Agenda

Known for her large scale, colorful ‘trapunto’ works, Pacita Abad (1946-2004) was a Philippine-American artist whose prolific oeuvre spanned continents and ranged from abstract forms to social realist depictions of everyday life in the U.S.A, the Philippines and elsewhere. Having lived and travelled widely across Asia and many parts of the world, Abad’s work is an amalgamation of techniques and subject matter drawn from her lived experiences and mostly worked in her signature trapunto technique of padding and stitching canvas before painting and layering it with textiles, printed objects and other materials such as jewelry, buttons, and shells.

This exhibition brings together a selection of her ‘trapunto’ paintings and is curated in collaboration with the Pacita Abad Art Estate and London based artist Pio Abad.

Born in the Philippines in 1946, Pacita Abad studied painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. and the Arts Student League in New York.Her work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions including: Life in the Margins, Spike Island, Bristol (2020); Pacita Abad: A Million Things to Say, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila (2018); Circles in My Mind, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Singapore (2003); Exploring the Spirit, National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta (1996); The American Dream, National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. (1994); Masks from Six Continents, Metro Art Center, Washington D.C. (1990); Pacita Abad: A Painter Looks at the World, Museum of Philippine Art, Manila (1984) and Assaulting the Deep Sea, Ayala Museum, Manila (1983).She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including: Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning,13th Gwangju Biennial (2021); SWEAT, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2021); Whose Tradition?, Tate Liverpool (2021); The Crack Begins Within, 11th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art (2020); Asia/America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art, a travelling exhibition organised by the Asia Society, New York (1996); Beyond the Border: Art by Recent Immigrants, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (1994); La Segunda Bienal de la Habana (1986); and the 2nd Asian Art Show, Fukuoka Art Museum (1985).Her work can be found in the collections of Tate Modern, London; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Art Jameel, Dubai and the National Gallery of Singapore.

She died in Singapore in 2004.

Grey Noise gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Galle based Sri Lankan artist Muhanned Cader at Grey Noise, Dubai.

I.

Darkness. Why is it so chilling, yet so alluring. We fear it yet escape into it. As he has done before, Muhanned Cader turns to the subject of darkness, in a new body of 12 paintings called Nightscapes 2019-2021. Rather than look at the night in these works, Muhanned looks into it. It’s a subtle difference that reminds me of a conversation I had years back with American artist James Turrell who said ‘night does not fall, it rises’. Between sunset to sunrise every 24 hours, when the sun moves below the horizon, a period of ambient darkness ascends. Night of course is defined in relation to the rotational position of the day. In the absence of daylight, nothing can be seen, at least not for humans. Our sense of sight is blighted. What we can’t see we fear. For Muhanned however, the obstruction of our sensory system to see in the night should not prevent us from looking into its velvety darkness. Painted from the vantage point of his 8th storey apartment, his new series of paintings look into the nighttime surroundings of his neighbourhood, Nugaduwa.

II.

Nugaduwa is situated on the outskirts of the southern city of Galle in Sri Lanka. It does not share the bright lights of the big city at night. Instead, it twinkles and shimmers as a result of the blazing street lamps that line the Southern Expressway. The Nugaduwa interchange which serves as the access point into the city of Galle, is also a stone’s throw from the artist’s apartment. In one of Muhanned’s twelve paintings, the highway appears as an abrupt arc of narrow, orange light. It darts across the lower part of the canvas before being extinguished by the dark. Other paintings in this series look out across vast vistas of night. Human habitation is suggested by clusters or strings of light; some areas appear more populated than others. From afar, the lights chart the proximity of buildings to one another amidst the rising topography of the landscape. A dense cluster indicates the city of Galle in the far distance, while smaller clusters locate dwellings in what seems like the middle of nowhere. When seen up close, however, these lights transform into nothing more than muddy crusts or dabs of raw paint. Dandelion, bumblebee, flaxen, oyster, cotton and parchment are just some of the colours that lie on the surface of the canvas. They join an otherwise dominant spectrum of black, blues and dawn grey swatches of paint. Looking into the night Muhanned unveils a kaleidoscope of hues lurking within an otherwise monochrome series of works.

III.

In the 1990s Muhanned Cader rented a studio on the edge of Bolgoda River, situated in a quiet suburb south of the capital Colombo. During this period he made a series of 40 paintings called ‘Nightscapes’(1999), which captured the views from his studio across the river after sunset. The paintings featured curved edges, a trait that has gone on to become a distinguishing characteristic of his drawings and paintings. Rather than paint the picturesque views of the river during the daytime, the artist opted to capture the view from his studio during nightfall. “I was not very into the daytime…there was something about those Koralawella nights that was perfect and mysterious, which made me want to paint it. And it worked perfectly with the politics of the time.”[1] Muhanned’s return to painting nightscapes comes not only with a change in location but a change in format. The curvilinear form of his initial series has been left behind and replaced with rectangular canvases. They are oriented in the format of traditional landscapes or turned vertically like stone tablets. Set within these rectangles however, the irregular edges of the painted surface continue. As in the previous series, they suggest that part of the night has been edited out. What is there to be seen has been concealed by the cover of night. We cannot see the full picture. We are not supposed t

IV.

The new series of paintings are shown alongside an accordion book, in which collaged photographic fragments have been arranged to form a unfolding landscape at night. The double-sided accordion book gives form to the night from the front and the back. It mimics the feeling of being surrounded by the darkness. Compared to the paintings, the photographs help us observe the light pollution of the city. They depict the misty indeterminacy of night into day as a ritual that invites the next revolution of a living planet. The images that make up the book are made by cutting out parts of the night. These cutouts correspond to the sections of night that have been removed from the edges of the paintings. In the book, Muhanned appears to present us with an archive of night’s remnants, filed for safekeeping. Titled, Let Sleeping Villages Sleep (2021), Muhanned suggests that we read past the contents of the book and instead, remain vigilant of what lurks beneath the surface, should the sleeping villages awaken. While the cover of night induces a state of slumber and quiet, it’s darkness also conceals all evils. Darkness. It is so chilling yet so alluring, for a reason. Such are the politics of our times.

Sharmini Pereira
Chief Curator
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Sri Lanka
2021

Courtesy of GREY NOISE, Dubai

Artwork caption: Muhanned Cader, Nugaduwa 2(detail), 2020, oil on canvas board, 12.7 x 17.8 cm, set of 5

Vantage Point Sharjah 9 (VPS9) is the ninth iteration of Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual initiative dedicated to the medium of photography. The exhibition is on view from 18 September through 18 December at the Foundation’s off-site venue Al Hamriyah Studios.

For the first time, Vantage Point Sharjah introduces a cash prize of USD 1,500 for one winner from each of the following categories: Conceptual, Experimental, Photojournalism and Documentary and Staged Photography. This year, VPS9 also introduces a jury consisting of Ammar Al Attar (artist), Sham Enbashi (photographer and architect), M’hammed Kilito (photographer) and Alia Al Shamsi (author and artist), who selected the winners from each category. The selected winners will be announced on the exhibition’s opening day, September 18.

This year’s annual Open Call attracted over 500 applicants. From these applications 53 photographers from over 30 countries were selected for inclusion in the exhibition. Each photographer will be represented by a series of 1 to 6 images that were submitted in response to the Open Call. The wide range of work included demonstrates the unique, fascinating and infinite possibilities of photography as a medium. Through their lens, the photographers explore the world around them, drawing from personal experiences and narratives, as well as cultural, political or environmental conditions. Some reveal intimate portraits of family life and memories, others reflect on the often- troubled history and politics of their homeland. Together, the nearly 200 images on view present an evocative and inspiring insight into the life and concerns of individuals of all walks of life from around the world today.

Artists were selected for their work in the Open Call categories of Conceptual, Experimental, Photojournalism and Documentary, and Staged Photography.

Conceptual Photography:
Maha Alasaker, Kathy Anne Lim, Hayley Millar Baker, Aline Deschamps, Farheen Fatima, Gabriel Gauffre, Majid Hojati, Alaa Jaafar, Işık Kaya, Wendy Marijnissen, Sara Sallam, Hiro Tanaka and Han Shun Zhou.

