Agenda

Casa Árabe and PHotoEspaña jointly present NUR, an open call for applications for a photography exhibition that will be displayed at Casa Árabe’s premises as part of the 24th PHotoESPAÑA International Photography Festival, within its official programme, to be held in 2021.

The aim of this open call is to promote and publicise a project that looks at one or several aspects of Arabic societies, from a contemporary curatorial perspective. The call seeks to reward attempts to innovate, while conveying current content that have to do with the realities of the contemporary Arab world. This content is presented in a manner which is deliberately open and non-restrictive as regards subject matter, so that a wide range of diverse initiatives can be accommodated, without limitations as regards to the content, approaches or working techniques, and so that projects focused on a single artist or projects of a collective nature can be submitted.

The call is aimed at curators or institutions, who have demonstrable prior experience and who submit an exhibition project which complies with the guidelines outlined here.

All projects will be reviewed and evaluated by the organisation, which reserves the right not to admit those that do not meet the requirements of the call.

The jury, made up of three experts from the fields of photography and cultural cooperation with the Arab world, will select one exhibition proposal from all the entries received.

The selected project will be on public display in the form of an exhibition at Casa Árabe’s Madrid premises (c/ Alcalá, 62) in June 2021, as part of the 24th PHotoEspaña Festival, with the possibility of it being shown at a later date at Casa Árabe’s premises in Córdoba (c/ Samuel de los Santos y Gener, 9).

The deadline is extended until 14 March 2021

For more information, you can visit the webs of Casa Árabe or PHotoESPAÑA, or directly download the bases of the call at this link (SPANISH, ENGLISH, FRENCH and ARABIC versions)

Until the time is right the only way to preserve what we discover is to bury it under the sand…

Early in 1920, British troops digging trenches around the Euphrates River discovered a fresco in their camping area. The following archaeological expeditions unearthed Dura-Europos, later known as the “Pompeii of the Syrian desert,” which was lost from sight for seventeen centuries. An area of interest and research for artist Barış Doğrusöz since 2017, the Locus of Power trilogy examines the culture as well as the economic and political history of the ancient city located in Deir ez-Zor. Presented for the first time as part of The Sequential program, the multimedia installation based on the reconstruction of the site looks at the aesthetics of ruins, representation and rereading of colonial discourse on the basis of museology and archeology.

The first video of the trilogy, Sandstorm and the Oblivion (2017) traces the siege, decline and unearthing of the city, which was originally named Dura, meaning “fortress” by its first inhabitants, and Europos by the Greeks. Doğrusöz contextualises the ruins somewhere between fact and fiction, scrutinising the act of digging in literal and figurative terms. Building on the reports by French and American archaeologists, satellite images and footage from within the city walls, the work registers the past and ongoing conflicts in these lands where excavations function as “instruments of soft power politics.”

Beneath Crowded Skies (2019) draws attention to the periodic sieges that the fortress town has been subjected to for centuries, whether through the scientific process or the military operations and militant attacks in the region over the past decade. The artist refers to the graffiti left by “natives and foreigners, soldiers and civilians who lived, loved, danced, laughed, traded, and fought in the Fortress,” inside and outside the buildings as in public and private spaces. The circular structure that he creates while compiling the information and the refrain included in the text allows him to construct a spiral of conflict and struggle linking ancient history to the present.

Completed in 2020 for The Sequential, Cross-Pollinated questions the observability of archaeological sites as a cultural heritage. Doğrusöz focuses on the footage of the Corona spy satellite, operated by the United States from 1959 to 1972 for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China as well as the West Asian territories where they were active at the time. The historic aerial and satellite images, which were declassified in 1992, document the destruction of the ancient city. The artist expands his research by pointing out the issues of water politics and energy resources, reclamation, urbanisation, wars, systematic looting and deliberate destruction, which all are decisive for the present-day conditions of the region.
Locus of Power by Doğrusöz, whose practice reconstructs and interprets the data defining the collective memory by exploring places, temporalities and systems that shape the narrative of history, is on view on floor -1 at SALT Galata until March 28. Online public programs to be organised in parallel to the presentation will be announced at saltonline.org.

* Excerpt from Sandstorm and the Oblivion (2017) as part of the Locus of Power video trilogy by Barış Doğrusöz
Featuring five independent presentations by Barış Doğrusöz, Deniz Gül, Volkan Aslan, Aykan Safoğlu, and the duo Fatma Belkıs & Onur Gökmen, The Sequential program will take place at SALT Galata throughout 2021.

Supported by SAHA, The Sequential will be included in the 2021-2022 public programs of three member institutions of L’Internationale—Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie (Warsaw) and M HKA, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp)—following the initial presentations at SALT Galata.

Courtesy of SALT Galata

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is pleased to announce Hoda Tawakol’s exhibition Corps (in)visibles / (In)visible Bodies in the French Institute’s ‘LES VITRINES’ street-front art space in Berlin. This exhibition is curated by Liberty Adrien.

Snaking across 25 meters, a dark mural dotted with the unblinking divine eyes of Horus sets the tone of this wry intervention where critique rubs shoulders with the uncanny.
A languishing, bulbous textile sculpture conjures a gnarled odalisque. Elsewhere, mammary-like appendages sag atop a multifarious bouquet of wadded tendrils.

A dark, jungle-like tapestry conflates nature with the body, and a trio of boisterous yet troubling falcon hoods crown the glassed-in show, which echoes her exhibition Between Bodies, shown at the Dubai gallery from 21 November 2020 to 25 February 2021.
In both interventions, Tawakol deepens her ongoing interrogation into politically charged questions surrounding the manipulation of women’s bodies and feminist agency.

Corps (in)visibles / (In)visible Bodies, part of the wider INDEX series of exhibitions in the German capital, has been selected by Frieze as among the top seven European shows currently on view.

Courtesy of Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde

François Morellet (1926 – 2016), a prolific self-taught painter, sculptor, and installation artist, developed a radical approach to geometric abstraction during a career spanning more than six decades. The artist’s inaugural exhibition with Hauser & Wirth, ‘François Morellet. In-Coherent,’ will offer a glimpse of Morellet’s prolific and multi-faceted oeuvre from 1953 – 2013, including some rarely seen key abstract geometric paintings from the 1950s and 1960s, a major wall installation from 1977, space installations and several neon works, a medium pioneered and continuously readdressed by the artist throughout his life. The exhibition makes plain Morellet’s lasting influence in art through his distinctive talent for bringing Dada- infused irreverence, irony, and joyful lightness to his aspiration of dismantling traditional hierarchies and embracing elements of randomness and chance within the framework of pre-established systems.

Organised with Olivier Renaud-Clément, ‘François Morellet. In-Coherent’ underscores the full breadth of the artist’s artistic explorations through a large array of mediums. The exhibition begins with works from the 1950s, a period during which Morellet turned from figurative and representational work to abstraction following an influential trip to Brazil in 1950. Inspired by his first encounters there with Concrete art and the work of Max Bill, he began creating works that followed simple systems and rules and eliminated as many arbitrary decisions as possible. On personal detachment, Morellet has said, ‘All my work is about doing as little as possible and making the fewest possible arbitrary decisions.’ His ‘Trames’ (Grids) paintings feature, for example, superimposed grids of perpendicular lines or networks of dashes rotated at various angles, as in ‘36 trames de tirets pivotées au centre’ (36 Grids of Dashes Rotated at the Centre) (1960). In works such as ‘Carrés et triangles rouges et bleus’ (Red and Blue Squares and Triangles) (1953) and ‘Carré inscrit dans un carré’ (Square Inscribed in a Square) (1954), Morellet exploits the possibilities of simple geometry by creating a system of circumscribed squares which in turn form isosceles square triangles. These early works also expose Morellet’s intent to use descriptive titles containing the information necessary for the viewer to understand the rule behind the creation of the work.

Morellet eventually went beyond the confines of the picture plane and in the 1970s became interested in what he called ‘the outside of painting,’ focusing on three-dimensionality and introducing steel, iron, wire, mesh, and later wood into his work. Three space installations in the exhibition, each composed of a metal angle iron and two white canvases, exploit the simple rule of finding ways to connect two surfaces that are not situated in the same plane by the sole straight line shared by these surfaces. By exploring the possibilities of three- dimensionality, Morellet succeeds in creating a new train of thought: rather than drawing focus into the interior of the picture plane, he broadens his scope to include the spaces around, beneath, and above the painting.

