is acquainted with the entrails of the earth.

Sépànd Danesh thoroughly dissects the figures he presents and, more specifically, the attitudes and emotions of human beings in general. The exhibition is constructed like the genome sequence of individuals along with their quirks and feelings. Sculptures and paintings are populated with strange characters in positions that are easily identifiable, conveying as they do an array of human sentiments.

Courtesy of Backlash.

Spanning over half a century, works by many of the most influential Modernists of the Arab-speaking world will be showcased in Meem Gallery’s third edition of its Modern Masters exhibition series, this March.

Including Dia al-Azzawi, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Saliba Douaihy, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Mahmoud Said, Chafic Abboud, Faiq Hassan, Ibrahim Salahi, Ismail Fattah, Jewad Selim, Kadhim Hayder, Kamal Boullata, Mahmoud Sabri and Marwan, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view a collection of some of the best examples of 20th century Arab art.

Through their artistic practices, Iraqi artists including Jewad Selim, Faiq Hassan, Ismail Fattah and Dia al-Azzawi became critical figures in the rise of a post-colonial, national Iraqi identity. Despite Incorporating certain stylistic elements of Modern, Western art movements, such as cubism, these artists drew inspiration from the country’s rich indigenous history, landscapes and culture, as can be observed in Faiq Hassan’s Fisherman, Mahmoud Sabri’s Vandbærere (Water Carriers) and Kadhim Hayder’s Untitled multimedia work.

Courtesy of Meem Gallery.

Anima Gallery is pleased to present for you Those Were the Days by Fatima Al-Hajj.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

It is hard to be optimistic in a gloomy world.

It is hard to sow joy in a world filled with terror.

The simplicity of nature makes me take refuge in it, for it is my soul mate. With nature I learn and rise. Places change, but their spirit remains unchanged. Nature gives you a sense of security by its humility, perhaps, and perhaps due to being impressed by its greatness. However, it is certainly the most secure bosom. It drains away the negative energy that afflicts me with sadness, fatigue and anger.

My paintings appear as if I live in a world full of happiness. As I rise to nature, I see things normal. Sometimes I see how small they are when compared to the positive energies around them, and I thus disappear as much as I can while in the state of rising.

Here begins the internal sailing process, as we do not know what comes next.

These paintings are a sample. Some of them came from childhood days, when I visited my village that flowers in summer. I accompany my children to the wilderness. I do not forget the fragrant dust flying around when the grain separates from the straw, blocking the vision, or when my father sends me to the oil mill to make an appointment to process our olives. I was always overwhelmed by the scene inside the mill. I also recall the late nights in the house of our Damascus friends in Al-Midan neighborhood, when the dew engulfed us with the smell of jasmine. These are some of the images stored in side me. We never know when they will wake up and why.

Courtesy of Anima Gallery.

Spanning over half a century, works by many of the most influential Modernists of the Arab-speaking world will be showcased in Meem Gallery’s third edition of its Modern Masters exhibition series, this March.

Including Dia al-Azzawi, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Saliba Douaihy, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Mahmoud Said, Chafic Abboud, Faiq Hassan, Ibrahim Salahi, Ismail Fattah, Jewad Selim, Kadhim Hayder, Kamal Boullata, Mahmoud Sabri and Marwan, this exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view a collection of some of the best examples of 20th century Arab art.

Through their artistic practices, Iraqi artists including Jewad Selim, Faiq Hassan, Ismail Fattah and Dia al-Azzawi became critical figures in the rise of a post-colonial, national Iraqi identity. Despite Incorporating certain stylistic elements of Modern, Western art movements, such as cubism, these artists drew inspiration from the country’s rich indigenous history, landscapes and culture, as can be observed in Faiq Hassan’s Fisherman, Mahmoud Sabri’s Vandbærere (Water Carriers) and Kadhim Hayder’s Untitled multimedia work.

Depictions of simple village life and pastoral scenes also appear in Egyptian artist, Mahmoud Said’s, El Nourag (The Plough) and Lebanese artist, Chafic Abboud’s Untitled (Composition), painted in 1964. Early watercolours portraying realistic street scenes of his native Jerusalem, by Palestinian artist, Kamal Boullata, predate the abstract work that he later became so well known for.

Key examples of abstract painting from the Arab world will be shown through the works of Lebanese artist, Saliba Douaihy, Sundanese artist, Ibrahim Salahi, Moroccan artist, Ahmed Cherkaoui and Shakir Hassan al Said’s, Untitled works from his well-known Walls series which resemble the neglected and scarred walls around his native city of Baghdad.

Long neglected by international audiences, this extensive collection of works by the Modern masters of the Arab world displays the extraordinary variety of distinctive artwork produced in the Middle East and North Africa, during the 20th century.

Courtesy of Meem Gallery .

Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present For You Mother, a solo exhibition featuring Rula Halawani’s latest body of work.

Artist Statement

When I finished my series “For My Father” I showed it to my mother, told her that I did the series in honor of my Baba and asked her if she liked it? She replied “Yes of course darling I do like it very much!” Then she asked “Rula, are you going to make a series for me when I leave this universe?” I said; Do not mention death Mama, I will make one for you as an honor now when you are still with us.

As I grew into adulthood, I could not help but repeat Mother’s words “even when we die and leave this world, our spirits will remain floating in the skies of our county, Palestine” What mother was actually referring to were the two tragedies that befell Palestine in the 1948 war- the Nakba and the June war of 1967. To her the spirits of Palestinians will stay in the skies of Palestine despite the ensuing military occupation of the land, death and expulsion Those words confused me as a child, I could not understand them then, but now when I decided to devote a project to my Mother, I made several experimentations trying to translate my mother’s words into photographs.

