Event Type : Agenda

“This Place We Call World”, Istanbul Modern’s exhibition, showcases the oeuvre of Selma Gürbüz over the past thirty five years through the framework of a number of themes.

Taking inspiration from the world we live in and merging it with her own fantasy world, Selma Gürbüz creates a mysterious and colorful world in which symbols and stories regarding humanity, nature and life come alive. Centering on works never before exhibited, “This Place We Call World” presents Selma Gürbüz’s elaborately crafted works woven with myths, legends and fairy tales. Ranging from paintings to installations, drawings, videos and sculptures, the exhibition includes more than a hundred works by the artist.

Selma Gürbüz’s human-animal hybrid entities, her genderless figures defined by black shadows that she frequently uses in her works and that seem to belong to another world, and her depictions of plants and animals, which evoke the feeling of being taken from an ambiguous cross-section of nature, create a mischievous, playful and unique artistic style when combined with her rich imagination. The artist shares the dreams, fears, inner journeys, and themes of life and death found in our collective memory as she narrates different stories in her works; this way, she urges us to face these thoughts and overcome them.

In her art practice, Gürbüz incorporates elements that belong to both Eastern and Western culture and develops uncanny relationships between them by masterfully merging issues and techniques from these two diverse cultures. While building a connection with miniatures from Iran, India and Turkey; and art of the Far East, she also utilises elements from Western painting, with which she is very familiar. The artist’s oil paintings on canvas; her application of ink on handmade paper since the 1980s; and her optical illusions and light and shadow plays, which she produces using a special color palette, give life to symbols, figures, patterns and motifs that open the gates to a world between dreams and reality. The artist produces her works with a breathing technique she has been practicing for many years and likens this creative process to a meditation session in which she dissolves into the painting and becomes a part of it.

Selma Gürbüz invites the audience into her world, where human and animal figures are depicted in an inseparable union. The works she painted after her trip to Africa visualise the intersecting lives of humans and animals in the generous, warm and sometimes menacing nature of this continent. The Oshun statue, which is named after a river in Nigeria and has the same characteristics as Cybele, the goddess of fertility in Anatolia, conveys feelings associated with nature such as fertility, purity, beauty, love and providing shelter. Dancing skeletons, timeless creatures, humanised depictions of nature appear in works about death, survival, sickness and healing—each a part of the life cycle—in which the subconscious manifestations of these themes are visualised.

“This Place We Call World” is more than an exhibition. It is a visual encyclopedia that takes shape through the distillation of Selma Gürbüz’s artistic production refined over the years. Although the works seem detached from the reality of our world, they depict life, the passage of time, and the state of people in this cycle. The viewer experiences an uncanny yet pleasant sense of departure once among the depictions of this visual encyclopedia and its delicious and surprising stories.

Curator: Öykü Özsoy

Assistant Curator: Nilay Dursun

Courtesy of The Istanbul Museum of Modern Art.

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)

Forum Gallery presents its first exhibition of works by Claudio Bravo (1936 – 2011), whose estate the Gallery now represents. The exhibition of paintings, pastels and drawings includes works exhibited publicly for the first time in the United States.

In his catalogue essay, Art in America contributing editor David Ebony writes, “Gifted with technical virtuosity, Bravo commands a seemingly effortless sleight-of-hand to enthrall viewers in unexpected ways. Like a modern-day alchemist, he manages to transform everyday objects and ordinary subjects into something inimitable, rarified and extraordinary. Even his most austere and nearly abstract compositions can inspire awe in their transcendental allure”.

Claudio Bravo was a painter of colour and light. It was the extraordinary light of Morocco that drew Bravo to the country where he lived from 1972 until his passing in 2011. He used this light to propel his art, rendering, in his still life paintings, objects from his own collections and his everyday life that he carefully arranged in the light to focus on their enigmatic meaning. His gift for economy and nuance served his interest in evoking an emotional response rather than creating a mere depiction. In the Forum Gallery exhibition, Moroccan Fans, 1994; Ritual Stones, 1997; Camel and Lamb Skins, 2004; and Yellow Marjana, 2008; are imbued with the harmonious colour and spectacular light that set Claudio Bravo’s still lifes apart.

Inspired by the paintings of Mark Rothko and Antoni Tàpies, Claudio Bravo began painting the palpable textures and subtle colours of paper and fabric in the early 1960’s, and these subjects became the best-known of his works, remaining popular throughout the world during his lifetime and beyond. The exhibition includes Three Aluminum Papers, 2010, and Red Cloth, 2011, Claudio Bravo’s last completed painting, a majestic, luxurious work over six feet tall, to be exhibited for the first time.