In the 1980s Morellet explored relief paintings containing irregularly shaped elements, often natural material culled from outside. Morellet found it ‘wonderful that nature has finally started to imitate painting.’ In works such as ‘Géométree n° 69’ (1984), he incorporates chance and humor to the most cogent effect. The title ‘Géométree’ is a portmanteau combining two words that describe his work’s ingredients – geometry and a tree branch. Here, an arched tree branch that juts from the canvas dictates the shape and the curve of an intersecting line drawn in pencil, creating two larger intersecting circles that continue beyond the plane of the canvas. In a series of diptychs entitled ‘Entre deux mers’ (Between two seas) (2012 – 2013), the sea level, suggested by brushed stainless steel plates placed on the canvases, forms a visual line uniting the two paintings that make up each diptych, and, beyond that, the series as a whole: ‘I’ve enjoyed juxtaposing two of these ‘Entre deux mers.’ I’ve been dreaming of showing several variations of ‘Entre deux mers’ in a single room from the beginning – a room that wouldn’t be too big and, of course, with all the seas at the same level. That way, the viewer would really be out at sea.’ Viewers could also see a reference to the name of a white wine from the Bordeaux region traditionally paired with oysters. The tilted canvases could then humorously evoke the queasiness caused by excessive wine consumption.

Also on view at Hauser & Wirth are wall drawings, conceived according to a technique that the artist explored as early as 1968, and reconfigured for this exhibition following a previously determined system. In ‘4 trames 30° 60° 120° 150° partant des 4 angles du mur’ (4 Grids 30° 60° 120° 150° starting from the 4 angles of the wall) and ‘4 trames 30°, 60°, 120°, 150° partant d’un angle du mur’ (4 Grids 30°, 60°, 120°, 150° starting from 1 corner of the wall) (1977 / 2021), the artist left the most concise instructions to create a network of lines traced with black adhesive tape on a blank white wall. These ephemeral works showcase Morellet’s engagement with systems based on simple rules as a proliferation factor and with the notion of ‘all over’, allowing him once again to go beyond the arbitrary limits of the canvas.

Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth

Lévy Gorvy is pleased to present Horizons, an exhibition curated by Etel Adnan in collaboration with Victoire de Pourtalès. This presentation centers on a new poetic and nostalgic text by Adnan, based on her experience of moving between her native Lebanon, California, and France. Adnan considers the importance of those shifts, the physical and aesthetic displacements of her personal horizon, and the questions raised by such mutations. The show brings together artists whose work resonates with her own: Simone Fattal, Nancy Haynes, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Paulo Monteiro, Eugénie Paultre, Ugo Rondinone, Christine Safa, and Ettore Spalletti.

Understood in its primary sense, as a visible phenomenon, the horizon (from the Greek horos, “I trace a line”) designates a line that appears in the eye of the observer when they project their gaze over a limitless expanse. This horizon line, an element that is by nature intangible and abstract, the virtual meeting point of sky and sea, marks both the frontier of the finite and the infinite. It is a mirage and support of perspective. It sustains productive paradoxes that make it possible to interrogate the dynamic of perception and knowledge. The exhibition brings together artists driven by the same poetic instinct as Adnan, for whom the horizon also constitutes a starting point from which plural narratives unfold. The result is a great spectrum of aesthetic, poetic, and philosophical variations conducive to speculation and meditation.

Among the artists in the show, Simone Fattal has led a parallel life to Adnan, leaving Lebanon to live in France and the United States. In her delicate ceramic sculptures she fashions a suspended horizon—between reality and myth, abstraction and figuration— whose equilibrium is sought in the communication of an immutable light. It is also from the light that Adnan draws the essence of her work as a poet and painter. The result is an incandescent palette and a sensuous materiality in which the heritage of Nicolas de Staël and Joan Mitchell can be perceived, in particular the flamboyant and febrile light that they instilled into their paintings. In her text, Adnan lingers on the blaze of the Beirut sky at nightfall—and these sparks recur in the portraits by Franco- Lebanese artist Christine Safa whose ochre blues are drawn from the Mediterranean Sea and the walls of the Lebanese capital.

As for Eugénie Paultre, Nancy Haynes, and Paulo Monteiro, they turn to the shadows that can be found within the horizon’s fault lines. Whereas Paultre contains a somber glow in her minute paintings, Haynes invokes homages to writer and poets in canvases where light is compressed behind veiling shades of gray. Ugo Rondinone’s works elegantly complete this landscape in which balance is drawn from an alterity of lines and colours. These images of displaced horizons invoke numerous art historical figures, such as Agnes Martin and Anna-Eva Bergman, who explored the spiritual and aesthetic richness contained with the horizon line.

Through the constellation of works and artists assembled here, Adnan dwells on and questions the horizon, making us aware of a profoundly personal vision. She reminds us that the urban environment shows us a finite world in which perception is constantly thwarted, and that we must get down to reappropriating the fields of possibility that lie within the expanses of the horizon.

Courtesy of Lévy Gorvy.

Intersect Art and Design presents Intersect 21, a virtual exhibition featuring art, design, and photography from 21 galleries in southern California, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Intersect 21 will be live at Intersect2021.com from February 16 through 22, 2021 and on Artsy from February 16 through March 15, 2021. There will be an opening event online at Intersect2021.com on February 16 at 12pm Eastern, preceded by an invitation-only VIP preview from 12am to 12pm Eastern.

Intersect 21 presents a focused, curated platform for cultural exchange. Galleries included will explore the notion of art and place, the creation of art in these specificregions, and the impact it has on their culture and society.

Exhibitors include the following 21 galleries from 10 countries:

Southern California:
Peter Blake Gallery (Laguna Beach, CA, USA)
Edward Cella Art + Architecture (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
HOHMANN (Palm Desert, CA, USA)
Imago Galleries (Palm Desert, CA, USA)
Melissa Morgan Fine Art (Palm Desert, CA, USA)
Timothy Yarger Fine Art (Los Angeles, CA, USA)

Middle East:
Artzotic (Amman, JORDAN)
Athr Gallery (Jeddah, SAUDI ARABIA)
Saleh Barakat Gallery (Beirut, LEBANON)
The Gallery of Everything (virtual pop-up)
Leila Heller Gallery (Dubai, UAE)
Khak Gallery (Tehran, IRAN)
Galerie Tanit (Beirut, LEBANON)
Zawyeh Gallery (Dubai, UAE and Ramallah, PALESTINE)

North Africa:
Al-Tiba9 (Algiers, ALGERIA)
Art D’Égypte (Cairo, EGYPT)
DIWANIYA ART GALLERY (Cheraga, Algiers, ALGERIA)
Le LAB (Giza, EGYPT)
Galerie SINIYA28 (Marrakech, MOROCCO)
Galerie TINDOUF (Marrakech, MOROCCO)
TINTERA (Cairo, EGYPT)

Intersect Art and Design’s CEO Tim von Gal explains, “Building on the success of our Intersect Aspen and Intersect Chicago online viewing rooms in 2020—each of which included over 100 international exhibitors—we are using this focused platform to highlight some of the fascinating cross-cultural connections that we’re able to foster with the Intersect Fairs, and putting that focus on 21 galleries. We’re excited to present this focused look at art and design from southern California, the Middle East, and North Africa.”

Becca Hoffman, Managing Director of Intersect Art and Design says, “Intersect 21 is a boutique curated platform meant as a forum for cultural exchange in contemporary art, design, and photography. Bringing the world closer together during a time when we are apart, it aims to break down boundaries and explore cultural similarities from three very dynamic and unique regions.”

Rebecca Anne Proctor, curatorial advisor for Intersect 21, adds, “Collaborating with Intersect 21 on the Middle Eastern and North African segment of the fair has been a great opportunity. I have lived in the UAE for over 12 years during which I’ve had the great privilege of traveling throughout the Middle East gaining knowledge about artists, galleries, and institutions. I am so pleased to take part in this groundbreaking online fair that is bringing galleries and their programs from the region together in dialogue with those in California. During this challenging time we need to foster intercultural dialogue more than ever. Intersect 21 is providing galleries and institutions in the Middle East an additional platform through which to showcase their work to the world.” Each gallery featured in

Intersect 21 will present 21 works by a range of international artists.
Highlights include:

Southern California:

Peter Blake Gallery will present work by installation artist, environmental artist, painter and sculptor Lita Albuquerque (b. 1946, Santa Monica, California), who was raised in Tunisia, North Africa and Paris, France.

Edward Cella Art + Architecture will present work by Kendell Carter (b. 1970, New Orleans) who creates site-specific installations that engage issues of race, gender, material culture, and shared history; sculptor and ceramic artist Brad Miller (b. 1950, New York) whose work is inspired in part by the cellular structures found in nature; and Amir Zaki (b. 1974, Beaumont, California) who creates photographs of California skateparks.