Experimental Photography:
Sarah Al Ansary, Gabi Kaiser, Carolina Dutca and Valentin Sidorneko, Devashish Gaur, Sukanya Ghosh, Brian Kerrigan, Barbel Mollmann, Ziad Naitaddi, Yudha Kusama Putera, Tamara Saade, Mahmoud Talaat and Alexander Walmsley.

Photojournalism and Documentary Photography:
Reyad Abedin, Taha Ahmad, Nicola Chilton, Akash Joshi, Roger Moukarzel, Fajar Riyanto, Kristina Sergeeva, Javed Sultan and Jerzy Wierzbicki.

Staged Photography:
Khadija El Abyad, Dima Assad, Fatima Butt, Divya Cowasji, Soheila Esmaeili, Wiame Haddad, Babak Haghi, Khoula Hamad, Barry Iverson, Januario Jano, Jennifer Kisney, Sudip Maiti, Lakin Ogunbanwo, Martin T Raggio, Anja Ronacher, Oskar Schmidt, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Sandeep TK and Rob Voerman

VPS was first launched in the summer of 2013 with an open call for submissions from GCC-based photographers. Over the years the exhibition has focused on a variety of themes including ‘Self-Portraiture’, ‘Performance’ and ‘Architecture and Urban Landscape’ and has opened up submissions to photographers from around the world.

Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation

Image caption: Majid Hojati, Phone kiosk, 2019. From “Earth Silence”, Digital print; 50 x 70 cm

One year after the August 4, 2020 explosion that devastated the port of Beirut, the Arab World Institute pays tribute to the vitality and resilience of the Lebanese art scene. With the exhibition Lumières du Liban. Art moderne et contemporain de 1950 à aujourd’hui (September 21-January 2, 2022), the IMA celebrates the prodigious creativity of modern and contemporary artists from Lebanon and its diasporas, from the day after its independence in 1943 to the present day, with works by Shafic Abboud, Etel Adnan, Saliba Douaihy, Paul Guiragossian, Hussein Madi, Assadour, Chaouki Choukini, Ayman Baalbaki, Zad Moultaka, Serwan Baran, Hala Matta, Hiba Kalache, Zena Assi and Tagreed Darghouth.

More than a hundred works by 55 artists are revealed for this occasion, they were selected from the collection of modern and contemporary Arab art of the IMA, the largest in Europe (with its collection of nearly 600 Lebanese works) since its merger with the major donation of Claude and France Lemand in 2018, constantly enriched donation since then. “With Lights of Lebanon, the Arab World Institute expresses its full solidarity with the Lebanese people, and its world of arts and culture,” said Jack Lang, president of the IMA. Claude Lemand adds: “This exhibition bears witness to the luminous face of another Lebanon, that of its artists and its creators. It shows how big this small country is, and how, despite its misfortunes, victims and crisis, it remains the human and cultural melting pot that it has always been ”.

Lumières du Liban recalls the unique place of the Lebanese visual arts scene since the country’s independence, and reflects the complexity and artistic, human, geographical, historical and cultural richness of Lebanon. Scarred by conflicts and crises ranging from the civil war (1975-1990) to the explosion of the port of Beirut in August 2020, this history, sometimes chaotic, should not obscure its role as a major cultural melting pot, always well alive today: A role played by this country since Antiquity, as evidenced by the exhibition Liban, l’autre rive presented at the IMA in 1998-1999. The exhibition retraces in filigree seven decades of art history punctuated by the effervescence after the independence of Lebanon in 1943 and after the Second World War, the tears of civil war and exile, the artistic bubbling of globalisation.

More info on the following link.
https://www.imarabe.org/en/expositions/lumieres-du-liban

Courtesy of Institut du monde arabe

Artwork caption: Abdul Rahman Katanani, Autoportrait et Ombre, 2020. Plaques de metal et de bois, 180 x 200 x 60 cm.

Carbon 12 is pleased to announce the upcoming solo exhibition of Anthony Akinbola, Thanks A Million.

Anthony Akinbola is a Nigerian-American artist whose work is fundamentally built upon the philosophy of the readymade and investigation into his relationships with these same objects. Akinbola’s series of textile paintings focuses on the culturally and historically charged Du-rag; a garment used in the maintenance of African hair, as a primary means to explore and navigate a dialogue that is concerned with the intricacies and complexities of semiotics within American culture. Upon parsing the readymade object, Akinbola examines the intimate narrative of our individual and collective cultural associations to these objects, amplifying their seminal and perpetual role in the fragile construction of who we are.

Akinbola continues to dissect the multi-faceted aspect of the Du-rag, as observed in similar works from his previous exhibitions. Outside of its familiar usage as a tool manufactured for the preservation and care of African hair, in displacing the readymade object, Akinbola also subverts dynamics of power by situating it within a space that redefines its agency. Through this process, he uncovers its underlying ties to topics that concern the commodification of the African-American identity, and its vulnerability to structures of capitalism.

Upon emphasiSing its transition from mass produced good to art material, Akinbola simultaneously transforms not only the object but the entire environment with his large-scale paintings. The fabrics exist in a spectrum of hues; flayed and draped, stretched and strung tight, intuitively weaved across a wooden panel. Their bold compositions permeate the space, immersing the viewer in their multi-layered fabrication, an allusion to the complex fashioning of identity. The Camouflage series taps into a ready-made tradition and delves into themes of hybridity, consumerism and race, Akinbola sees each new exhibition as an opportunity to reexamine and contextualiSe the work through a new lens.

Though not separated from their conceptual genesis, Thanks A Million focuses less on a didactic framework and more towards an interior one. Akinbola shifts emphasis towards the idea of thanks and the paintings act as affirmations of gratitude as the artist reflects on all that’s happened in the midst of such a turbulent year.

“I’d like to use the exhibition as an opportunity to pause and simply say thank you, to everyone and everything, there’s so much to be grateful for.”

At the core of Anthony Akinbola’s overarching body of work, the Du-rag amplifies a conversation concentrated on belonging and selfhood; topics Akinbola illuminates provide audiences with a greater critical awareness – the most crucial upshot from his works. Akinbola’s work charts a clear trajectory across past and present to redefine the genre of what is considered contemporary African Art and African-American art, and in continuing to adopt a multifaceted approach, the paintings undergo various transformations to withstand the ever-evolving discussion on identity.

Courtesy of Carbon 12 gallery.

Image caption: Anthony Akinbola, Camouflage #054 (Kermit), 2019. Acrylic and Du-rags on wooden panel, 121.92 x 121.92 cm

Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present Nota Bene, a solo exhibition featuring works by Abdul Karim Majdal Al-Beik.

‘The walls alone know our secrets,’ wrote Imad Mustafa, a poet and one of Al-Beik’s closest friends. This nota bene is just one of many composed by Al-Beik. “If walls are the canvases of madmen, then these madmen are my teachers,” he once wrote. Walls are people’s palimpsest and the daubed drops of paint, their ink. Through the plaster and paint, Al-Beik tells us society’s stories.

Al-Beik’s creativity reflects wisdom and sensibility beyond his years. The artist notices how each wall possesses a different character that, over time, changes shape, texture, and color thanks to the sun and the rain. Al-Beik and his work register time, climate, and environment, life’s inevitables. Al-Beik infuses each canvas with the essence of his surroundings, revealing in the individuality each piece offers. Careful to maintain authenticity in his expression, basic wall-building materials are Al-Beik’s tools. To reconstruct the passage of time, he applies several layers to each canvas.

Projecting himself into the future and stepping away from a cataloging approach. In this series, Abdul Karim wonders about the unfolding of the walls. Will they capture and absorb the violence and atrocities their owners witnessed? What layers will be added to portray and recreate the pain? Al-Beik shakes the need for authenticity to reality, now using these walls as a medium of expression.