The earliest painting in the Forum Gallery exhibition is the haunting Nude Male Leaning on Column, 1979, recalling the Artist’s stay in New York City from 1969 to 1972. An important example of Bravo’s figurative mastery, the silent, ethereal drama in this work is emblematic of Claudio Bravo, who said he owed much to Velázquez.

Often celebrated as a consummate draughtsman, Claudio Bravo worked on paper as well as canvas throughout his career, and his pastels and drawings are among his most sensitive works. The shimmering colour of the pastels and the depth and beauty of the drawings in the exhibition are exemplified by the pastels Green Sofa, 1991, and Opening the Door, 1991, and the drawings Two Heads and Hands, 1983, and Said, 1995, as well as the rare still life drawing of Engines, 2008.

Claudio Bravo was recognised with fourteen one-person museum exhibitions in the US, Chile, Mexico and France during his lifetime. His works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago; the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany, the Museum Boijmans Van Beurugen, Rotterdam, Netherlands; and many more throughout the world. Claudio Bravo was chosen to represent Chile in the Venice Biennale in 2007.

Courtesy of Forum Gallery NY

Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Brussels is honoured to present the new solo exhibition Black Fruit by Lu Chao after Black Light, in 2016, which took place at the Parisian gallery.

London-based Chinese artist Lu Chao (b. 1988) studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing (China) until 2012. Under the tutorship of the internationally renowned realist painter Liu Xiaodong, the artist learned to connect one’s art practice to real life. Lu Chao continued his studies at the Painting Department at the Royal College of Art in London (UK), where he graduated in 2014 and received the Painter-Stainers Goron Luton Award. Being a London-resident for seven years now, the artist divides his time between London and Beijing.

Lu Chao’s work is best known for his large-scale black oil paintings depicting miniature crowds of people in surreal settings. The artist consistently portrays a crowd to question the relationship between the individual and his environment that underlies man’s insignificance in relation to the vastness of our universe, the great unknown. Through poetic renders, Lu Chao evokes a void to interrogate these existential philosophical topics, embedded in the Chinese Zen Buddhism where emptiness does not stand for ‘nothingness’, but on the contrary means ‘everything that we cannot see’.

In the new body of work Black Fruit the mysterious is ever present. In sixteen compositions crowds are represented in the form of fruits, cakes, chemical particles or as funambulists creating a fantastical imagery. When viewed up close, the facial expressions of the many small-sized figures reveal both the resilience and the many upheavals experienced by humanity.

The solemn use of ‘ivory black’ paint in his artistic practice is inspired by the historical Chinese landscape paintings of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, where the artists used only black ink to create an alternating play of light and hues that was considered as ‘colours’. This tonality in black gives structure to the image. In it, Lu Chao is constantly exploring new ways to expand his graphic and technical possibilities in his chosen visual language.

The largest painting in the show Dark Energy No.4 (2020) bears witness to the influence of traditional Chinese ink painting and the artist’s play with scale, in particular the dark vast landscape with what appears to be a giant ‘’Penjing” bonsai tree in the forefront completely eclipsing the ant-sized figures on the grounds. Inspired by Taoism, with its belief in the power of nature, this scene attempts to represent the dark energy that surrounds us and still eludes our comprehension, to bring to the fore the unconscious reality of humanity.

A great admirer of Chinese philosophy, Lu Chao has also immersed himself in Western ideology since moving to London in 2013, supplemented by visits to exhibitions by his favorite Western masters, notably Rembrandt, Lucian Freud, Goya and Francis Bacon.

Works such as the depicted ruin in Relic No.7 (2020) or the apocalyptic scene of Circulation No.2 (2020) are inspired by the European Romanticism, while the work Babel (2020) makes a direct allusion to the Tower of Babel by the Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder which evokes the sin of hubris. 
Moreover, his work has affinities with modern human science, such as in the Funambulist series reminiscent of the string figures of the American theorist Donna Haraway, where the dynamics of thought are stimulated to produce new connections and alliances.

Despite the artist’s oath to solemnly use black paint in his artistic practice, Lu Chao includes in every exhibition a work of colour. In this show three works have been composed in Van Gogh’s blue. Strongly influenced by Vincent van Gogh’s painting Almond Blossoms (1890), Lu Chao used a similar light blue to convey a kind of awakening and beauty. The large work entitled Black Fruit (2020) is completely covered in shades of blue, highlighting the intriguing subject of tree branches producing bodiless heads as fruits.