HOHMANN will present work by sculptors jd Hansen (b. 1979, USA), Claudia Meyer (b. 1961, Switzerland), and Julian Voss-Andreae (b. 1970, Germany), among others.

Imago Galleries will present work by Jeremy Kidd (b. 1962, England) who is known for his painting, sculpture, digital and installation art; and sculptor Randy Polumbo (b. 1984, Cleveland, Ohio) whose recent projects include glass “Blossom” works, and immersive environments from Bombay Beach CA, to MONA in Tasmania.

Melissa Morgan Gallery will present work by artists Anthony James (b. 1974, England), Andy Moses (b. 1962, Los Angeles), and Olivia Steele (b. 1985, Nashville), among others—all of whom are evolutionarily connected to the light and space movement.

Timothy Yarger Fine Art will present work by two light and space artists: Laddie John Dill (b. 1943, California) and Mads Christensen (b. 1971, Denmark).

Middle East:

Athr Gallery will present photographs by artist Ahmed Mater (b. 1979, Saudi Arabia) from his project Desert of Pharan: Unofficial Histories Behind the Mass Expansion of Mecca; and a new work by Sultan Bin Fahad (b. 1971, Saudi Arabia), titled Holy Economy, an intricately beaded tapestry that tackles issues of translation and exchange of cultures.

Leila Heller Gallery will present works by Reza Derakshani (b. 1952, Iran), Leila Pazooki (b. 1977, Iran), and Marwan Sahmarani (b. 1970, Beirut), among others.

Salah Barakat Gallery and Agial Art Gallery will present work by interdisciplinary artist Hiba Kalache (b. 1972, Beirut) whose work spans installation, drawing, painting, and sculpture.

Galerie Tanit will present work by Chafa Ghaddar (b. 1986, Lebanon), who shines a new light on the ancient mural-making technique of fresco and attempts to merge natural painting techniques in contemporary practices; Rania Matar (b. 1964, Lebanon), who explores issues of personal and collective identity through photographs of female adolescence and womanhood; and Kevourk Mourad (b. 1970, Syria), a performance artist specializing in spontaneous painting, sharing the stage with musicians; among other artists.

North Africa:

Le LAB will present work by designers Omar Chakil, George Mohasseb (b. 1973, Lebanon), and Richard Yasmine.

TINTERA will present work by emerging artist Sara Sallam (b. 1991, Egypt) and established artist Bernard Guillot (b. 1950, France), along with photographs by Paul Geday (b. 1956, Egypt), among others.

Programming

Intersect 21 programming will include video tours of artist studios, panel discussions, and other online events that highlight work and cultural connections between the three regions. Each day of the fair will have a specific theme: architecture, design, pattern, memory, environment, culture, and identity.

Visit the Fair on Artsy

Intersect 21 has partnered with Artsy, the global marketplace for discovering and collecting art. In addition to accessing the fair through Intersect2021.com, visitors may also visit the fair through Artsy. As Intersect 21’s Main Marketplace Partner, Artsy will provide a unique opportunity for exhibiting galleries to promote their virtual booths to Artsy’s global audience. Collectors can experience Intersect 21 on Artsy to discover artists, save favorite works, view works on their home walls through Artsy’s AR mobile tool and directly purchase work from galleries. Intersect 21 will be live on Artsy through March 15, 2021.

Tabari Artspace is pleased to announce the dual exhibition of Haifa-based, Palestinian hyperrealists Samah Shihadi and Michael Halak at our Dubai gallery.

Terra Un(firma) was originally intended to be the solo exhibition of Samah Shihadi, scheduled to take place at Cromwell Place in London, October 2020. As with many events and expectations over the previous year we were forced to adapt as London moved into lockdown. As such the exhibition has evolved in unexpected ways, first with a digital showcase and now with a physical exhibition in Dubai which now encompasses a body of work by fellow Haifa-based hyperrealist, Michael Halak.

Samah Shihadi
The body of work produced by Shihadi for Terra Un(firma) is divided into two segments, The Living and The Land, which take the artist’s personal narratives and feminist outlook as a starting point from which to explore issues faced by women, across cultures, in the contemporary moment.

Michael Halak
While Shihadi’s art is often rooted in the past or observe the present through the lens of fantastical-realism Halak’s photo-real paintings are fixed firmly upon the current moment. Halak’s art follows western traditions of realist, illusory painting, but diverges in content which conflates local and global realities. This combination opens up the opportunity for multiple readings of his work and urges the viewer to consider more closely the contents with which they are presented.

Courtesy of Tabari Artspace

Louvre Abu Dhabi opens its third season with Abstraction and Calligraphy – Towards a Universal Language (17 February – 12 June 2021). In keeping with the third season’s theme of exchanges between East and West, this international exhibition marks the second major collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and is sponsored by Montblanc, a Maison whose innovative craftsmanship continues to influence the culture of writing. Charting sites of mutual inspiration around the world, and dedicated to artistic practices of abstraction, the show explores how 20th century artists established a new visual language by merging text and image, inspired by the earliest forms of mark-making and, particularly, calligraphy. The exhibition brings together 101 masterworks on loan from 16 partner institution collections, alongside seven works from Louvre Abu Dhabi’s permanent collection, and two monumental artworks by contemporary artists whose current-day practices bring recurring themes of the exhibition to life.

Organised in four themed sections, the exhibition will investigate the timeline of abstraction as a new visual language established by artists in the early 20th century. By highlighting the rich cultural exchange taking place at that time, visitors will discover how the abstract movements were inspired by a plethora of signs and symbols, philosophies, and artistic techniques from cultures and societies far from European and American capitals. Artists including Paul Klee, André Masson, Vassily Kandinsky, Cy Twombly, Lee Krasner, and Jackson Pollock sought a new universal language that enabled them to express their emotions in response to a rapidly changing society, breaking away from figurative conventions. The show will also focus on how these same influences informed the practices of artists from the region – from Dia Azzawi and Anwar Jalal Shemza, to Ghada Amer, Shirazeh Houshiary, and Mona Hatoum. The exhibition will be completed with installations from two contemporary artists, eL Seed and Sanki King, exploring how artists today are still seeking new visual forms to respond to current societal changes.

In collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and France Muséums, Abstraction and Calligraphy – Towards a Universal Language is curated by Didier Ottinger, Deputy Director, Cultural Programming, MNAM-CCI, assisted by Marie Sarré, Associate Curator, Modern Collections Department, MNAM-CCI. Works on loan will come from Centre Pompidou in Paris, Musée du Louvre in Paris, Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, Administration Jean Matisse, Paris, Galerie Jacques Bailly in Paris, Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris, Musée municipal de St Germain Laval, Musée des beaux-arts de Grenoble, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation in New York, The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, New York, Galerie Michael Werner, Märkisch Wilmersdorf, Trebbin, The McKee Gallery, New York, Mona Hatoum Studio, London, noirmontartproduction, Paris and eL Seed Studio, Dubai. Also included will be works from Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

“It is with pride and great excitement that we welcome the opening of the first Louvre Abu Dhabi international exhibition of 2021, especially as masterworks from so many illustrious lending partners will be on show here at Louvre Abu Dhabi, and in the region, for the very first time,” remarked HE Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi. “Museums, with their ability to inspire curiosity, discovery and learning, are essential to every society, and we hold them in particular regard here in Abu Dhabi. It has become more apparent than ever the increasingly important role that art and culture play in our lives, providing wonder, intellectual stimulation and comfort, as well as a sense of connection to others in our communities and far beyond. What is also clear, and what was a primary message of the Reframing Museums symposium in November, is that trust and solidarity between countries and between arts institutions are what will ensure a vibrant future for a collaborative, international cultural sector.”

Manuel Rabaté, Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, commented, “We are emerging from the very difficult past year of 2020, and it is a pleasure to invite the great curator Didier Ottinger to explore the relationship between abstraction and calligraphy, two visual languages, intimately entwined. Louvre Abu Dhabi will offer audiences an exploration of a universal language through pictograms, signs, symbols, lines, and other traces of the hands of the artists. This second major collaboration with Centre Pompidou brings their abstract masterworks – of Cy Twombly, Lee Ufan, Vassily Kandinsky, Henri Michaux, Juan Miró, Christian Dotremont, Jean Dubuffet, André Masson, Nasser Al Salem and Brice Marden – here to Abu Dhabi for the first time. This exhibition speaks to the strength of our partner network of museums, and the mutual trust we share in the interest of offering access and moments of discovery to our audiences. We are ready and waiting to welcome visitors back safely, offering this rare opportunity to see so many abstract masterpieces displayed side-by-side with the numerous global influences that shaped this visual language.”