Diving into his imagination and taking from the DADA movement, Al-Beik introduces objects in his compositions. Guns and knives are scattered across the canvases, surrounded by gestural strokes capturing the intensity of the depicted period. Survival and death are translated through the scarecrows and crosses. Adjacent to these symbols are stitching marks, seemingly keeping everything together, acting as signs of hope. The walls and canvases become symbolic abstractions of reality. Throughout the process, Al-Beik questions these objects and their presence, has war taken over our lives? Can it be that arms are now replacing adolescent love letters and graffiti?

Courtesy of Ayyam Gallery

Artwork caption: Abdul Karim Majdal Al-Beik, Scarecrows, 2012, Mixed Media on Canvas, 180 x 180 cm.

Zawyeh Gallery announces the opening of a new exhibition titled “Metaphor” at Alserkal Avenue by young Palestinian artist Saher Nassar. The exhibition consists of four series of artworks that focus on the theme of breaking metaphors and resisting rules, expectations or norms and questioning representations of establishment and authority. Nassar works with a range of materials and styles and uses a mixture of abstract paintings, collage, drawings and photographs in addition to ready made objects.

In his first exhibition, Nassar ridicules and exposes what lies beyond the surface and encourages accepting other opinions, beliefs, behaviors, different from one’s own and the rejection of domination of power and authority. In one series, he places five packs of cigarettes in the middle of five different archival images of war that took place in five different countries around the world. The message on the five packs reads: Smoking Kills in five different languages connected to the five different geographies where the photos were taken. The series stresses on two layers of dangerous threats to humanity: war and smoking.

Nevertheless, the third layer that he is trying to convey can be read between the lines; it’s the lethal combination between capitalism and politics where the politics of war paves the way for western multi national conglomerates to dominate the economies of poorer countries selling products that also kill. Nassar says that his works intend to shake the status quo and highlight the exertion of power and authority imposed upon the individuals and society at large and they meant to discuss control and domination and attempts to resist them.

“Metaphor” is organized as part of a series of exhibitions at Alserkal Avenue with the intention to encourage young Palestinian artists to produce and participate, and provide them a platform to exhibit their works in front of the wider international audience, as part of the gallery’s attempts to empower and support young emerging artists.

Courtesy of Zawyeh Gallery

Artwork caption: Saher Nassar, Untitled 1, 2021. Installation, Acylic boards, 90 x 118 cm

The Athens Biennale announces its seventh edition, titled ECLIPSE, co-curated by Omsk Social Club and Larry Ossei-Mensah under the artistic direction of Poka-Yio. ECLIPSE is planned to take place in Spring 2021 in various locations in Athens. The exhibition will feature artists based in North and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe, many of whom will be exhibiting in Greece for the first time.

The exhibition title highlights the obscured perspective of reality caused by the constant state of flux we are experiencing in our society now. ECLIPSE engages the social, political and spiritual changes of today’s global construct and in Athens itself, as a rising metropolis located at the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa both physically and historically. An eclipse is a phenomenon of filtering and shrouding as well as a cosmic event. The experience of the eclipse functions as a catalyst for reprocessing an unresolved past that can inform an unspoken present and ultimately shape our future. Thus, Athens serves as the appropriate vantage point for contemplating the nuances of time and space. Furthermore, examining the question; is the west in decline or in a moment of significant transformation?

ECLIPSE seeks to assess the implications of identity, history, and cultural complexity. The 7th Athens Biennale offers an arena to interrogate many of the ideas, queries, concerns, and desires that are frequently not platformed within a Biennial format. In an effort to activate a dynamic cross-cultural discourse, AB7 will highlight the works of artists from the African Diaspora in addition to other artistic voices that have historically been pushed to the periphery. This engagement will be articulated through the use of a “Black Lens” as one of the frameworks. This approach seeks to engage the varying perspectives and artistic practices percolating within the African diaspora. This dialogue will be situated alongside a complimentary framework of artistic interventions that use dynamic manifestations to compose unique practical narratives. Their aim is to strategically address the viewers imagination of potential parallel worlds and futures. Composing a set of spaces that platform ideas such as radical care, interspecies friendship and sonic viewing strategies, ECLIPSE presents a translocal chapter of contemporary thought on how to co-exist within a world differently.

Defying the prevalent politics of historical narratives, ECLIPSE proposes to challenge oppressive mechanisms and outdated idealism. By deploying various immersive techniques such as real game play, radical gossip, persuasive realities, “emotional hypnosis”, bodying, synthesis, and visualization, ECLIPSE activates narrative fabrication and orchestrates an experiential shift in art viewing opening an alternative future for contemplation.

Cardinal Points – French-Iraqi artist Mehdi Moutashar’s first solo at the gallery – presents a curation of contemporary artworks and a large-scale installation that are quintessential to his practice, celebrating Moutashar as a meeting point between Islamic tradition and experimental optical art.

Born in Iraq in 1943, Moutashar spent most of his artistic life in his chosen home France, where he moved to in 1967. Very early on, his practice embraced the hard-edge abstraction and Op-Art movements of the 1960’s, becoming part of the roster of the legendary Denis René Gallery in Paris, renowned for her geometric and kinetic art programme, where he exhibited alongside artists such as Francois Morellet, Julio Le Park, Viktor Vaserelly and Carlos Cruz Diez. At the same time, he never lost sight of his innate Iraqi, Babylonian and Islamic art influences and was guided by their mathematical and geometric investigations as well as their early methods and systems. In recognition of the “contemporary relevance of his work” and ability to demonstrate a “profound understanding of the cultures from which he comes” he was a joint winner of the Jameel Prize 5 (2018).

In Cardinal Points, the exhibition’s centrepiece is Trois angles à 135° (Three Angles at 135°) nicknamed by the artist as “The Spider”. This large-scale work is made up [hundreds] of wooden blocks accented with blue and produced by the intersection of three broken lines that spread outwards in six directions. The use of blocks and glimpses of blue reference the architectural traditions of Mesopotamia where mud bricks were highlighted in an ultramarine blue glaze. Moutashar does not think of his floor pieces as sculptures or installations but rather as Constructions – constructed as they are of elements within a certain arrangement, in this case a mutable space of broken lines that appear to rotate.

This sense of rotation and dynamism is also apparent in Moutashar’s wall-based works. Using only black, white and ultramarine blue, these geometric sculpture-paintings give the illusion of an object in flux – either spinning or moving deliberately towards a target. In his black steel works for example, each black rectangle is folded against itself and arranged as if to trace the points of a spiralling object.

In his other wall-based works he combines rectangles and squares made from steel, wood and elastic, endlessly configuring and reconfiguring them into energetic geometric compositions according to a set of rules of the artist’s devising. In all of these works the artist is equally concerned with the voids as with the solid parts, with light and obscurity, leaving the viewer to create their own imagined outlines.

Moutashar’s working method and visual language reveal themselves in the titles of the works. Recurring words such plis (folds), mouvement (movement), angles and carrés (squares) appear in many of his titles. Though rarely explicitly calligraphic, his works also share certain traits with Arabic calligraphy. Hence, Moutashar’s squares recall the nuqta (dots) of the qalam (reed pen); his black rectangles and lines fold in on themselves, attenuating like calligraphic flourishes; his rule-based approach recalling those laid down by Ibn Muqla, Arab Vizer and calligraphers in the 10th century.

Alongside these are a group of works entitled Mouvements (2016) in which Moutashar remakes his lost geometric paintings from the late 1960s. Rather than using paper or canvas, his choice of laser-cut steel, painted either blue or black, allows for very different optical effects.

Mehdi Moutashar’s work inhabits a world of angles, folds and in-between spaces; an elusive universe that occupies the space between Iraq, his home of origin, and France, his home of choice.

Image caption: Mehdi Moutashar, Three Folds at 60° and Two Squares, 2021. Painted wood, painted steel, elastic wire, 141 x 191 cm.

Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is pleased to present our first solo show of work by Saudi artist Manal AlDowayan entitled The Eternal Return of the Same. These works not only deepen AlDowayan’s nuanced interrogation of women’s shifting status within a metamorphosing Saudi society, but also intensify her exploration of new material. A nod to Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence, the title The Eternal Return of the Same captures gestures of repetition and iteration undergirding the works. While the exhibition may provide a moment of reflection on the need for reckoning, it also bears AlDowayan’s hallmark critical assessment of a world rife with inequity and uncertainty

AlDowayan slyly employs materials that almost contradict the object depicted. The Emerging (2021) is a series of thirty jesmonite casts. Unevenly textured, pocked with finger marks and smoothed over by hand, the cluster of distinct floor-bound appendages of body parts question how women are renegotiating their bodies and the spaces they inhabit. As they are increasingly joining the Saudi public sphere, away from the ‘counterpublic,’ exclusively female enclaves of empowerment, women are forced to (re)claim a stake in the patriarchal arena. More than an innocent celebration of ‘our time has come’, the repeated single, imperfectly cast bodily eruptions in The Emerging suggest that the movement from one space to another, while forceful, is still tenuous: women in the Kingdom must reprocess not only positions, but their bodies and voices within them.

The leg recurs in The Recline (2020), a large tapestry in which the limb morphs and mirrors itself, conjuring a reclining female form, poised above a cascade of loose, unravelled (or not yet woven) linen threads. The work exemplifies not only the notion of repetition—the leg emerging over and over in diverse media—but also the artist’s challenge to the traditional craft of weaving. The Recline, like the other works in the exhibition, exudes at once a political vitality and a sensual poetics of materiality.

Just as The Emerging frames an exuberant individuality against a crushing societal sameness, two soft sculptures, Ephemeral Witness (2019) and O Sister (2021) confront the blanket ‘instruction manual’ mentality of religious injunctions with an individualist feminine energy. Modelled on the desert rose—hardened, petal-like crystalline formations occurring in deserts where sand meets salt—the forms evoke some oversized bodily cavity, all multi-layered biological complexity and beckoning openness. Resistant yet refined, the natural silk of the sculptures is printed with instructions penned by religious men determining women’s ‘use’ of their bodies. The inky texts blur on the ridged fabric surface, their legibility confounded by strokes of charcoal. While Ephemeral Witness hangs, inviting the viewer to scrutinize its cleft opening and poised verticality, O Sister (2021) spreads its soft, collapsible, darkly burnished flaps in an ironic embrace. Part of a generation deeply impacted by conservative laws against women in Saudi Arabia, AlDowayan teases out a new tension in these works, raising questions about physical emancipation at the very moment the Kingdom ostensibly moves towards greater social freedoms.

Similarly, Just Paper (2019) interrogates the textual manifestations of patriarchal power structures by taking aim at archival memory. Upending the longevity of the printed, archival form of written texts, Al Dowayan renders religious and linguistic texts in delicate rolls of fragile porcelain. Easily crushed, the porcelain rolls bear not only prescriptive religious texts like those on the two soft sculptures, but also definitions taken from a millennium-old book on the jurisprudence of the Arabic language. Here we find the extended family of words used to transcribe varying intensities of sadness, entrapment, fever, anger, tightness, insanity… Replicated and cast across a table, the vulnerable porcelain scrolls are emblematic of AlDowayan’s artistic output: strikingly beautiful works in appearance, harbouring challenging elements within.

Like many artists, AlDowayan has viewed recent life through the prism of the singular, inescapable space of her London home. Her awareness of the day-in-day-out repetition of actions and gestures intensified. The Eternal Return of the Same conflates this recurrence of the mundane, the growing opacity of time through ritualisation, an uneasy sense of settled uncertainty, with the process of reckoning Saudi women of her generation must undertake, given the seismic changes in the Kingdom. Yet repetition, the exhibition implies, in its gentle shifting and distortion of the familiar, can become a site of newness.

Courtesy of Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde

Image caption: Manal AlDowayan, O Sister, 2021. Tussar silk, acrylic and natural hemp, 160 x 195 x 55 cm

H.E. Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi, inaugurated Louvre Abu Dhabi’s exhibition, Dragon and Phoenix – Centuries of Exchange between Chinese and Islamic Worlds. The exhibition opens to the public on 6 October 2021 and will run until 12 February 2022. With more than 200 artworks on display, visitors can explore the cultural and artistic exchange between the Chinese and Islamic worlds from the 8th to the 18th century. A rich cultural programme will accompany the exhibition, offering an array of events, from dragon boating to kayak cinema and family film screenings.

Organised by Louvre Abu Dhabi in partnership with Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet and France Muséums, the exhibition is curated by Sophie Makariou, President of Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, with the support of Dr. Souraya Noujaim, Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director, and Guilhem André, Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Chief Curator of Asian and Medieval Art.

The artworks in Dragon and Phoenix represent long-lasting dialogue between China (the dragon) and the Islamic world (the phoenix), chosen from the collections of Louvre Abu Dhabi and Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, alongside those of 12 international museums and institutions. The exhibition delves into the cultural exchange and prolific artistic production between the two worlds resulting in coveted luxury materials and artworks across a span of more than 800 years.

Manuel Rabaté, Director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, said: “Through the poetic title of Dragon and Phoenix, the many interpretations of these two fantastical creatures evoke the significant artistic exchange between two great cultures. The flourishing artistic production, the exquisite objects and materials that came from these two civilisations, brought together across land and sea, is extraordinary. We cannot wait for visitors to experience this fascinating exhibition. My sincere thanks to Sophie Makariou, the Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, the Musée du Louvre, the Shanghai Museum and all our lending partners, without whom Dragon and Phoenix would not have been possible.”

Visitors will be taken on a journey organised in five chapters, through both land and sea trade routes, to explore the connections, artistic influences and remarkable untold stories, beginning from the establishment of the first Arab merchant colonies in Canton in the 8th century until the threshold of the 18th century. ‘The Islamic world’ references the regions that include countries, cultures and ethnic groups, who shared their affiliation to Islam during this period, such as the Mashriq region, Eastern Africa, Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and South-East Asia.

Sophie Makariou, President of Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, said: “From the 8th century up to the beginning of the 18th century, the Islamic world never ceased to regard China as an ideal of technical achievement and beauty, while the Islamic world supplied China with precious luxury objects in metal and glass. This unique exhibition deals with this long history of cultural interactions, of material and immaterial exchanges, and with peaceful relations between those two high-world cultures.”

Dr. Souraya Noujaim, Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director at Louvre Abu Dhabi, said: “This exhibition brings mythical creatures, dragon and phoenix among many others, on precious objects to life. Textiles, jades, lacquer, silks and ceramics circulated from the Middle Kingdom to the shores of the Mediterranean and inspired production of both cultures. The circulation of persons and manufactured goods through diplomatic, commercial and cultural exchanges is at the core of this exhibition. The five dramatic chapters reveal a story of mutual influences where external inputs and processes of transfer did not undermine the longevity of aesthetic expression, but on the contrary stimulated its creativity.”

Lending institutions for the Dragon and Phoenix exhibition include: Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, Musée du Louvre, Shanghai Museum, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, Archives nationales, Cité de la céramique – Sèvres et Limoges, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Musée de Cluny – musée national du Moyen Âge, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Musée Jacquemart-André – Institut de France, Musée national de la Renaissance – Château d’Ecouen, Muséum national d’Histoire Naturelle and Musée des Tissus de Lyon.

Cultural and Education Programming

The programming for Dragon and Phoenix is a sensory journey across the narrative of the exhibition and presents a variety of events and activities. The cultural programme will include a hand-picked selection of weekend family film screenings and kayak cinema shows, with two sessions in November and one in December. Young visitors can watch The Monkey King and an episode of The Adventures of Sinbad on November 19 and return to the museum on November 26 to watch a second installment of The Adventures of Sinbad alongside the screening of Bilal: A New Breed of Hero. The saga of Sinbad continues with a final screening on December 10 and, on the same day, children will have the opportunity to explore the world of Raya and the Last Dragon. Animated Tales of the World (shorts) will be available to watch on all the three days of the film screenings. The Adventures of Sinbad screenings will be shown as part of the kayak cinema, allowing visitors to watch the episodes while paddling around the museum.