Interested in the enigmatic meaning of human life, Lu Chao’s paintings are like uncanny dreams that reflect on human existence. Dominated by an increasingly daring use of black, the artist creates a body of work where content and form go hand in hand, each reinforcing. The artist’s work goes beyond a mere amalgamation of Chinese and Western codes, which are much more complex and sophisticated in their tendency to raise multiple questions, both philosophical and socio-cultural.

“The Black Fruit is the 7th solo exhibition in black series after Black Forest, 2013, Black Mirror, 2015, Black Light, 2016, Black Box, 2017, Black Silence, 2017, Black Dots, 2019. One of the clues that clearly connects all the exhibitions is “Ivory black”. The possibility of black dots is infinite. If the black dot is considered as a seed, the black fruit will breed from there. The fruit has different life cycles and different tastes, which metaphors human beings ourselves. Every moment affects our emotions, just like the taste of fruit, we can feel soft, hard, juicy, dry, sweet, sour, bitter, astringent… Above all, the fruit is not always sweet, but a complex. The fruit has a life cycle. It comes, breeds, and goes. When life comes to an end, glory disappears. “

Lu Chao, October 2020

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

Ishara Art Foundation is pleased to present Growing Like A Tree curated by Sohrab Hura, an exhibition that looks at regional histories of image-making through a visual and sonic excavation of place, memory and culture.

Growing Like A Tree represents many firsts for the Ishara Art Foundation. This exhibition marks Sohrab Hura’s inaugural curatorial project as a photographer and filmmaker along with the presentation of several artists and collectives never before shown institutionally in a regional and international context. The exhibition will be on view at Ishara Art Foundation from 20 January 2021 to 20 May 2021.

Hura’s individual and collective journeys through photography and moving image over the years have presented both a form of rooting and uprooting of places as markers of identity. Through this exhibition, he maps a network of past and present collaborators with 14 artists and collectives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Germany, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Singapore, seeking to expand the framework of boundaries set out by the geographical context of South Asia. Together they create a space where multiple voices and experiences are brought into dialogue with one another, capturing dualities in which organic growth is matched with resource extraction, the archival is juxtaposed with the contemporary, and the magic of the mundane is seen through children’s eyes.

Referencing the interconnected spheres of contemporary artistic practice, this show considers photography as a locus in an expanded field of art that includes videos, books and sound installations. In Hura’s own words, “What I’ve been seeing over the years are collective flows in terms of movement and exchange of photographers across political, geographical and cultural boundaries. An osmosis-like relationship with photographers across borders has started to seep through with each one searching for new ways to grow as artists and having at stake something in common that is far more urgent than photography.”
The artists represented in this exhibition tackle themes of changing cities, collective memory, the environment, public spaces and the archive through works that sit at the intersection of documentary and fiction, image and object. The notion of what forms a community emerges in this show as demonstrated in Sean Lee’s photo-montage where fingers rise from the soil like a forest of saplings.

The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Anjali House, Bunu Dhungana, Farah Mulla, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Katrin Koenning, Munem Wasif, Nida Mehboob, Nepal Picture Library, Reetu Sattar, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, Sean Lee, and Yu Yu Myint Than, along with site-specific interventions by Sohrab Hura.

Growing Like A Tree will be accompanied by physical and virtual tours, educational and public online programmes, newly commissioned artist texts and artist conversations over the duration of the show.

Ishara Art Foundation is presented in partnership with Alserkal Avenue.

Courtesy of Ishara Art Foundation

In pursuit of utopia, one might never arrive at the destination, although could get close to it. The perfect place keeps running away further ahead like a shadow running from its owner. Utopia might be an impossible imaginary situation that will not necessary materialise fully, yet it stays central to dreaming, since our utopian thinking fuels the pursuit of our dreams that keeps us alive with motives to realise them. The word utopia comes with a certain criticality as it can voice dissatisfaction with the status quo and/or holds a vision of the future that differs in at least some aspects from the present. It is in this sense that Nabil Anani sees Palestine: a prosperous thriving place free from occupation; a land that takes pride in its nature and parades it jubilantly; a dream worth to pursuit.

In Pursuit of Utopia, the Palestinian landscape is presented without any disruptions; a perfect manicured landscape, that is well tended. Anani paints the picturesque hills of Palestine without the ever increasing Israeli settlements, bypass roads, roadblocks, walls and watch towers that are normally visible in every corner. He creates the Palestine of his dreams, a utopia inspired by his memories as a child growing up on the hills of Halhoul.