Curator of the exhibition, Didier Ottinger, Deputy Director, Cultural Programming, MNAM-CC, commented, “Exchanges and dialogue characterise the project I developed for Louvre Abu Dhabi—dialogues between spaces and times that are embraced by the Universal Museum; dialogue between images and letters, illustrated by the mutual fascination between calligraphy and image makers, and vice-versa; dialogue in the space between the artists of East and West, dialogues that bring together an ancient Egyptian stele and the ‘pictograms’ of a New York street artist—the shared dream of a universal language.”

Dr. Souraya Noujaim, Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director at Louvre Abu Dhabi, added, “This exhibition brings works by masters of abstraction together with sources of myriad influences. The calligraphic works are far from a unified codex of signs and symbols. They represent the diversity of cultures, languages—written and visual—and histories that span many continents and centuries. In the spirit of Louvre Abu Dhabi, this exhibition establishes a powerful dialogue between two distinct forms of expression – image and writing – revealing the common ground which unites them both. Appearing in unison, the visual and the verbal come together as one, singular form of expression, recalling what Ibn Khaldun terms ‘the two faces of thought.’ Many of the works and artists have never been shown in the region before. It is also the first time that Louvre Abu Dhabi will have works produced in conjunction with an exhibition.”

The first section of the show will focus on pictograms, symbolic figurative images that represented words and ideas in writing in ancient civilisations in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Work presented will include a painting by Swiss-German artist Paul Klee, who – inspired by his travels to Tunisia – created artwork that combined elements of images and letters stemming from his fascination with Egyptian hieroglyphics. His work influenced artists such as Joaquín Torres-García from Spain, Iraqi artist Dia Al-Azzawi and Pakistani artist Anwar Jalal Shemza. This section will also include works from American artist Adolph Gottlieb, inspired by images from Native American art, and French artist André Masson, who was inspired by 17th century Indian figurative inscriptions and Arabic calligraphy.

In line with the history of writing, the second section will focus on signs, which by their very form can express universal ideas. Works on show will include studies of signs by Russian artist Vassily Kandinsky, considered by many to be one of the inventors of abstract art. As an act of resistance to the Western world ravaged by war, many artists turned to Japan and China for inspiration. The signs traced in works by French-Hungarian painter Judit Reigl and German-French painter Hans Hartung echo symbols used by Chinese and Japanese calligraphers. The show will furthermore include works from French artists Georges Mathieu, who tried to develop a lyric and rapid gesture, and Julius Bissier, who was influenced by the Chinese philosophy of Taoism. Finally, Mona Hatoum’s works endeavour to create a new alphabet of signs through found objects.

The third section will be devoted to lineaments, revealing how Western artists appropriated the energy of Eastern calligraphy in their brushstrokes to produce free and fluid lines. In opposition to Western artistic inclination, the Surrealist movement invented a drawing technique called Automatism, using automatic movements to express the subconscious. It allowed them to artistically respond to a tumultuous interwar period between World War I and World War II. On display will be works by Surrealist André Masson as well as works by Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and Willem de Kooning, who were all influenced by Masson. Visitors will be able to see Jean Dubuffet’s primitive creations, inspired by a combination of graffiti, rock paintings and children’s drawings. Also on show will be Cy Twombly’s gestural drawings for curtains of the Opéra de Paris and Lee Krasner’s works, which take their inspiration from Kufic script from the Iraqi City of Kufa, the birthplace of Arabic calligraphy.

The exhibition will conclude with a section showing how both Western and Eastern artists incorporated calligraphy into their practice, such as Spanish artist Joan Miró, who referenced how closely painting and poetry are linked in the East. Following in his footsteps, the poets Brion Gysin, Henri Michaux and Christian Dotremont pursued the same path by painting poetry, inspired by their trips to North Africa, China and Lapland, respectively. Henri Matisse’s studies for his illustrated book Jazz, which he called “arabesques” in a tribute to Arabic writing, are also included here. Viewers will also discover how regional artists, including Shakir Hassan Al Said and Sliman Mansour, sought to free calligraphy from its purely linguistic function. This section will be completed by two original monumental artworks from contemporary artists—French-Tunisian artist eL Seed and Pakistani artist Sanki King.

With the onset of the newest lockdown measures announced in Lebanon this January, Galerie Janine Rubeiz invited its artists to explore the theme of Space and Emotion Amidst Confinement, and to reflect on the notions of humanity and social responsibility during these challenging times.

Here are various interesting works that have stemmed from this experience, and the different ways that the gallery’s artists explored these concepts in the latest online exhibition, Space and Emotion Amidst Confinement.

You may request to purchase any of the artworks through the website and you may contact the gallery on [email protected] or +961 71359302 for any inquiries.

Courtesy of Galerie Janine Rubeiz.

Dastan presents “Over There”, an exhibition of works by Taba & Shooki. The exhibition will open on February 19 and continue through March 12, 2021. This is the third exhibition of Taba & Shooki at Dastan, following “Tales of Interdisciplinia: The Curious Company of a Very Long Tail” (Dastan’s Basement, January 2019) and “Memebrain” (Electric Room, 19/50, December 2017).

“Memebrain”, their first collaborative project, was an interdisciplinary multimedia installation consisting of a recorded performance, animation, paintings and three-dimensional works. In “Memebrain”, the artists created a space within the exhibition space, a trend which would be continued and expanded upon in their next exhibition, “Tales of Interdisciplinia: The Curious Company of a Very Long Tail” in which a number of different territories were created to present a multi-dimensional narrative. The current project follows a similar approach, and recycles the same wall-like structures uses in the previous exhibitions, reusing and reshaping them to create territories within the exhibition space; an alternative world designed to take the viewer into a visual and narrative path.

The subject matter of this exhibition is the mountain and its depictions. Yet, here the mountain is a mere form and an excuse to project the artists’ personal experiences unto, so as to create a unique experience of it. Visiting the mountain, one encounters new experiences that are fundamentally different from life in the city.

Following their previous approach, over the recent year, the artists focused on the topic from several different points of study, including mythological, symbolism and semiotics, and moved on to design a multi-disciplinary and multi-media context comprising painting, three-dimensional work, interactive and kinetic pieces, video and animation. Such an approach, while evident in the general outlook of the show, remains discernible in each of the pieces, as each work features a unique intermixing of media.

The mountain experience is often perceived as a sublime, elevated and unreal experience. Nevertheless, in recent history, this experience has morphed into a type of entertainment, while the mountain has also become a place for extraction of materials, moving away from their archetypal concepts of a sacred place and a source of inspiration. In this exhibition, this metamorphosis has become a motivation for the territorialisation/de territorialisation of the gallery space, to present layers of their narrative.

A large painting symbolises the grand, wide, and panoramic view one feels while overlooking the territories below, and seeks to cover the viewer’s field of view when entering the show.

The parchment-paper walls, or “membranes” as the artists refer to them, recycled from the previous show, this time stand against a naturalistic depiction approach and are covered with artificial and vivid colours, since “as art seeks to depict nature more objectively loyal, it becomes more artificial”. The membranes have created a hallway, defining a part of the exhibition as a confined territory. Like the archetypal sacred or inspirational remote caves in history, this narrow path symbolises the journey inside a mountain and into the earth, or the inner world of the artists.

The interactive pieces in the exhibition, on the other hand, stand for the aforementioned recent change in our perception of the mountains: from being sacred to becoming objects of entertainment. Moreover, they symbolise the return journey from the mountain to the city, standing on the open plain and taking a few deep breaths farewell.

Taba Fajrak and Shokoofeh Khoramroodi (Taba & Shooki) are an artist duo based in Tehran, Iran. They began working together in 2016 after meeting during a collaborative urban art project at Niavaran Cultural Center. The duo’s collaborative effort started with an interest in the representations of the self in art, which is reflected in the omnipresent imagery of their own figures in their pieces. Implicit in their work is the idea that self-reflexivity and performativity of the artist’s life and artistic conventions tend to be original sources of creation. Trying to defy any neat categorisation in their work, they believe that everyday life is a potential subject matter for art. They have depicted and recorded themselves in their pictures and videos, narrating the stories and their experiences as they work together as a duo. Discerning between interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary practice, the duo’s project is to make use of different techniques and media to form an interconnected body of work which encompass a wide range from animation, video, live and recorded performances to paintings, illustrations and three-dimensional large-scale installations. Taba Fajrak (b. 1989, Tehran, Iran) is a performance artist, dancer, and researcher. She is a graduate of English Language and Literature from the University of Tehran. She continued her studies in nonsense literature and non-verbal performance, obtaining a master’s degree in English Literature from Shahid Beheshti University (Tehran). Her pieces have been featured in several exhibitions and public performances. Taba frequently works in collaboration with other artists from a range of different disciplines. Shokoofeh Khoramroodi (b. 1988, Hamedan, Iran) studied Painting at the Faculty of Arts & Architecture (Azad University, Tehran) and Yazd Faculty of Art & Architecture. Focusing mostly on drawing over her career, more recently she has experimented in animation and multidisciplinary work. Shokoufeh’s drawings, paintings and animation pieces have been featured in more than ten group exhibitions, as well as a number of collaborative projects.