In addition to the ongoing yoga and kayaking activities at the museum, there will also be a new seasonal offering, inspired by traditional Chinese culture – Dragon Boats from November 18 to December 31. Early next year, visitors will also be able to witness a performance piece by local artist Ahmed AlAreef whose installation responds to figures of the zodiac, as seen by both cultures.

Alongside the exhibition, a series of educational activities and programmes are available at the museum starting October. These include daily Express Tours for adults that will assist visitors to follow a journey and delve deep into the long history of cultural interactions, material and idea exchanges between the two civilisations. Students will be able to discover how cultural exchanges across communities in Asia influenced artistic production and ways of living via the Take Me to Asia interactive encounters with Museum Educators. Families can participate in the new #MakeandPlay activities inspired by the exhibition on site and those at home can follow our instructional videos online to create their very own Iznik dish. A series of Masterclasses will be offered starting from November featuring artists invited to respond to artworks within the exhibition and, later, share their skills with participants aged 18 and older in creative activities. Finally, #ARTLAB is back this winter led by UAE-based artists to encourage museum-goers to create their own art inspired by dragons and phoenixes.

Courtesy of Louvre Abu Dhabi
Image caption: Dragon & Phoenix. © Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi

Saleh Barakat Gallery invites you to the opening exhibition of a collective show around Beirut today “The Show Must Go On”.

This group exhibition is entirely devoted to the display of monumental artworks. In times such as these, when our lives have been overtaken by daily concerns, The Show Must Go On is a testament to the need for brief moments of respite, as well as big dreams for the future, which perhaps only art can offer.

This exhibition is held in honor of the memory of our beloved art handler and logistician, Firas Dahwish, who was violently killed by the August 4 blast.

Courtesy of Saleh Barakat Gallery

Oussama Baalbaki, Untitled, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 250 x 400 cm. Courtesy of Saleh Barakat Gallery.

Fann A Porter Amman is pleased to present Watermelon Peace, the latest exhibition by celebrated painter Majd Kurdieh from 11 October – 10 November 2021 at Manara Arts & Culture in Amman, Jordan.

In this latest collection represented under Watermelon Peace, Majd Kurdieh strongly acknowledges humanity’s increasing turmoil and restlessness and counteracts with portrayals of unwavering love, belief and discovery of inner peace.

Unsurprisingly, the paintings burst with light and colour, offering up an aesthetic as passionate as the topic itself. Since the introduction of The Scary Butterfly Gang and its characters in 2014, and through all his various exhibitions, Kurdieh is masterful in his ability to express our realities through the strokes of his brush and the power of his words.

It is perhaps the visual innocence of the works represented in his collection, coupled with the power of prose and poetry, that deem his work so poignant. As noted by Kurdieh, his art and its characters are of this world, not merely a fantasy. If you care to look deeply enough, he offers a portal to a place of hope and togetherness should you wish to experience it.

Courtesy of Fann A Porter Amman

Image caption: Majd Kurdieh, I lean on you, using your light to write. All I do is hold the pen, 2021. Oil on canvas, 35 x 50 cm.

The 4th annual exhibition of Art D’Égypte is a historic one: Forever Is Now is the first international contemporary art exhibition at the Pyramids of Giza in 4500 years.

“The Pyramids have a long, illustrious history of extraordinary kind that has fascinated and inspired artists from all over the world,” said Nadine Abdel Ghaffar, Founder of Art D’Égypte, “I’m thrilled to share what will be an unforgettable encounter with the union of art, history, and heritage.”

In a departure from its previous exhibitions, Art D’Égypte is inviting international and local artists to participate in Forever Is Now. This exhibition is the first exhibition of its kind in 4500 years. The exhibition represents a merging of ancient heritage and contemporary art at the oldest and last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which today survives as a UNESCO world heritage site.

The participating international artists are Russian artist Alexander Ponomarev; American artist Gisela Colón; Brazilian artist João Trevisan; French Artist JR; Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn; Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr; Egyptian born, Los Angeles- based artist Sherin Guirguis; British artists Shuster + Moseley; British artist Stephen Cox RA; and Saudi Arabian artist HRH Prince Sultan Bin Fahad.

This project is made possible thanks to the support of numerous partners including the U.S. Embassy in Egypt, Afrexim Bank, Hany Saad, Signify, MO4 Network, Eastern Company, Al Ismaeilia Group, Orange S.A., Sawiris Foundation, cultural partner the Abu Dhabi Festival, our transportation partner SWVL, ALEXBANK, Orascom Pyramids Entertainment (OPE), Oriental Weavers, Egyptair, Fairmont | ALL, TV5Monde, Savills, Wine Gianaclis Vineyards, Lipton, Travco Group, Ashmand, Beretta, the French Embassy in Egypt, the French Institute in Egypt The British Council, CC-plus, DHL, Abou Ghaly Motors, Meuble El Chark, Barta & Partners, The Art Newspaper, Daghash, Swiss Embassy in Egypt and Marmonil.

In parallel to the Exhibition, Art D’Égypte brings, for the first time in Egypt, AI-DA, the world’s first ultra-realistic AI robot. As a machine, with Artificial Intelligence capabilities, its artist persona is the artwork, along with its drawings, paintings, performance art, and sculptures. As conceptual art, Ai-Da encourages us to reconsider our self-perception through the lens of a humanoid.

Courtesy of Art D’Égypte

Image caption: Shuster+Moseley, (Plan Of The Path Of Light) In The House Of Hidden Places_©Pixcelle Photography

Earth, Soil, Rocks, Forests, Oceans… elements that surpass us with their immensity while encircling us, present and absent at the same time. Strong and fragile in the face of time and human expansion.

The Earth is threatened: a million species on the brink of extinction, destruction of marine and biome ecosystems, large scale deforestation, glaciers melting, ocean levels on the rise, wildfires, pollution, global warming… We have exhausted all of our resources.
Will we ever be able to go back and find balance with the earth?
Will she find it on her own?
A lot of questions, and definitely denial.

Nature’s beauty is evident in all her forms, seasons, colours, terrains and
phenomena.
Inspired by her visits to the mountains of Lebanon and abroad, Tamara Haddad forges her landscapes using dark oils, clay, tree bark, sand, wood, and straw to deliver apocalyptic yet fragile horizons where the sky meets the sea. Nature’s beauty and its destruction have thus become the main theme in Haddad’s artworks.

“Today, through this new series, I come back to the origin of the Earth, I question its material, the way it’s formed, its reliefs and its colours. I search for the beauty of rocky landscapes, the infinity of hues and textures.”

Courtesy of Galerie Tanit

Image caption: Tamara Hadad, Havoc for palm tree, 2021, Oil, Acrylic, Sand, Branches, Straw, Metal thread on canvas, 75 x 110 cm

There is a feeling in this world, the pulse of eternal knowledge.
When you sense the oneness, you are with us.
We brought life to Earth.
You can’t see us, but we flourish all around you. Everywhere, in everything, and even inside you… from
your first breath, to your last… in darkness, and in the light.
We are the oldest, and the youngest.
We are the largest, and the smallest.
We are the wisdom of a billion years.
We are creation.
We are resurrection.
We are condemnation and regeneration.
We are Fungi

Fantastic Fungi – Paul Stamets

Under every footstep that we take all over the planet lies a hidden Kingdom, a single interconnected realm ruled by the Mighty Mycelium. It is a world full of magic and mystery, an intertwined network that flourishes under the earth. This World Wood Web holds the power of nature’s bond to all living things.
It does not move but it is not Flora, it feeds on other organisms but it is not Fauna.

It is a Kingdom of its own: THE THIRD KINGDOM, and it bears fruit: beautiful FUNGI.