Anani’s work stems from his fascination with the Palestinian landscape and rural life, which are subjects that he has addressed throughout his artistic journey. In this series of work, one can rarely spot a human or their shadow, for the primary focus remains on the aesthetic of the place, giving the audience the chance to ponder and appreciate the scenic terrain.

Olive groves, cypress trees and wheat fields dot the hills and horizon as if embroidered patterns. The canvases are divided with horizontal lines and spaces inspired by the ancient terraces separating the fields, conveying a panoramic perspective and a rural ambiance.

Experimentation with different media and using strong vibrant colours remain methods that distinguish Anani’s style. In this series, he uses mixed natural media, such as straw, spices and herbs that vary in colour and texture in addition to dry flowers and plants, resulting in a distinct surfaces and vibrant array of smells.

In this exhibition, Anani chases a utopia that resides in the imagination of all Palestinians whether dispossessed from their lands forcefully, confined in small restricted areas or prevented to access different parts of their homeland. Whether he attempts to capture a moment in the future or protest at the brutal Israeli destruction of the land and the livelihood of its people, Anani offers a vision of a better future; a dream of an ideal Palestine worthy of pursuing.

Courtesy of Zawyeh Gallery.

Carbon 12 is enthusiastic to announce the group exhibition, À Bout de Souffle.

The exhibition includes artworks from artists Omar Barquet, Olaf Breuning, André Butzer, Gil Heitor Cortesão, Jojo Gronostay, Michael Sailstorfer, Sara Rahbar and Anahita Razmi.

We spend no time in between reminiscing and disremembering. With sights set towards the immediate future, we relinquish all notion of the present. Never remaining within the stillness of a moment. À Bout de Souffle (‘breathless’) is an exhibition that occurs and unfolds as a deconstruction of one, fleeting moment. In isolating a cinematic still, our feet grounded, the exhibition seamlessly flits in and out of the present moment, encouraging us to absorb, and to release.

As a bubble expands in size, with its iridescent walls shifting in endless lucid colours, the ever-growing anticipation of being suspended in tension only grows – the artworks from the exhibition drift between various states of calm and calamity. Jojo Gronostay’s artwork frames the hand of a street vendor, barely grasping ropes connected to blankets that serve as displays for fake designer products. Through capturing a transient state, a moment in transit, he juxtaposes conflicting elements of calm and chaos.

Anahita Razmi’s video installation focuses on hand movements and technological devices, composing a new choreography using stock footage videos of scrolling hands and fingers. Razmi explores and searches for new ways of navigation by reframing these gestures or motions that are seemingly intuitive and internalised by applying a new “non-fitting”, “exotic”, sonic connection to them. Razmi draws a relation to musical instruments – tapping, plucking, scrolling: How are we touching a touch screen? How are we touching a drum or a string instrument?

Witnessing a scene unravel and spiral out of control before you. A buildup becomes a knot in your stomach, not untangling. Almost dangling, Omar Barquet’s sculptural work hangs in a corner, suspended by a delicate thread. The pristine nature of the object, with its sharp, sweeping curves as a harsh contrast to its materially reflective surface, builds an almost palpable tension with its most subtle swaying. This tension only just escapes us – from its striking resemblance to that of a guillotine, to the elegance of its own movement.

Sara Rahbar’s War series (2008-2010) is a reflection on the global sociopolitical context of our times. Her textile-based assemblage, overridden with predominantly military objects – bullets, pickaxes, horse bridles – their brusque material portions splayed and sectioned in a surgical manner. Their arrangement translates an inherent, deep-seated feeling of dread, tightly bundled together and yet, vividly exposed.

Within André Butzer’s N-Paintings (2010–2017), he focuses on a gradual intensification of pictorial means. “N” is an imaginary destination, wherein he encapsulates the concept of a non-place that resides as a frequency on the edge of annihilation. Emphasised by an interstice placed in relation to a plane full of colour, which Butzer explores to the maximum of its potential. The hue of dark light, as Butzer states, inhabits the plane so that the painting itself transforms into a source of light.

Caught in the continuous process of grasping and holding on to fear and tension, we must move on to the search for some semblance of light. Like tense posture and shoulders rigid, the act of exhaling is the final preparation for yet another state: calm. Gil Heitor Cortesão’s painting emanates a melancholy stillness, whilst simultaneously pulling the viewer into its surreal environment. Through his reverse-glass painting technique, Cortesão adds layers to the painting – despite its tranquility, the ambience suggests a slow approaching turbulence, a slow brewing darkness.