The artists would like to thank Mehran Afshar, Ashkan Zahraei, Mohammad Hossein Gholamzadeh, Siavash Naghshbandi, Tala Azarakhsh, Zahra Rostamian, Tahoora Ayati, Mehdi Navid for their support, and the team at Dastan’s Basement including Sam Roknivand, Parmiss Afkham Ebrahimi, Melika Zandi, Alireza Kazemi, Iliyar Mehrabi and Roshan Takallomi for their help during the show’s setup.

Courtesy of Dastan Gallery.

Mashrabia Gallery is very glad to announce their 7th collaboration with the Spanish artist Xavier Puigmartí presenting his very last body of work under the name “The Garden”.

Almost realised in the past claustrophobic year, during the isolation in his home in the heart of El-Fayyum Oasis, the 36 pieces that form his exhibition drew inspiration from his continuous observation of the surrounding enchanted landscapes.

Moreover, the cultural reminiscences of his personal favorite masterpieces: the old Egyptian paintings and Juan Miro’s famous “La Masia” (The Farm), played a pivotal role in shaping his vision of the ideal garden. In both, he found an intense love of nature and care for details: a flower might be a star, an insect, a god, an ant that can be equal to a mountain.

Last but not least, Puigmartí has recently sojourned in Iran, discovering the Persian gardens where dreams and memories materialise.

Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery

The Egypt International Art Fair will showcase approximately 20 galleries from around the Middle East and North Africa Cairo, Egypt.

As most nations across the globe continue to grapple with the coronavirus, particularly as many countries re-enter lockdown and faced renewed restrictions, the Egypt International Art Fair is going against the odds to stage its second edition at the Dusit Thani Lakeview Hotel in Cairo from 26 – 28 February. The fair, which staged its first edition in the same edition from 8-9 March, intends to transform Cairo into another arts hub in the Middle East, a place where modern and contemporary art galleries, curators, artists and art professionals from around the region and internationally can congregate to share their love and knowledge of art and culture.

The Egypt International Art Fair marks the first art fair curated and organised in Egypt with the aim to offer an international platform for art and culture in Cairo. The first edition featured works by more than 100 artists with a total participation of around 1,300 artworks by 18 participating galleries from Egypt and the MENA region.

The second highly anticipated edition of the fair takes place with great enthusiasm from Egypt’s growing art scene. This new fair will feature a robust program of events, talks and studio events. There will also be two distinct sections at the fair: a galleries zone and a specially curated section displaying established and prominent artists from Egypt and abroad, including Syrian artists based in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Vienna,Lebanon and France; artists from Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi Arabi and the UAE. Within this curated section will also be specially dedicated pavilions from Jordan and Bahrain.

In this online exhibition Amba Sayal-Bennett presents a new series of works on paper. The machinic forms explore drawing as apparatus of production: its form-building capacity. Taking pleasure in the virtual, Sayal-Bennett investigates the emergence of form through the inherent incompleteness of drawing. As an opening up or sketching out, drawing is always directed towards the future. Available for interpretation and re-translation, the works connect to what they are not in order to maximise themselves. They are polyvocal, promiscuously evoking many references whilst resisting being fixed to one. The outlines are not preconceived by the artist but arise though her coupling with material devices: stencils, paper, pens. Like following a thread in the dark, Sayal-Bennett explores how drawing is a process of unveiling- not of what was there before, but that which emerges from the encounter.

Courtesy of Carbon 12

Twelve months ago, Hamdan Buti Al Shamsi embarked on a journey of research and reflection on Tashkeel’s Critical Practice Programme 2020. Mentored by artist and curator Hind bin Demaithan Al Qemzi, his research focused on self-representation through a variety of visual mediums that are part of his illustrious practice. The culmination is ‘Kn_bkhair’, a deeply personal exploration of the notions of self and identity, which will be open to the public to view at Tashkeel from 16 March.

The exhibition is part of the Tashkeel’s 2021 Spring Season and is the gallery’s highlight show for Dubai Art Week in March/April. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue and a programme of tours and workshops.

This is Hamdan’s first solo exhibition and the second public outcome from the 2020 cohort of Tashkeel’s Critical Practice Programme. Applying the day-to-day tools used in his practice, the self-taught Emirati multidisciplinary artist and writer turns the focus on himself with prints, handwritten poetry, video and an installation that analyse the three associated states of the self being – identity, individualism and subconsciousness.

‘Kn_bkhair’ will run at the gallery in Tashkeel Nad Al Sheba 1, Dubai from 16 March to 24 April 2020.

Courtesy of Tashkeel

What is the impact of displacement, migration and exile on artists who have been forced to leave their homes, or who have chosen to make their lives in another country?

Journalist and editor Jo Glanville talks to Iranian artist Afsoon and Iraqi artist Mahmoud Obaidi – who both explore ideas of homeland and nostalgia in their work – and to Almir Koldzic, Director of Counterpoints Arts, an organisation that works with migrant and refugee artists.

‘I believe that all countries are homelands for their inhabitants, so why should they not be homelands for me?’, says Obaidi. For Afsoon, ‘Iran lives inside me. I create and re-create it through my work.’

The two artists will reflect on the importance of memory, geography and a sense of place in their practice, as their work is showcased in a major new British Museum exhibition, Reflections: contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa.

The talk will be introduced by exhibition curator Venetia Porter. It’s part of the public programme accompanying Reflections, supported by the Contemporary and Modern Middle Eastern Art (CaMMEA) acquisitions group.

To attend this online event

Book now to secure your place. We are hosting the event on Zoom – a free video conferencing system that requires users to register in advance. If you do not already use Zoom, you can sign up using this registration link.

If the event is fully booked, or you do not wish to use Zoom, you can also watch the event streamed live – as well as other events in the series – on the Museum’s live events YouTube channel.

Using morphing and mutation tactics, my sculptures are not pretending to be a particular innovative aesthetic. It looks much more at the overall interplay between the initial idea/sketch and the used wood or material. In its abundance making, a procedural experimentation is the origin of the unpredictable forms. As such, experimentation in sculpture has nothing to do with neither composition nor style. In whichever creation process, it has to do with no‐finality, with the perpetual path to another form; it provokes what comes after, what appears, and what will be seen. It can spontaneously absorb additions, subtractions, and technical modifications, without disturbing its essential order.

Courtesy of Saleh Barakat Gallery.

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is pleased to announce its March 2021 exhibition, Out of Place. A group show featuring works by Vikram Divecha, Mohammed Kazem, :mentalKLINIK, Haleh Redjaian, Hassan Sharif, and Raed Yassin, Out of Place examines our place in an ever-shifting world, suggesting that we can be out of place in space in much the same way we are out of sync with time.

“Contemporariness 
is,
 then,
 a
 singular
 relationship 
with 
one’s 
time,
 which 
adheres 
to 
it 
and, 
at 
the 
same 
time, 
keeps a distance
 from 
it.”
 Giorgio Agamben, What is the Contemporary? (2008)

Just as Agamben upends the idea of ‘contemporary’ as simultaneity, the exhibition frames our disconnect with space, illustrating how we are out of joint with space while being fully within it. Out of Place fathoms this distance through works that see space either as illusory, ephemeral, or at times, somewhat contradictorily, constructed by its own material cast-offs.

Raed Yassin describes his 2020 video performance Humming in Abandoned Places as a “eulogy for our times.” Specific spaces—the chapel, the theatre, a stairwell—of an abandoned pulmonology hospital complex outside of Berlin are delipidated witnesses to a collective act of humming. Drawn as much from research on echo as from sensitivity to how the personal act of humming becomes contagious, the video casts the performers as a kind of soothing resonant sculpture. Ultimately, this is a gesture of transient healing—a seemingly insignificant act in a vanishing space that musters transformational power.