FUNGI come in a myriad of shapes and sizes and colours and species and lifestyles. They are a window into the hidden landscape under our feet: an ancient land of determined lifeforms, silent yet sentient.
They shape our world and hold the key to our future. Some save us, some threaten us and most we haven’t even met.
They are the true masters of survival.
They bring life,
They sustain life,
They transform life.
They are the changers.
They are the ecosystem communicators in a symbiotic pulse of infinite mindfulness.

Let them be seen… Let them be heard… Let them be celebrated.

Let them shift our consciousness towards a better tomorrow.

Zein Daouk

Having graduated with a degree in Architecture, Zein Daouk Jabr began her career in 1992 working on projects for the rebuilding of Beirut after the civil war. She later moved to interior design where her work involved a hand’s on approach to create bespoke furniture & architectural details. She worked with several designers such as Nada Debs, Pierre-Yves Rochon & BOKJA. Zein’s curiosity pushed her to hone her multidisciplinary design skills & she created children’s furniture as well as her own ladies’ accessories label. Her passion for ceramics began in 1999 & has been a constant in her life. She refined her skills under many ceramicists in Beirut & abroad. She participated in many exhibitions always focusing her work on a conceptual narrative that told a story & opened a pathway into the viewer’s imagination to explore new places & alternative notions.

Image caption: Zein Daouk, The Third Kingdom, cantharelus conchatus front.

Courtesy of Saleh Barakat Gallery

Dastan’s Basement presents “Shame”, a solo presentation of works by Samira Shakeri, opening Friday, October 29, 2021. “Shame” will be on view through Friday, November 5. Samira Shakeri (b. 1983, Tehran) lives and works in Tehran. Since graduating in Painting (2008) from Tehran’s University of Art, she has participated in many group exhibitions inside and outside Iran. “Shame” is her first solo exhibition at Dastan’s Basement.

In “Shame”, Shakeri returns to more-or-less familiar images springing out the Revolution of 1979. From stamps to money, from city walls to schoolbooks, these images have formed part of the visual memory of the Iranian society. In this return to archival visual material, she comes upon a prevailing feeling – shame. This is a shame imbued with rage, coming from a sense of loss of individual or collective ideals. Shakeri sees this rage as a rebellion against the self.

In “Shame”, the artist’s approach to image construction is balanced on two connected but separate planes. Her drawings with pen and ink are direct, to-the-point, and straightforward. Her paintings on various media on fiber are made of multiple layers of paint with slow execution. To her, the drawings are closer to her intention while the complexity of painting on fiber offers a choice of tampering with the final image.

Samira Shakeri, Shame, installation view. Courtesy of Dastan Gallery

The Exhibition, The Other Side of Silence, an International Co-Production Features Major New Commissions and Significant Works from the Past 15 Years of the Artist’s Career

The first mid-career survey of work by London-based Syrian-Armenian artist Hrair Sarkissian—one of the foremost conceptual photographers of our time—opens 30 October 2021 at Sharjah Art Foundation. Taking audiences on an expansive journey through the hallowed squares of Aleppo, Latakia and Damascus, across the skies above Palmyra and over the snow-covered post-industrial landscapes of modern day Armenia, The Other Side of Silence brings together two major new commissions by the artist and more than a dozen of his most significant bodies of work from the past 15 years.

Jointly organised by Sharjah Art Foundation, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm and the Bonnefanten, Maastricht, the exhibition is Sarkissian’s most extensive presentation to date. Having garnered initial training in his father’s photo lab, ‘Dream Colour’, in Damascus, Sarkissian went on to study visual art in the Netherlands where he continued using analogue photography as his primary medium. Captivated by the possibilities of the medium, Sarkissian seeks to make evident the invisible narratives that live behind the unresolved wounds of conflict.

The Other Side of Silence explores histories of disappearance, the architecture of violence and the potential of the medium of photography itself. Anchoring this exhibition are two major commissions: a photographic installation, Last Seen (2021), commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation and Little Apple (working title) (2021/2022), commissioned by the Bonnefanten. The exhibition features an expansive presentation of many of the artist’s major works produced since 2006, including Unfinished and In Between (both 2006), Execution Squares (2008) and Final Flight (2017–2019).

Bonniers Konsthall is producing Sarkissian’s first major monograph, edited by Kholeif and Ringborg. It will be published by Bonniers Kontshall in collaboration with Lenz Press and designed by Hans Gremmen. The book features original scholarly contributions from major figures, including Marianne Hirsch (Professor, Columbia University); Hannah Feldman (Associate Professor, Northwestern University); Todd Reisz (writer and architect); and Vali Mahlouji (curator and psychoanalyst). A major essay by Kholeif contextualises the artist’s practice alongside an exploratory text by Ringborg. The foreword is written jointly by Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, Ringborg and Huijts. The monograph will be available at the exhibition opening in Sharjah in autumn 2021.

Hrair Sarkissian: The Other Side of Silence is curated by Dr Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation; Dr Theodor Ringborg, Artistic Director, Bonniers Konsthall; and Stijn Huijts, Artistic Director, the Bonnefanten. The exhibition will be on view at Sharjah Art Foundation from 30 October 2021 to 30 January 2022 and Bonniers Konsthall from 26 April to 19 June 2022 before travelling to the Bonnefanten, where it will be on view from 17 November 2022 to 14 May 2023.

The opening reception of Hrair Sarkissian: The Other Side of Silence, taking place on 30 October 2021 at 4:00 pm. The opening will be accompanied by a conversation between Hrair Sarkissian and exhibition curator Dr Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation. The conversation will be followed by the signing of the artist’s first major monograph, published by Bonniers Konsthall and Lenz Press.

Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation

Image caption: Hrair Sarkissian, In Between, 2006. Archival inkjet print; 120 x 175 cm

2021 marks the tenth anniversary of Tashkeel’s commitment to the development of UAE product design. Over the last 10 years, Tashkeel has created a range of programmes that seek to build knowledge, strengthen skills, foster experimentation and facilitate partnerships. These include public workshops, lectures and talks, the Tanween design programme, international designer residencies, Make Works UAE, the Van Cleef & Arpels Middle East Emergent Designer Prize and the Tanween Collection of furniture and lighting pieces.

This exhibition charts Tashkeel’s journey in design since 2011 through the contexts of collaboration, experimentation, craft and identity. Featuring prototypes and final products, ‘A Decade of Design’ attempts to express the journey shared with all those who have been part of in the organisation’s efforts to push the boundaries of UAE design practice forward.

Image caption: A decade of design, courtesy of Tashkeel

Artissima, the International Fair of Contemporary Art in Torino, announces the upcoming 28th edition of the fair, the only one in Italy with an exclusive focus on contemporary art, directed for the fifth consecutive year by Ilaria Bonacossa.

In 2020, Artissima reacted to the pandemic with exceptional energy and speed, producing a hybrid event that responded to the needs of the exhibiting galleries while at the same time conserving the experimental character of the programme as well as its commercial and cultural quality. Using this experience and all the know-how developed throughout this complex situation, Artissima 2021 will be organized as a sophisticated combination of physical and digital experiences.

From Friday 5 to Sunday 7 November 2021, the large, luminous spaces of the Oval in Torino will welcome the four historic sections of the fair – Main Section, New Entries, Dialogue/Monologue and Art Spaces & Editions.

Artissima XYZ – the cross-media platform that since 2020 has hosted the three curated sections, Present Future, Back to the Future and Disegni – will be online from 4 to 9 November and will also present three physical group exhibitions at the Oval.

THE CURATED SECTIONS ARTISSIMA XYZ

Present Future
Present Future, the section on rising talents, preferably under 40 years of age, returns with the same curatorial team, composed of the independent curators and writers Ilaria Gianni and Fernanda Brenner.

In their words: “Mystery stretches the limits of the visible and apprehensible through the discursive function of language. Modernity does not stand superstition and often ignores what falls out from palpable scientific proof. Drawing from the mystery and the mystical idea, the section aims to stage a counterargument for reducing the world to facts, descriptions, and projects. Mystery sits beyond the inquiry space, being it unreachable, unsayable, unpredictable, and often fearful. It questions the same idea of knowledge or surpasses the notion of human knowledge as a tool for the dominance of different species and the planet and the human five senses as the sole mediators of the body and its surroundings. How do we tell our story in an “I don’t know – I’m not sure – there is no truth” society? What is the art of uncertainty, of uncanniness? Present Future 2021 will look into the mystery underscoring our subjectivity and investigate what lays between the expressible and the inexpressible. Art provides another model for augmenting our senses, and the section will bring together artists that reinstate that the whole is always more than the sum of its parts”.

An international jury will evaluate the proposals of the online Present Future section and will assign the illy Present Future Prize, the award supported by illycaffè, now at its 21st edition, to the most interesting submitted project. Thanks to the contemporary approach of illycaffè, the illy Present Future Prize makes an important contribution to the growth of emerging talents, confirming the innovative role of the fair in support to international artists.

Back to the Future
The curatorial team of Back to the Future has also been confirmed, composed of the Director of the GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of Bergamo Lorenzo Giusti and the independent art critic and curator Mouna Mekouar. The section covers solo projects by outstanding pioneers of contemporary art, this year featuring works made during the last century, starting in 1960, in dialogue with recent production.

In their words: “20/20: a year like a century. Perhaps the true end of the 1900s, twenty years late. A year like a loose leaf, marking a pause. A stopping point. In Torino as in New York, Berlin as in Johannesburg. An elastic time. A mutable time. A time that can be modified. A binding time. A time of freedom. In this context, the section Back to the Future 2021 will explore the historic creations of various artists with different backgrounds, produced in the 20th century, juxtaposed with others made in recent years, until 2020. Artists who define a dilated dimension of the present with their personal approaches. A presumed present, predicated on a past world. A present that opens onto a new millennium”.

Disegni
The curatorial team of Disegni sees the entry this year of Lilou Vidal, an independent curator and editor based in Brussels and Torino, together with Bettina Steinbrügge, director of the Kunstverein of Hamburg and managing director of Kunstmeile Hamburg. Disegni is the section of Artissima that presents monographic projects on the most contemporary experimentation with the practice of drawing, originally associated with paper but now in a phase of transformation.

Internationally renowned for its focus on pioneering practices, and its role as a launch pad for up-and-coming artists and galleries, Artissima attracts a large audience of collectors, sector professionals and art lovers every year. With each edition, the fair welcomes curators, directors of art institutions and foundations, as well as the patrons of museums from all over the world who are involved in various ways in its programme.

The vitality of Artissima resonates throughout the city, thanks to the manymcultural projects produced in collaboration with public institutions, museums, foundations and galleries across the region. Artissima contributes to the growth of the Italian contemporary art market, stimulating and supporting collectors with an eye for innovation, and a continuously evolving critical and curatorial vision.

THE THEME OF THE 28TH EDITION
Artissima 2021 takes place at an anomalous moment in time, often perceived and defined as one of “suspension” and “standstill”, although it inexorably continues to produce new visions, ideas, ways of acting and reacting. The impact of this critical moment activates a change of pace that is manifested in the need to transform fragility into force through creative imagination. Hence the desire to dedicate the 28th edition of the fair to the concept of Controtempo. The idea of “countertime” comes from the world of music and is applied here as a metaphor of art’s ability to shift rhythmical accents, transforming weak beats into strong points and creating a contrast between voices. A dynamic impulse that generates new visual rhythms with the necessary timing and pauses, triggering syncopation and interstitial movement.

The fair is managed by Artissima srl, a company affiliated with Fondazione Torino Musei.

Image caption: Ozer Toraman, Joy of Summer 2, 2021, Oil on Canvas, 80 x 80 cm

Courtesy of Artissima 2021

Qatar Museums—Qatar’s preeminent institution for art and culture—will present a mid-career retrospective of the acclaimed American artist and designer, Virgil Abloh, at the Garage Gallery at the Fire Station. The first museum exhibition of his work to be presented in the Middle East, Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech will be on view until 31 March 2022. With more than 55 works, the exhibition will offer an in-depth look at Abloh’s diverse pioneering media practice that ranges from visual arts to music, fashion, architecture, and design. Figures of Speech is organised by Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, adapted for this presentation by Qatar Museums, and designed by and in collaboration with AMO. It is part of the Qatar-USA 2021 Year of Culture programme, an annual international cultural exchange designed to deepen understanding between nations and their people.

Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums, said: “We believe that people in Qatar and throughout the Gulf will be enthralled by this introduction to the visionary, barrier-defying work of artist and designer Virgil Abloh. We are especially thrilled that Figures of Speech will open during our week-long event Qatar Creates: Fashion and Design, which will bring together creative professionals from around the world in celebration of our local and regional talent. With both the exhibition and the event, Qatar Museums is carrying forward its commitment to nurturing artistic talent, opening career opportunities, and offering inspiration to our audiences.”

Sheikha Reem Al Thani, Acting Deputy CEO of Exhibitions & Marketing, said “We are looking forward to presenting Figures of Speech, which will trace Virgil Abloh’s inventive practice and his many achievements. This special exhibition, combined with an extensive programme of workshops and talks we have planned to complement it, is sure to inspire and engage our audiences.”

Virgil Abloh (American, b. 1980) cultivated an interest in design and music at an early age, inspired by the urban culture of Chicago. While pursuing a master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology, he met American musician Kanye West and joined West’s creative team to work on album covers, concert designs, and merchandising. In 2013 Abloh founded his stand-alone fashion brand Off-White™ in Milan, Italy, and in 2018 he assumed the position of Men’s Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton.

Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech was curated by the MCA’s former James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator, Michael Darling with creative direction from Virgil Abloh, and Samir Bantal, Director of AMO (the research studio of the acclaimed architecture firm OMA). Curatorial assistance was also provided by Chanon Kenji Praepipatmongkol, Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow at the MCA Chicago. This exhibition has been on view at the MCA Chicago (10 June – 29 September 2019), the High Museum of Art Atlanta (12 Nov 2019 – 8 Mar 2020) and is currently on view at the ICA Boston (through 26 September 2021).

Michael Darling stated, “The exhibition has been laid out and designed to be in dialogue with the dynamic spaces of the Fire Station. As a result, there are new resonances between artworks and visitors will see a refreshed and renewed exhibition.”

Through Abloh’s own work and many collaborations, Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech shows the complex universe of fashion, music, art and design he moves in, demonstrating his ability to fluently speak the language of each discipline. Transcending the idea of a discipline, Abloh’s work, since the initial show in Chicago, has grown to a continuous broadcast of creativity. The exhibition is designed to provide an overview of the disciplines, pivotal moments, and statements of one of the most important contemporary cultural phenomenons. The Fire Station provides a unique setting for the exhibition. Two large gallery spaces give the visitors the immersive experience to feel the variety of works, while the more intimate gallery 3 puts emphasis on the theme of race in Black Gaze. The outdoor courtyard connects all galleries and places some of Abloh’s works where they belong, in the city. The Doha edition of Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech contains the Inflatable Bouncy Castle as well as the never before exhibited Customized Mercedes G-Wagon. The exhibition design also repurposes a number of elements from Qatar Museums’ previous exhibitions, such as the LED ticker signs and steel grates minimizing waste.

As a continuation of the works in the galleries, a concept store uses one of Fire Station’s warehouse spaces as the ideal setting to browse the exhibition merchandise. The concept store features a retrospective of best-selling Off-White™ products and exclusive new collections inspired by the exhibition. The products are available in-store, on-site only.

Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech is sponsored by ExxonMobil, Qatar Airways, Astro Automotive Services, Mazaya Real Estate Development Company and Qatar-USA Year of Culture.

The exhibition is presented as part of the Qatar-United States 2021 Year of Culture, sponsored by ExxonMobil, which was formalized in September 2020 with a cooperative agreement between the State of Qatar and the United States of America during the 2020 Qatar-United States Strategic Dialogue in Washington, D.C.