Michael Sailstorfer’s salt sculpture, titled I can hear you, is composed entirely of salt – when exposed to the elements, the salt undergoes a transformational process and disintegrates. The erosion process alludes to the very transience of nature, and harkens back to the essence of it all – to draw in a breath of air, and let go of it.

In hopes of going with the constant ebb and flow of daily life, in hopes of returning to regular cycles and systematic processes, we move forward – despite our own halting doubts and litany of questions. In this vein, Olaf Breuning’s humour is the forefront of his artistic practice, wherein his photographic work contains group of people have been transformed into expressionless objects, wearing only wearing paper bags over their heads and cardboard boxes on their hands, feet and torsos. Seeming to question their current predicament of being specifically arranged beside one another, they return to the situation at hand – why, in fact, are they there, with letters on their chests?

Breuning calls the bigger picture to mind through the title of the work itself: Can someone tell us why we are here?

Courtesy of Carbon 12

Ayyam Gallery is pleased to present Can You Keep a Secret? A solo exhibition featuring a new body of work by Afshin Pirhashemi.

In Afshin Pirhashemi’s work, black is symbol for the power that cloaks femininity, truth, militancy and a worldview in which the stakes are high. His monochrome register never loses its dimensionality, although primary colours have begun to seep in, as well as the sheen of poetic fragments.

The iconic women that populate Pirhashemi’s paintings like alter-egos – a recurring motif – are both alluring and forbidding, multiple and individual yet in this latest series, they have come into their own. Layered with different texts, their outlines stream into colours and forms, evading absolute capture. At times, they seem familiar, symbolic of the film industry and popular culture. Other times, they are imaginative – superheroes conjured by the artist. Often they appear as real characters, raw and terrifying. They bleed and write confessional texts. Both violence and seduction are always implicit in Pirhashemi’s paintings except this time, a vulnerability manifests, deepening his photorealistic approach and inciting untold stories.

Pirhashemi’s painterly strokes have evolved from precise figuration to transformation as his latest diptychs and triptychs evidence different takes on what could be the same image – drafts on the concept of negative and positive space. Perhaps this is what Pirhashemi draws from Pop art: the idea that within endless reproduction, change exists through an artistic imprint. This is where Afshin Pirhashemi differs from the long line of artists fascinated with the Coca-Cola bottle after Andy Warhol, and the level of intrigue embedded in this symbol of Americana.

His Coca Cola is never rendered in exactly the same way. Largely reduced to its classic, unchanging and ever-recognisable logo, Coca Cola is indicative of a certain opacity – its recipe for the past four decades kept a closely guarded secret – and yet it represents a brand that has inspired so many knock-offs and imitations.

Other American iconographies such as the flag and The White House remain as backdrops in this show – so does Coco Cola, except in one work, where it is foregrounded. Inside, a woman covers her eyes and there are painted tears that hint at ruptures in the painting. If the bottle reminds Pirhashemi of better times in Tehran, he also alludes to its sense of mystery, compulsion, duality, signs of global hegemony and the East- West divide.

Pirhashemi is a process-driven artist who works in series of paintings, depicting extremes and creating narrative environments of oppositions, where struggle and strength are made manifest. But he is also showcasing a certain abstract Romanticism, such as in his two crimson landscape paintings of cascading movement, female apparitions, disguise and reflection. As he continues to reinvent himself, his tableaux are dramatic vignettes that unravel in a palimpsest of past and present where more is revealed, and less is known.

Courtesy of Ayyam Gallery.

Nebokeru is the first solo presentation of Stelios Kallinikou at Grey Noise, Dubai.

Stelios Kallinikou approaches photography as a spatially performative act. An archaeologist by training, he is interested in unearthing narratives of spaces which lie beyond words. He presents us with sequences of imagery, flowing into interlaced dialogues, whilst exploring the nexus between the narrative limitations of photography and consciousness. The photographic effect known as Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”. The term comes from the Japanese word boke, which means “blur” or “haze”, or boke-aji, meaning “blur quality”.

The exhibition title is derived from the Japanese verb Nebokeru denoting the actions or condition of someone who is half-asleep. Images appear mythological and archeologically proto-human, connecting something primordial to the present by way of narrativising the body’s connection with the earth. In an introspective, meditative pace, Kallinikou brings works together constructing a world serving as a speculative scenario, through which he can better envisage his relationship to politics of vision, challenging the ways in which such mechanisms influence our experience.