Other spaces are defined by the subtraction of their own components, the shedding of their own materiality. This loss ‘constructs’ rejection or negativity, which, in turn, critiques space-making itself. :mentalKLINIK’s installation ANOTHER LOVE_2001(2020), for example, evokes some gnarled party leftover— sullen bulbs cast a candy haze across tawdry disco balls, all enmeshed in a drunken tangle of wires sprawling up the wall. The work speaks to a post-space; it is a creepy remnant of an evacuated site that it still blindly tries to illuminate.

Places are also re-placed: what once constituted one space is enlisted in the construction of another. Vikram Divecha’s Negative Heaps (of designated waste) (2015) is an archive of discarded tiles, unused segments of an Islamic geometric-patterned mosaic lining a Dubai traffic underpass. The bits of waste are hand-numbered (as would be the actual tiles used in the final wall decoration), arranged in piles creating their own aesthetic pattern. The regimented heaps echo Hassan Sharif’s wall-bound Spare Parts (2016), itself an archive of the insignificant—a constellation of ‘replacement’ elements, meaningless without integration into a larger spatial or, in this case, mechanical whole.

Walls—the ubiquitous spatial parameters of our daily existence—are re-thought as ephemeral markers of a transient, vanished life, whether in Yassin’s crumbling lung hospital, or Divecha’s Demolition Monoprints (2021)—inky “on-site monoprints” of apartment walls in buildings slated for demolition.

Finally, Out of Place interprets the rigid “place-ness” of the wall as merely surface, or as some illusory conflation of volume and flatness. In Mohammed Kazem’s never-before-exhibited Receiving Light. Cincinnati (2018), the photographed wall is reduced to a surface which, scratched and pocked, attains a tactile dimensionality. Yet the works’ figurative source—the wall itself—morphs to a graphic support for the artist’s light-capturing engraving.

Haleh Redjaian’s ‘nomadic’ sculptures capture the wall at a moment of transition—hovering between invisible/visible. As such, the works are emblematic of Out of Place, unifying several conceptual strands: the ephemeral, in the works’ temporary, shifting perspective of space; re-imagined insignificance in the fragile thread’s hasty lifecycle as a ‘wall’; and resonance, in the repetitive, loom-like sonic charge latent in the spanned threadwork. Perhaps echoing Yassin’s contagious resonance, the machinal, “Philip Glass-y” (as the artist describes it) hum evoked by the work reinforces the sense of place not as a geolocational certainty, but as a site of illusion. And while space may articulate us—in the underpasses we navigate, the walls we skirt—we are nonetheless increasingly encouraged, like Agamben’s heroic figure, to be (and remain) out of place.

Courtesy of Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde

Charbel-joseph H. Boutros presents his new project at Grey Noise, Dubai entitled ‘The Work and Its Periphery’. Unfurling urgent uprising topics such as the complex agency of exhibition making, art under the influence of a global pandemic and it also interrogates the fragile role of the gallerist’s personage trying constantly to channel an algorithmic art market empire…

In his exhibition H. Boutros weaves delicately the intimate with wider and more global problematics, proceeding with a sort of telescopage of scale and narratives, a very peculiar procedure in his practice. Here the exhibition as a medium becomes a tool that generates critical/poetic thinking.

Courtesy of Grey Noise, Dubai

This March Lawrie Shabibi presents Boundary Space, Lima-based sculptor Ishmael Randall Weeks’ (Cusco, 1976) first solo exhibition in the Middle East. Randall Week’s sculptures and two-dimensional works made of adobe, mineral substrates, rattan screens, mud, glass and metal constitute a world that emerges from history and memory, navigating between the contemporary, the archaic, tradition and folklore. Interweaving Mesoamerican and Arabic motifs, anthropology, politics and archaeology, Randall Weeks also adopts industrial design nuances, where the influence of Russian Constructivism and Suprematicism (Vladimir Tatlin and Kasimir Malevich), the Neo-Concrete artists of Brazil (Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark), Mexican Modernism movement (Matías Goeritz and Luis Barrangan) intertwine to open up a dialogue on structure, fragility, form, and popular culture within the creation of ‘new’ cities.

Exhibited together will be wall-based, suspended and floor sculptures. Randall Weeks’ floor sculptures respond to spatial relationships of the human body, linking individuality to collective group mentality. Chakana Penetrable, a hinged brass structure, is made from the repetition of simple geometric rectangles and squares based on the symbolic nature of the ‘invented’ Inca Cross mixed with a visual reference to Oiticica’s Nucleos and Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations. Ibeam/Toda las tierras (Ibeam/all the earths) is composed of three suspended I-beams in a single, head-high line made from fired earths from different pre-colonial ceremonial sites. Both evoke conversations about boundaries and their subsequent limitations.

Among Randall Weeks’ wall-based works are Formas Básicas (basic forms), a large square composition comprising smaller squares that make up a mosaic, and the intimate Código atemporales (timeless codes). Made from Metallic grout, glass, steel and wood, Formas Básicas incorporates fundamental symbols and motifs drawn from the vocabulary of urbanism and architecture, its parts assembled in a fragmented manner that can be arranged or rearranged in a multitude of ways. The viewer is thus engaged in an open dialogue on issues of past modernity and possible futures. Randall Weeks’ Código atemporales function like time capsules. Layers of collected soil and materials are laid down like sedimentary plates. Windows cut into these layers act as miniature excavations, and serve as a sculptural diary, with the time marked by patterns of materials collected from specific sites.

Originally scheduled for March 2020, this exhibition will coincide with the 10th anniversary of the gallery, and with this year’s edition of Art Dubai, the first international in-person art fair of 2021.

Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present Abyss, a solo exhibition featuring Thaier Helal’s most recent body of work.

Taking his creative observation further, Thaier continues to pose radical questions. He addresses many subjects concerning our existence, meaning, and current state of bitterness that drains the mind and soul.

While furthering his previous body of work in ideology, Thaier’s new work differs in texture, stepping away from his structural and sculptural approach, the artist expresses himself through flatness. While developing a trial and error process, focusing on layers of light and darkness, Helal threads a thin line between figurative and abstract. Thaier succeeds in doing so through non-conformist perspectives, the artist’s technique plays with composition and vantage point. The artist’s fascination with nature is pushed backwards. The artist’s connection manifests itself through subdued earthy and cool tones placed deep within the darkness, symbols of elements of the unknown.

The process of trial and error creates series of similar yet unique works, allowing the viewer to see through the strokes and gestures, making meaning out of form or lack thereof. The process gives Helal the opportunity for inner-discussion, with an ongoing interaction between the work and the artist. The interactions offer the artist moments of appreciation. The aim is for each viewer to see something personal that references past experiences, to take the viewer to the extremes of imagination. This technique amounts to artworks of hope and pain that hone on uncertainty. Are we heading towards a specific direction? Will we find meaning to any of it?

The repetition in Thaier’s gestural abstraction allows him to answer questions in several ways, giving multiple ambiguous answers to open-ended issues. The artist is looking for solutions amidst the darkness, tokens of meaning and truth submerged in light and color across the canvases. The light is what remains untouched, resulting in an opportunity for color. Therefore rendering darkness as manmade, saturation of pigment becomes layers of missteps. In the series of small works on paper, the artist envisions common suffering, behind the horizontal strokes are faces masked by the same fate.

Courtesy of Ayyam Gallery

This March, Meem Gallery will present a solo exhibition of the work of celebrated Iraqi artist, Dia al-Azzawi.

Painted in Dia al-Azzawi’s recently established studio in Lebanon, set back from the water in

a shady grove just next to Nabu Museum, which was opened in October 2018, these recent paintings exude a fresh vibrancy that may have sprung from the change of scenery— especially the change between London and the tranquil and picturesque northern Lebanese coastal town of Chekka, close to the city of Batroun.

Azzawi as an artist has never been restricted in his exploration of time, space or creative imagination. While he may often use a distinct range of colours and some typical cultural motifs and artistic techniques, the worlds he creates within his canvases truly know no bounds.

Courtesy of Meem Gallery

Fann A Porter Dubai is pleased to present A Memory of Places, an exhibition in collaboration with Cairo-based Azad Art Gallery. The exhibition will present selected pieces from a group of Egyptian artists including Mohamed Abdel-Moneim, Mohamed Abou Elwafa, Mohamed Banawy, Mostafa Sleem, Mhanny Yaoud, and Ahmed Magdy.

Places and memories occupy a great deal of any individual’s visual memories. Some places are synonymous with warmth and intimacy, while others are simply distressing. Some places are full of joy, their details fresh in our minds. And others, while cloudy, remain in the folds of our memory. Be these places real or imaginary, they remain a home for our memories and a destination for our dreams, or perhaps, the source of our fears and illusions.