Courtesy of Qatar Museums

Image caption: Installation view, Virgil Abloh: “Figures of Speech”, MCA Chicago. June – September, 2019. Work shown: Virgil Abloh, A Series of Events, 2019. Ceramics. Private Collection. Photo: Nathan Keay, ©MCA Chicago. Courtesy of The Gymnastics Art Institute & Virgil Abloh Art Studio and Design Practice. ©️ 2021.

On occasion of Downtown Design Dubai, Iwan Maktabi’s Research and Experimentation platform “Iwan Maktabi Lab” is taking over warehouse 32 at Alserkal Avenue with a series of exhibitions and cultural events.

Throughout the month of November, the Iwan Maktabi Lab will honour women in design. “Women in Design” is an exhibition showcasing an array of cc-tapis collections honouring avante-garde designers, an exhibition which puts to the forefront the research and ideas which are shaping the world of interiors. Designers who question traditional craftsmanship, and cultural production techniques, merging them with contemporary ideas.

Patricia Urquiola, Mae Engelgeer, Faye Toogood, Sabine Marcelis, Cristina Celestino, and Bethan Laura Wood’s latest works designed for cc-tapis will be on display.

Collections such as Paysage, Stroke, and Patcha as exhibited in Milan Design Week will be displayed for the first time in the Middle East. Allowing guests from all over the world to see, touch, and experience each piece.

Image caption: Cristina Celestino, Palazzo-Avino. Photo credits Davide Lovatti
Courtesy of Iwan Maktabi Lab and cc-tapis

Taking place 8-13 November, 2021, Dubai Design Week is an annual week-long festival celebrating design and creativity in the UAE and beyond through an extensive programme of free-to-attend exhibitions, installations, engaging activities and pop-ups, talks and workshops, accessible for visitors at all levels.

With a varied programme of 250+ activities staged at the festival’s main hub in Dubai Design District (d3) and around the city, visitors can enjoy a diverse line-up of impactful experiences;

Take a look into the future through a multi-media exhibition that will teleport us through the next 20 years of Dubai, and meet the brightest minds coming out of the region’s universities, showcasing ideas and solutions to improve our lives.
Discover the latest in international design trends, with 130+ leading brands and designers exhibiting at Downtown Design, the region’s largest fair for original and limited-edition design and find out who will be the rising stars through 30+ commissioned installations, pop ups and exhibitions in d3.

Participate in a series of over 80 hands-on workshops and masterclasses providing the opportunity to experiment with a wide range of activities and attend the daily talks programme featuring regional and international industry leaders exploring topics related to the rapidly evolving design landscape.

Meet the region’s artisans, creatives and small businesses offering a curated selection of original and high-quality products at the weekend outdoor market and bring the kids for a host of activities from pottery to tree planting.

With a key focus on supporting the creative community in Lebanon this year, rising and established Lebanese design talent will be highlighted throughout the festival’s programme; from architectural installations and product design, to artisanal Lebanese delicacies at The Marketplace and outdoor music sessions.

Download the Dubai Design Week app to discover the whole programme, register for Downtown Design and be kept updated on the latest health and safety guidelines.

Dubai Design Week is owned and managed by the Art Dubai Group, and is held under the dedicated patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairperson of Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (DCAA). It is in strategic partnership with Dubai Design District (d3), and supported by Dubai Culture & Arts Authority and A.R.M. Holding.

Image caption: Athenaeum, By Ana Carreras for Mirage/Lever

Courtesy of Dubai Design Week

Mazen Rifai is a Beirut-based painter and architect born in Baalbeck, 1957. He holds a degree in interior architecture from the Lebanese University, Beirut and a degree in Fine Arts from the Academia de Macerta, Italy. He was a professor of fine arts and the head of its department at the Lebanese University from 1987 till 1993. Rifai is an art director at “Engineers, Consulting & Contracting”, an engineering and architecture firm that has been open since 1990.

He has participated in numerous editions of Sursock Museum’s Salon d’Automne starting in 1974. Since 1981, he has held several solo exhibitions in Beirut and Paris. These shows were displayed at Epreuve d’artiste, Galerie Rochane, Galerie Aida Cherfan, Gallery 6, and Agial Art Gallery, Galerie 34 Bonaparte, and Galerie Alex Menem.
In 1984, he contributed to the Beirut Central District Reconstruction Plan with Oger Liban. He is a member of the Baalbeck International Festival Committee.
Rifai has published two books: Baalbeck in Black and White with Dar Al-Nahar in 2007, Baalbeck 1981-2011 with Fine Arts Publishing in 2011.

Image caption: Mazen Rifa, untitled, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 80 cm.

Courtesy of Agial Art Gallery

Mark Hachem Gallery presents a solo show by photographer Roger Moukarzel, entitled ‘PIECES’. The exhibititon is a tribute to the victims of the Beirut blast.

On August 4 at 18:08, Beirut was torn apart by an indescribable double explosion with the most deafening sound.

As a war photographer and before even grasping what had occurred, Roger grabbed his camera and ran to the streets.

The blast, its sound and the destruction it had caused were incomparable to anything that the artist had lived or witnessed. He could not believe his eyes. As he wandered amid the chaos, he realised just how lucky he was to still be alive.

At that moment, appalled by the immensity of the tragedy, he was unable to take any pictures. His body simply refused to do so, and it wasn’t until much later that he was able to go back on site…

‘Pieces’ is a tribute to the two hundred victims of the Beirut blast; two hundred pictures of debris collected on site in tribute to the two hundred victims, with thirteen extra pictures taken on ground zero of exploded containers, as a testimony to the deadliness of the event.

The show opens on the 9th of November at Mark Hachem Gallery, Paris, and will be on display until November 24, 2021.

Image caption: Roger Moukarzel, Untitled, 2020. Dibond, 28.5 × 38 cm. Edition of 5 + 2AP. Courtesy of the gallery.

Courtesy of Mark Hachem Gallery

This three-month exhibition marks Abla’s fifth solo show with Tabari Artspace. Channelling Abla’s unique optimism the aim of this presentation is to capture imaginations and unite generations through the artist’s mesmeric world.

The body of work comprises a selection of mixed media collages, in varying scale, that orbit around the spirit and healing properties of plant life, particularly the cactus. Abla dislodges the cactus from its geographic fixtures and unleashes it into new otherworldly realms. For Abla the cactus is both a source of healing energy and a mythical entity, it spirals out from the desert, breaking away from traditional colour codes and structures into surreal and unexpected settings. In Earthly Treasures, the cactus, morphing into fluid forms, glows against the night sky and appears from the bottom of the ocean ushering into question: “What planet are we on?”

While desert and the sandstone dominate the palette of much of the built and lived environment in the MENA region Abla, who is known for his joyful and vibrant compositions has fuelled the cactus with a powerful psychedelic palette and rich textures in order to transcend it into a higher frequency. He has reimagined the prickly exterior of the cactus, instead packing it with bountiful pink blooms and stars shooting into the stratosphere. Through his manipulations, he transcends these plants into a state of higher consciousness where they become soulful beings that dance, move and interact with one another.

While travelling the Silk Road route to draw inspiration for a previous body of work, The Silk Road series (2017) Abla encountered an ancient marbling technique in Turkey, erbu marbling, which he subsequently absorbed into his practice. Uniting his appreciation for ancient cultural practices and the contemporary, in several pieces Abla has charged layers of silk paper with this historic approach to marbling which are then reconfigured through his personal approach to collage and combined with slices of colour in oil paint and acrylic.

Image caption: Mohamed Abla, Earthly Treasures 2, 2021. Collage and Mixed Media on Canvas, 120 x 140 cm. Copyright The Artist.

Courtesy of Tabari Artspace

We are particularly happy to see you again this year, for the 24th edition of Paris Photo, at last! This year is special in more ways than one: a new venue, the Grand Palais Ephémère, an eco-responsible building at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, a new digital platform offering additional accessibility to works of art for collectors and enthusiasts, regardless of where they may be in the world, and a new impetus for Paris, the cradle of photography, thanks to our institutions and a burgeoning arts scene.

This year, Paris Photo brings together 147 galler