Courtesy of Grey Noise Gallery

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.

Sabrina Amrani is pleased to present FloodZone, Anastasia Samoylova‘s first exhibition in Spain. The title of the show is borrowed from her eponymous project started in 2016, a photographic series in which the artist seeks to respond to the environmental changes on coastal cities of South Florida.

The project is built upon a set of interrelated paradoxes: the seductive and destructive dissonance between the official iconography of the region, comprised by tourist and real estate advertising, and the stark daily realities of climate change; the ways of landscape and the sense of place are at once natural and constructed; and the way photography both records and crafts perception.

Although the project was prompted by the effects of a major hurricane, FloodZone avoids the over-familiar media imagery of ruin and disaster. Instead, there are photographs of the saturated topography, portraits of locals, and close-up observations of architecture, abundant flora and fauna. Samoylova’s images provide a broad yet acute perspective on what it feels like to live in at-risk areas while economic forces instill a sense of denial and disavowal. Her subject is the precarious psychological state experienced by those living in a paradise sinking towards catastrophe.

By playing self-consciously with the familiar motifs and palette of the region, her photographs work as complex allegories. They pick out scenes, situations and details that compress multiple meanings and implications, bringing to the surface the many ways in which the fate and self-understanding of South Florida is bound up with its self-image. Photography is key in the making and remaking of collective memories and imagined geographies. FloodZone is a contemplation of this, at a moment of significant transition.

Floodzone has been featured in key publications as The New Yorker, Artforum and El País. The project is completed with a book, that was published by Steidl in 2019.

Courtesy of Sabrina Amrani

Pi Artworks Istanbul is presenting Iz Oztat’s second solo exhibition Watercolour on Paper. Oztat’s previous solo exhibition at the gallery titled Suspended, which received critical acclaim internationally, took place in 2019, during the 16th Istanbul Biennial.

The exhibition brings together a selection from the watercolour series In the Rivers North of the Future (2014-2017), Pleasure/Sizzle (2018-2019) and April Diary (2020), along with the video titled Recounting Nightmares to Running Water (2015), which is based on a series of watercolours. Since 2014, Oztat’s watercolour works accompany the artist’s research processes like a diary; bearing abstract traces of their transient making, as well as the contexts with which they are associated.

Although her work is dependent on the context within which it is produced, Oztat regularly revisits certain subjects: convergence of water and freedom, return of the suppressed past in the present and potentials of fiction in constructing historical narratives and ideological implications of display.

Iz Oztat started working with watercolours during her research on the struggles against the construction of run-of-the-river hydroelectric power plants to let the rivers flow free. The watercolour series In the Rivers North of the Future was made during her articulation of the desire for rivers and expression to flow freely, in relation to the political and economic conditions that prevent such flows. During this process, Oztat worked with a colour palette of blue, red and black, which she associated with the subject matter at hand. Oztat’s video Recounting Nightmares to Running Water was also produced in this period, departing from the Anatolian folk belief that nightmares flow away as they are described to running water. The watercolours flowing horizontally in the video are accompanied by a narrative that begins with a shamanic ritual initiated by reciting the names of rivers and moves through various states of consciousness in an attempt to resist drought.

Pleasure/Sizzle watercolour series was made during the research process of Oztat’s solo exhibition Suspended at Pi Artworks Istanbul in 2019, bearing traces of mourning, pain and pleasure. The sculptures in the exhibition, which appealed to the skin, were also utilised by the artist to caress, cut, scratch and fray the surface of the paper in the making of her watercolours.

Oztat’s April Diary series, made during the quarantine experienced on a global scale in 2020, accompanied her research relating the current circumstances to crystallisation. This process culminated in the video Confused Examination Under Given Circumstances (2020), where some of the watercolours from the series appear.

Watercolour on Paper brings together watercolours from distinct periods of for the first time and reveals a different dimension of Iz Oztat’s practice. Some of the watercolours previously appeared in various exhibitions and contexts: A selection from the series In the Rivers North of the Future was exhibited at the 14th Istanbul Biennial Salt Water: A Theory on Thought Forms in 2015. The video Recounting Nightmares to Running Water, produced as part of the exhibition organised by The Moving Museum in Istanbul in 2015, was shown in the lecture-performance, at the end of which the watercolours of nightmares were gifted to the audience, and was screened at the symposium titled Testimony as Environment: Violence, Aesthetics, Agency organised at the London School of Economics in 2019. The book titled Haz/Cızz [Pleasure/Sizzle], published by Yapi Kredi Publications in 2020, features the correspondence between curator Bige Orer and Iz Oztat, along with their conversation following the exhibition Suspended, and includes a selection of watercolours shown in the Watercolour on Paper exhibition. The video Confused Examination Under Given Circumstances is on view as part of the group exhibition titled Crystal Clear at Pera Museum in Istanbul until the 7th of March, 2021. In the exhibition catalogue, Bruno Latour’s text titled What Protective Measures Can You Think of So We Don’t Go Back to the Pre-crisis Production Model? is accompanied by a selection of watercolours from Oztat’s April Diary.