On an artistic level, different places arouse different visual representations. Some of the artists seek to explicitly recreate these places, and others hope to understand their true nature and decipher their mysteries. Whatever the artistic inclinations, there is no doubt these spaces are caught in the memory, inspiring yet overwhelming, ambiguous yet forthright all at once.

Each painting, regardless of the chosen patterns or visual manifestations, draws a unique relationship between the person and the space, its features and the underlying passions present. Most of the artists in this exhibition have been shaped by their experiences in Egypt in the past two decades, a generation overwhelmed by shocking events, a generation in search of identity. And it is that search for identity that serves as a theme amongst the artists as they explore the ambiguous, but shared, relationship between place and memory.

Courtesy of Fann A Porter, Dubai.

The Middle East’s leading art fair, Art Dubai will stage its 14th edition in a purpose-built venue at the iconic Gate Building in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), 29 March to 3 April 2021.

Art Dubai will operate at the highest COVID-19 safety protocols; alongside standard procedures, including regular testing of participants, the fair has introduced extra precautions to manage capacity and offer a safe and flexible environment for all. These include extending the opening hours, adding an extra fair day and the newly launched Art Dubai App will allow visitors to book dedicated time slots in advance to guarantee entry.

The new Art Dubai App will also allow visitors to stay up-to-date with the latest news and announcements, explore the exhibiting galleries and artworks, view the full programme of exhibitions and cultural events happenings in galleries and public spaces across the UAE. From family-focused activities to cutting-edge, dynamic programming, a diverse array of activations will take place during the week of Art Dubai.

Featuring 50 leading Contemporary and Modern galleries from 31 countries visitors to Art Dubai 2021 can discover a diverse selection of artworks, artists and practices, reflecting the multicultural identity of the city along with a curated sculpture park with large-scale installations, featuring works by eight artists including Emirati Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim and Hussain Sharif.

As part of this year’s curatorial projects, Art Dubai will also present a Film Programme comprised of various short films. Screening stations placed along DIFC’s Gate Avenue will feature single-channel films produced by 20+ regional and international artists, each thematically categorized to curate a specific experience for the viewer, including: Nature, Journeys, Dystopias, Conversations, Performances and Animations, among others.

Art Dubai 2021 Participating Galleries

+2, Tehran
Gallery 1957, Accra
Addis Fine Art, Addis Ababa/London
Aicon Art, New York
Akka Project, Venice/Dubai
Galería Albarrán Bourdais, Madrid
Gallery ArtBeat, Tbilisi
Athr Gallery, Jeddah
Ayyam Gallery, Dubai
Saleh Barakat Gallery, Beirut
Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi/London
Comptoir des Mines Galerie, Marrakech
GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano/Beijing/Les Moulins/Havana/Rome/São Paulo/Paris
Custot Gallery Dubai, Dubai
Dastan’s Basement, Tehran
ELMARSA GALLERY, Dubai/Tunis
Experimenter, Kolkata
Eye for Art, Houston
Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai
Gazelli Art House, Baku/London
Hafez Gallery, Jeddah
Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai/New York
Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery,London/Berlin
Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai
Mark Hachem, Beirut/Paris/New York
Gallery Misr, Cairo
Meem Gallery, Dubai
Mono Gallery, Riyadh
Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels
PERROTIN, Hong Kong/Seoul/Tokyo/Shanghai/Paris/New York
Giorgio Persano, Turin
Perve Galeria, Lisbon
RONCHINI, London
The Rooster Gallery, Vilnius
SANATORIUM, Istanbul
SARADIPOUR Art Gallery, Los Angeles
Galerie—Peter—Sillem, Frankfurt
Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg
Silverlens, Manila
Stems Gallery, Brussels
TAFETA, London/Lagos
TEMPLON, Paris/Brussels
The Third Line, Dubai
Tropical Futures Institute, Cebu City
Vermelho, São Paulo
Vin Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City
Yusto/Giner, Marbella
Zawyeh Gallery, Ramallah/Dubai
Salwa Zeidan Gallery, Abu Dhabi
Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Luxembourg

Tabari Artspace is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of Kuwaiti surrealist painter, Alymamah Rashed, to take place at their DIFC gallery during Dubai Art Month in March, 2021. This is Tabari Artspace’s inaugural exhibition of Rashed.

Visual artist Alymamah Rashed’s gestural, surrealist paintings harness self-portraiture to investigate the complexities of identity in the post-internet generation. Rashed understands herself as a multifaceted being, the various elements that comprise her persona flow out into the different realms that she emits onto her canvas: the earth-bound (the mind and the fleshed body), the spiritual (the thobe), and a combination of the two which come to form a third space. Spirituality, specifically the notion of spiritual intelligence, has been a central tenet of Rashed’s existence, yet she understands spirituality as universal; the act of prayer is engaged with across faiths and cultures. Observing the body as a capsule of movement, through the process of prayer Rashed can transcend as she witnesses her physical and spiritual worlds conflate.

Like a cyborg whose physical abilities are extended beyond fixed human limitations, her figures are replicas of her own body. Invested with the power to transition, they appear magically from different timescapes, in multiple states. For Rashed, the body is a site of action, a dictator of gravity that is always in relation to an object, a space, or perhaps, another body. It learns what to reveal and conceal. The body moves and eventually orients itself according to the gravity of the space in which it breathes within. External and internal worlds unite through Rashed’s choice of colour which is typically rooted in a present sensation or immediate encounter. It is instinctive and based on a dominant emotion or a colour that she encounters in her everyday existence such as a cerulean blue school gate. When painting she attempts to envision the colour of Barzakh (a space that lays between life itself and the afterlife; a space of liminality). Rashed seeks to investigate Barzakh through colour in order to expand the spatiality or perhaps the typology in which her figures exist, and that is within the liminal. Rashed accentuates the colour and the scale of her objects, elevating their status, vibrancy and placement in order to emit their livelihood.

Referencing late Algerian modernist pioneer Baya Mahieddine’s colour-fuelled, idiosyncratic form of autobiographical portraiture, her large-scale works negotiate her female subjectivity. Rashed draws from regional folklore and the rapid social shifts that she has witnessed such as the modernisation and industrialisation of the Gulf region, she negotiates readings of Islamic philosophy and poetry, and ornamentation and the everyday banal objects that she encounters. The artist is inspired by the likes of Francis Bacon, Chris Ofili and the ornamentation of Matisse. Rashed’s internal world manifests in her art through icons absorbed from myriad sources including regional typographic, Persian and Afghani visual icons, Sufi poetry, philosophy and theology responding to both Plato and Muslim scholars, such as Suhrawardi, Ghazali. Her father, an academic and humanitarian and her mother, an economist with an affinity for art, design and culture, have also come to inform the artist’s multifaceted world which she dutifully relays through her art.

As part of her practice Rashed produces poetry which will be displayed in unison with her paintings. Here we share a a selected preview on her meditations on the body taken from her poetry journal.

Courtesy of Tabari Artspace

Agial Art Gallery presents Yazan Halwani’s exhibition “Hotel Beirut, or Mundane Entropy”.

Yazan Halwani, a finance specialist and artist, is famed for his graffiti murals of popular national icons such as Sabah, Fairuz, and Mahmoud Darwish. For his latest body of work, he has shifted from the production of public murals to a studio practice that he has developed over the last 3 years. This work consists of three series of narrative paintings that present scenes of daily life in Lebanon. Together these series attempt to dispel the myths of Lebanese exceptionalism centering on the successful expat, the Phoenician, the Lebanese polyglot. Halwani’s work sheds light on the inextricability of economic downfall and migration in Lebanon from within the fabric of a total system of free-market, financialized capitalism.

Courtesy of Agial Art Gallery

” ‘Happy Islands?’
Islands have always attracted and repelled me at the same time. Attracted, because while on the boat that’s taking me there I can’t wait to arrive; repelled, as once I’ve got there I can’t wait to get away…

Very mixed feelings, in no way dependent on the size of the island itself; it could be a rock in the middle of the ocean or Sardinia, they are the same for me.

The fascination stems from being in an encapsulated world, a ‘fortress’ surrounded by the sea, a separate, autonomous entity, reassuring and isolated from the rest of the world. The rejection is the exact opposite, the disquiet at not being free to come and go, how and when I want, to have to depend on others (be it for a ferry or a flight).

An island can soon become claustrophobic….
That is why the overall title for this body of work ends with a question mark: Are islands happy, or not? Are they happy and unhappy at the same time? Or something else besides?