For this project, I used archival photographic portraits of people who had lived in Palestine before their Diaspora in 1948. I faded these portraits, collaging them into the skies of special images from
the Palestinian landscape, making them look somehow like floating spirits. When I started the project two years ago, I had several conversations with my Mama, she talked a lot about the changes of the traditional landscape of Palestine before the Israeli occupation in 1948, “Palestine was much more beautiful with its traditional landscape, its villages and cities fusing naturally within the mountainous terrains and plains of the landscape. Nowadays the settlements and the ugly random construction ruin this traditional landscape”

I was hoping to discuss the development of my new series when I finished it with my Mother, but as I continued with the project, my Mother developed Alzheimer becoming worse and worse with time. Now
she is totally paralyzed and can’t talk. I did not give up talking, discussing and showing her the photos of the project till this moment; she looks and listens but keeps silent, just like the souls I have in my series, they too are silent witnesses to the changes in the landscape , refusing to leave the skies of our beloved Palestine.

Courtesy of Ayyam Gallery.

Half of the world is happy to announce the 4th solo exhibition of acclaimed hobby painter André Butzer (born 1973) in Dubai, UAE.

In his latest paintings Mr. Butzer made for Dubai, he is exploring the most beautiful color ranges, and produces an almost divine rhythm within the works, and within all the 9 or so works together being installed in the wonderful gallery space Kourosh and Nadine will open with their respective keys and mobile phones to their friends, and to the general audience. People will learn a lot about these works, nobody knows what exactly, because it’s too early to say, and in general, it’s not something about which you can say, rather you can experience as such and react to as a whole human being or leftover being. Butzer has always painted like that, so, nothing new. New is boring. This type of 22nd century Mondrianism that we are going to see now is instead, friendly, entertaining, groovy and reliable. Let’s do it. Art is OK.

Courtesy of Carbon 12 Gallery.

Contemporary Heritage is mixed media, visual artist, Harb’s first solo at the gallery since 2015 and will bring together a fresh body of work the cuts across disciplines and continues to push the boundaries of the contemporary art framework.

This new body of work sees the artist observe the notion of heritage as unfixed and fluid. Underscoring Palestinian academic, Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism whereby through the imposition of soft powers history is reshaped for various agendas, Harb observes that while transferred from generation-to-generation, heritage also collides with colonial discourses resulting in new meanings that subsume the stories of the original owners who are often forcibly absent.
A consistent thread throughout Harb’s practice has been the preoccupation with the Palestinian people and their collective and subjective narratives which he investigates both in the literal sense – referring to archives and academic texts as the foundations of his work and in the sense of physical investigation through the deployment of his materials. The artist, in continual flow, oscillates between mediums, drawn to those which he maintains best convey the sentiments of each new concept. Harb has previously worked with film, photography, installation, collage and textile and now leans towards a fresh mode of representation that reconfigures the past.

As well as a large-scale collage triptych in Harb’s now-ubiquitous contemporary collage format Contemporary Heritage will see the artist produce new works in relief form, transposing 1920s Palestinian archival imagery into etchings that come to form compelling contemporary artefacts much like those of the forgotten societies now resigned to museums. As the debate surrounding looted antiquities looms large in the west, Harb’s reliefs, presented as the findings of archaeologists, are at once preserving history but also highlighting the ease at which certain communities, absent from the rhetoric and its presentation, become reduced to a historical exhibit in a foreign land.

Courtesy of Tabari Artspace.

Since the late 1980s, Dahoul’s Dream series has explored the physical and psychological effects of alienation, solitude, and longing that punctuate the human experience at various stages in life. Partly autobiographical, this seminal body of work uses the formal properties of painting to recreate the subconscious sense of enclosure that surfaces during times of crisis, whether in the event of mourning, estrangement, or political conflict.

In his last body of work, with the aptly titled exhibition Still Dreaming Dahoul questions “Are we still dreaming?”. Moving away from the romanticism of dreams and the shelter they offer while still expressing himself through a subconscious voice, Safwan has awoken, and so has his protagonist, placing his voice in what seems to be a more lifelike environment metaphorically. Reality and its inconsistency are mirrored in the canvas through sharper lines and, most importantly, folds and ripples, illustrating life’s obstacles.

The artist is posing questions through disfiguration, and distortion, stressing hardship and troubles while leaving some space for hope and answers. As the artist explains it, his paintings are his life’s chronicles. The artist’s loss of stability is explored in this new series. Explicitly, and unintentionally the artist found himself tackling the story of the displaced through crumbled images; with his ripples, the artist is exploring uncertainty through the imperfect reflection of contemporary humanity.

To enjoy a virtual tour please visit alserkal.online and contact [email protected] for further information.

Courtesy of Ayyam Gallery.

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is pleased to announce its exhibition of Mohammed Kazem: Infinite Angles. The exhibition features new works on paper, paintings and readymade, which continue Kazem’s exploration of materiality and the visualization of light and sound. The artworks on view are imprints and records of both material and immaterial things in the world, they reveal an invisible light and inaudible sound that exists in a continuous sequence with no beginning or end. Kazem photographs light to capture its manifestations across building constructions. He also hears the sound of light as he scratches it onto the surface of paper.

Courtesy of Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde.

Sabrina Amrani is delighted to present the digital solo exhibition From Home, by Joël Andrianomearisoa.

Confined. Away from friends, family and social life. Isolated from the world. Sometimes on our own. Just like the artist Joël Andrianomearisoa is in his Parisian flat, millions of people already look at the world from a window, from a balcony, and try to continue their lives improvising with what they have at hand. There are no stores, no parks, nothing beyond the nutrition of the physical being. No art show to go nor any art supply to buy. Only what you have around you.

Courtesy of Sabrina Amrani