Courtesy of Pi Artworks.

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

Ishara Art Foundation is pleased to present Growing Like A Tree curated by Sohrab Hura, an exhibition that looks at regional histories of image-making through a visual and sonic excavation of place, memory and culture.

Growing Like A Tree represents many firsts for the Ishara Art Foundation. This exhibition marks Sohrab Hura’s inaugural curatorial project as a photographer and filmmaker along with the presentation of several artists and collectives never before shown institutionally in a regional and international context. The exhibition will be on view at Ishara Art Foundation from 20 January 2021 to 20 May 2021.

Hura’s individual and collective journeys through photography and moving image over the years have presented both a form of rooting and uprooting of places as markers of identity. Through this exhibition, he maps a network of past and present collaborators with 14 artists and collectives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Germany, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Singapore, seeking to expand the framework of boundaries set out by the geographical context of South Asia. Together they create a space where multiple voices and experiences are brought into dialogue with one another, capturing dualities in which organic growth is matched with resource extraction, the archival is juxtaposed with the contemporary, and the magic of the mundane is seen through children’s eyes.

Referencing the interconnected spheres of contemporary artistic practice, this show considers photography as a locus in an expanded field of art that includes videos, books and sound installations. In Hura’s own words, “What I’ve been seeing over the years are collective flows in terms of movement and exchange of photographers across political, geographical and cultural boundaries. An osmosis-like relationship with photographers across borders has started to seep through with each one searching for new ways to grow as artists and having at stake something in common that is far more urgent than photography.”
The artists represented in this exhibition tackle themes of changing cities, collective memory, the environment, public spaces and the archive through works that sit at the intersection of documentary and fiction, image and object. The notion of what forms a community emerges in this show as demonstrated in Sean Lee’s photo-montage where fingers rise from the soil like a forest of saplings.

The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Anjali House, Bunu Dhungana, Farah Mulla, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Katrin Koenning, Munem Wasif, Nida Mehboob, Nepal Picture Library, Reetu Sattar, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, Sean Lee, and Yu Yu Myint Than, along with site-specific interventions by Sohrab Hura.

Growing Like A Tree will be accompanied by physical and virtual tours, educational and public online programmes, newly commissioned artist texts and artist conversations over the duration of the show.

Ishara Art Foundation is presented in partnership with Alserkal Avenue.

Courtesy of Ishara Art Foundation

In pursuit of utopia, one might never arrive at the destination, although could get close to it. The perfect place keeps running away further ahead like a shadow running from its owner. Utopia might be an impossible imaginary situation that will not necessary materialise fully, yet it stays central to dreaming, since our utopian thinking fuels the pursuit of our dreams that keeps us alive with motives to realise them. The word utopia comes with a certain criticality as it can voice dissatisfaction with the status quo and/or holds a vision of the future that differs in at least some aspects from the present. It is in this sense that Nabil Anani sees Palestine: a prosperous thriving place free from occupation; a land that takes pride in its nature and parades it jubilantly; a dream worth to pursuit.

In Pursuit of Utopia, the Palestinian landscape is presented without any disruptions; a perfect manicured landscape, that is well tended. Anani paints the picturesque hills of Palestine without the ever increasing Israeli settlements, bypass roads, roadblocks, walls and watch towers that are normally visible in every corner. He creates the Palestine of his dreams, a utopia inspired by his memories as a child growing up on the hills of Halhoul.

Anani’s work stems from his fascination with the Palestinian landscape and rural life, which are subjects that he has addressed throughout his artistic journey. In this series of work, one can rarely spot a human or their shadow, for the primary focus remains on the aesthetic of the place, giving the audience the chance to ponder and appreciate the scenic terrain.

Olive groves, cypress trees and wheat fields dot the hills and horizon as if embroidered patterns. The canvases are divided with horizontal lines and spaces inspired by the ancient terraces separating the fields, conveying a panoramic perspective and a rural ambiance.

Experimentation with different media and using strong vibrant colours remain methods that distinguish Anani’s style. In this series, he uses mixed natural media, such as straw, spices and herbs that vary in colour and texture in addition to dry flowers and plants, resulting in a distinct surfaces and vibrant array of smells.

In this exhibition, Anani chases a utopia that resides in the imagination of all Palestinians whether dispossessed from their lands forcefully, confined in small restricted areas or prevented to access different parts of their homeland. Whether he attempts to capture a moment in the future or protest at the brutal Israeli destruction of the land and the livelihood of its people, Anani offers a vision of a better future; a dream of an ideal Palestine worthy of pursuing.

Courtesy of Zawyeh Gallery.

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

Sabrina Amrani is pleased to present FloodZone, Anastasia Samoylova‘s first exhibition in Spain. The title of the show is borrowed from her eponymous project started in 2016, a photographic series in which the artist seeks to respond to the environmental changes on coastal cities of South Florida.

The project is built upon a set of interrelated paradoxes: the seductive and destructive dissonance between the official iconography of the region, comprised by tourist and real estate advertising, and the stark daily realities of climate change; the ways of landscape and the sense of place are at once natural and constructed; and the way photography both records and crafts perception.

Although the project was prompted by the effects of a major hurricane, FloodZone avoids the over-familiar media imagery of ruin and disaster. Instead, there are photographs of the saturated topography, portraits of locals, and close-up observations of architecture, abundant flora and fauna. Samoylova’s images provide a broad yet acute perspective on what it feels like to live in at-risk areas while economic forces instill a sense of denial and disavowal. Her subject is the precarious psychological state experienced by those living in a paradise sinking towards catastrophe.

By playing self-consciously with the familiar motifs and palette of the region, her photographs work as complex allegories. They pick out scenes, situations and details that compress multiple meanings and implications, bringing to the surface the many ways in which the fate and self-understanding of South Florida is bound up with its self-image. Photography is key in the making and remaking of collective memories and imagined geographies. FloodZone is a contemplation of this, at a moment of significant transition.

Floodzone has been featured in key publications as The New Yorker, Artforum and El País. The project is completed with a book, that was published by Steidl in 2019.

Courtesy of Sabrina Amrani

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.

Ishara Art Foundation is pleased to present Growing Like A Tree curated by Sohrab Hura, an exhibition that looks at regional histories of image-making through a visual and sonic excavation of place, memory and culture.

Growing Like A Tree represents many firsts for the Ishara Art Foundation. This exhibition marks Sohrab Hura’s inaugural curatorial project as a photographer and filmmaker along with the presentation of several artists and collectives never before shown institutionally in a regional and international context. The exhibition will be on view at Ishara Art Foundation from 20 January 2021 to 20 May 2021.

Hura’s individual and collective journeys through photography and moving image over the years have presented both a form of rooting and uprooting of places as markers of identity. Through this exhibition, he maps a network of past and present collaborators with 14 artists and collectives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Germany, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Singapore, seeking to expand the framework of boundaries set out by the geographical context of South Asia. Together they create a space where multiple voices and experiences are brought into dialogue with one another, capturing dualities in which organic growth is matched with resource extraction, the archival is juxtaposed with the contemporary, and the magic of the mundane is seen through children’s eyes.

Referencing the interconnected spheres of contemporary artistic practice, this show considers photography as a locus in an expanded field of art that includes videos, books and sound installations. In Hura’s own words, “What I’ve been seeing over the years are collective flows in terms of movement and exchange of photographers across political, geographical and cultural boundaries. An osmosis-like relationship with photographers across borders has started to seep through with each one searching for new ways to grow as artists and having at stake something in common that is far more urgent than photography.”
The artists represented in this exhibition tackle themes of changing cities, collective memory, the environment, public spaces and the archive through works that sit at the intersection of documentary and fiction, image and object. The notion of what forms a community emerges in this show as demonstrated in Sean Lee’s photo-montage where fingers rise from the soil like a forest of saplings.

The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Anjali House, Bunu Dhungana, Farah Mulla, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Katrin Koenning, Munem Wasif, Nida Mehboob, Nepal Picture Library, Reetu Sattar, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, Sean Lee, and Yu Yu Myint Than, along with site-specific interventions by Sohrab Hura.

Growing Like A Tree will be accompanied by physical and virtual tours, educational and public online programmes, newly commissioned artist texts and artist conversations over the duration of the show.

Ishara Art Foundation is presented in partnership with Alserkal Avenue.

Courtesy of Ishara Art Foundation

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.

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.