I have visited real islands, theoretical islands and perceived islands (The Convent of Saint Catherine in the Sinai, Urbino or Venice). Currently, I’m working on painting fantastic islands, islands full of color to house my world of images: shadows, silhouettes, fish, graffiti, knives, bees and wasps, athletes and gymnasts, frogs, dolphins, animal tracks, swings and children’s games.

Over the years, the Mediterranean basin and its different cultures, above all Egypt and Greece with her many islands, have become fundamental to my work and my being.
I lived and worked in Egypt for long periods between 1982 and 2007 and held a number of solo shows there: in 1988 at the Italian Cultural Institute, first in Cairo and subsequently in Alessandria. In 1994, 2000 and 2004, I showed my work at the Mashrabia Gallery in Cairo.

This recent series of works, the ‘Happy Islands’ strongly reflects my life in Egypt, particularly in the contrasts between the reds and oranges and the blacks and blues, just like day and night. Also in the recurring images of knives, that ‘perch’ on the islands themselves, constantly reminding me of an enigmatic cartouche I read in the Egyptian Museum: ‘To him who is on his knife’.

I have worked long and hard to interpret and give form and shape to this phrase; here are some of my results, islands that ‘carry’ images that carry islands…

I always work on paper, combining and overlaying painting techniques that are compatible with each other: acrylics, watercolor, tempera, wax crayons, pencils, colored inks, Indian ink, felt-pens, rubber stamps, collage…

A world in constant movement, precariously balanced, with forms interweaving, like living in a giant kaleidoscope. To paraphrase Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Paradise is none other than a giant mine of images’.” – Marco Magrini

Courtesy of Mashrabia Gallery Of Contemporary Art

Galerie Nathalie Obadia is pleased to present Belgian artist Sophie Kuijken’s fifth exhibition, following her 2020 show in Brussels. Shielded from the limelight for nearly 20 years, then unveiled for the first time in 2011 at the Dhondt-Dhaenens Museum, under the encouragement of its director Joost Declerq, Sophie Kuijken’s pictorial oeuvre is a highly singular addition to the art of portraiture.

Following in the footsteps of Flemish painting, Sophie Kuijken’s work disrupts the genre’s traditional codes from the inside, by adopting a deeply troubling contemporary approach. In an atypical space between two worlds, her portraits are imbued with a paradoxical presence, at once silent and scrutinising, human and spectral, blurring the contours of humanity. The exhibition presents ten new paintings on wood panel and, for the first time, on canvas, which, more than ever, arouses in the viewer that sense of “disquieting weirdness” to which Sophie Kuijken possesses the secret.

Sophie Kuijken’s works look, at first sight, like classical portraits on a dark ground, in the style of the Flemish Primitives. True to a long pictorial tradition that originated in the invention of oil paint, the artist works patiently by applying primers, layers and glacis onto the surface of the supports, whether wood or canvas. While acrylic allows for creating textural contrast, it is oil painting that achieves pictorial effects whose subtleties are intensified by the layers of glacis and varnish: shadows, the textures of fabrics and velvets, the nuances of skin and tone…

More broadly, the history of art permeates these paintings by way of certain details, postures, reminiscences that are more subconscious than intentional. The stretched silhouettes, for instance, and the raw flesh tones recall Mannerism; the elongated bodies in the work D.Z. evoke depositions from the cross; a female figure echoes the famous odalisques; a three-quarter, full- length portrait resembles a strange mirror image of Antonello da Messina’s St. Sebastian; and the hand that captures the light in the portrait L.M.T. can be seen as a nod to the deeply expressive hands of Egon Schiele.

These underground influences enter into resonance with an active and systematic approach of collecting information on the internet. The artist sifts through hundreds of images and gleans, from this vast database, elements that, once assembled according to the feeling generated when they are confronted with each other, become her subjects. These artificially recreated beings thus mark an original counterpoint to the history of portraiture that was once intrinsically linked to a live model. This multiplicity of sources, this primordial dispersion of the subject establishes a diffuse mystery, that of a half-familiar, half-chimerical figure that flirts with the bizarre. The old-fashioned appearance of these portraits enhances the feeling of “disquieting weirdness,” while the accessories or details that the artist bestows upon her characters makes the Freudian content even more coherent. Sophie Kuijken freely draws from the historical convention of giving the model a certain number of attributes that reveal their social status, their ethos. Punctuating each of these compositions with exquisite vagueness are a sunflower in the place of a foot, a lunar blackbird nesting in the topmost part of the painting, or an animal muzzle that converses with the semi-nudity of a person of indeterminate gender.


These incongruous associations show a tension between two opposites, like a painting whose strength lies in its contradictions, in avoidance. But, against all odds, they impose themselves in an impassive and natural manner, at the heart of each work, under the guise of mysterious affinities that determine their universe.
In fact, the ambiguity of these portraits also lies in the pure, imperturbable presence, within the pictorial field. The absence of background deprives the figures from any historic or contextual anchor, accentuating their spectral and timeless character: the bodies levitate in a nocturnal space that cradles them gently. Light suffuses their diaphanous skin in an effect of transparency that contrasts with the obscurity of the backgrounds and the opacity of hues, warm and dark, subtly nuanced.

The many layers of paint and glacis represent all the steps that are needed for these semi-real figures to emerge from the shadows. This strange community seems to have always been there, in a state of expectancy that imposes, in turn, a period of contemplation.

With great technical prowess, the artist works on the phenomena of memory and recognition, summoning at once the long history of art and the common, random and impersonal quality of digital resources. Under their classical style, Sophie Kuijken’s paintings contain a deep marginality that is as comforting as it is disquieting, and in which each viewer is free to recognise himself.

Courtesy of Galerie Nathalie Obadia

An exhibition of paintings made between 2017 and 2020 in Austria, Switzerland and Lebanon.

“I grew up among colors and paintings; always fascinated by the idea of living with an artist, my father, Jamil Molaeb. Very often, I skipped school days to stay with him in his workshop.

At age six, I started studying classical music and trained as a violist.

At age seventeen, I moved to Salzburg, Austria to study at Mozarteum University, and then moved to Vienna to study at the University of Music and the Arts: Eight years of study before settling in Zürich, Switzerland.

I came back to painting like one goes back to their parents’ house in the village, as if to restore one’s roots.

Our ancestors did not feel rest until they dug their hands in the soil, planted the ground and enjoyed production. I find this rest when I fill my hands in oil paint and produce a painting.

I travelled the world with music: to China, America and Europe. But it was only through painting that I could travel back to my roots.

I learned how to paint while thinking as a musician. My paintings are based on harmony. Just like in music, each work has a harmonic, melodic and rhythmical structure. I think of the relation between colors like I think of intonation in music.

Mountains. Water. Space. A warm childlike world. Clear, luminous fields. Mysterious metaphysical poems. I leave it to the viewer to feel what my work resonates with.”

– Ribal Molaeb

Courtesy of Galerie Janine Rubeiz

The installation Beirut Kaputt? is a reflection on the representation of violence. It consists of two juxtaposed works: a video montage of social media clips of the Beirut Port explosion and the painting All That Remains by Lebanese artist Ayman Baalbaki.

The project allows reflecting on the constant recycling of traumatic news, imagery, headlines and captions and how this can add to, rather than appease, our traumatic experiences. How, rather than engaging in nuanced reflection, fast media often exploits traumatic events by triggering a most basic human emotion: fear.

Curated by: Stephane Sisco

Leila Heller is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of contemporary Korean artist Ran Hwang, titled “Hope Springs Eternal” and open May to July.
Due to the pandemic, everyone in the world is facing physical challenges and feeling mentally taxed. The health crisis has even prompted a significant increase in the rates of crime and suicide. “Hope Springs Eternal” consists of a series of work created during quarantine and fueled by the artists compulsion to seek inner peace and mental stability. In this exhibition, Hwang focuses on small cherry blossom works that are bright and joyful, following the religious practices of Buddhism and hoping to bring light to people’s hearts and heal their inner wounds.

Ran Hwang’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. Pondering the themes of cyclicality and learnt appreciation for the time’s ephemerality accompanies the artist’s works. Hwang’s installations serve as monuments to a human’s perpetual attempts to capture and prolong a fleeting moment. In this case, the cherry blossoms are subjects of Hwang’s series as they stand to represent nature’s vulnerability to imperfect conditions and inevitability of life’s transient nature. In her Cherry Blossoms, the artist hopes to convey a meditative state to the audience, inviting the viewer to trace the delicate motions of the blossom’s falling petals succumbed to the imminent progression of time.

Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery