To mark its 15th anniversary, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art presents two exhibitions that reflect on its institutional legacy while engaging urgently with the present. Together, Resolutions: Celebrating 15 Years of Mathaf and we refuse_d frame the museum as both an archive of modern Arab visual culture and an active site of resistance, dialogue, and collective imagination.
Resolutions revisits Mathaf’s founding vision through four interconnected sections that trace the museum’s evolution. Beginning with its origins as an artistic hub shaped by the pioneering efforts of Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani, the exhibition foregrounds the formative conditions that allowed Doha to emerge as a centre for artistic experimentation in the 1990s. Drawing from the museum’s permanent collection, archival material, and documentation, the exhibition reflects on Mathaf’s expansive exhibition history, its role in circulating knowledge across the Arab world, and its engagement with questions of representation and identity in the post-independence era.
Curated sections by Fatima Mostafawi, Hadeel Al-Kohaji, Noora Abdulmajeed, and Arthur Debsi explore institutional memory, education as a site of knowledge production, and the development of shared visual languages tied to Pan-Arab thought and anti-colonial struggle. Through this layered approach, Resolutions not only honours Mathaf’s past but also positions the museum within ongoing de-colonial conversations shaping contemporary art and scholarship.
Running in parallel, we refuse_d shifts the focus to the present moment. Bringing together fifteen artists, the exhibition examines refusal as both a political stance and a creative strategy. Developed through sustained dialogue between artists and curators, it considers how art persists under conditions of censorship, displacement, and silencing. Referencing the spirit of the nineteenth-century Salon des Refusés, the exhibition foregrounds resilience, solidarity, and collective care. Featured artists include: Taysir Batniji, DAAR (Sandi Hilal & Alessandro Petti), Barış Doğrusöz, Samia Halaby, Majd Abdel Hamid, Emily Jacir, Jumana Manna, Walid Raad, Khalil Rabah, Yasmine Eid Sabbagh, Nour Shantout, Suha Shoman, Dima Srouji, Oraib Toukan, Abdul Hay Mosallam Zarara.
Comprising largely new commissions, we refuse_d affirms art as an act of presence. In doing so, it complements Resolutions by insisting that institutional reflection must remain inseparable from contemporary urgency, resistance, and the necessity of making art.
Location: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar
Date: we refuse_d until 9 February 2026 | Resolutions until 8 August 2026