LEBANON . UAE . QATAR . KUWAIT
Shurooq Amin, Family Potrait 2, 2013, Mixed media on canvas and wood frame. Courtesy: Ayyam Gallery.
autumn > 2014
LE JOURNAL / qatar / NEWS & REVIEWS
CONCEPTUAL POETICS: FROM SCOTLAND TO LEBANON Words: Kasia Maciejowska
Andrée Sfeir-Semler has represented world-renowned Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay since the early 1990s through her Hamburg gallery. Now she brings a solo show of his lyric art to her Beirut space, giving the late artist his first exhibition in the Middle East and introducing to the region his beautifully philosophicAL perspective
above: Ian Hamilton Finlay The Cloud's Anchor, 1968 Marble, metal 11 x 59 x 60 cm Courtesy of the artist & SfeirSemler Gallery Beirut/ Hamburg
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here is a quiet to Ian Hamilton Finlay’s art that immediately restores a sense of balance and a feeling of deep contemplation. Now installed far from home in Karantina, the Beirut port district, a selection of his pieces fill the six galleries at Sfeir-Semler’s converted factory space. Wall paintings, installations, tapestries, and engraved poem sculptures come together to create a serene atmosphere that reflects the artist’s ideas and obsessions. The exhibition, titled Terra Mare (Latin for Land Sea), has been curated by Pia Simig, a long-standing collaborator of the artist and the person responsible for installing his works around the world, in keeping with his precise instructions for many decades during his lifetime and after his death in 2006. Finlay's life merged poetry, philosophy and gardening, as his work attests. After spending time in the navy as a young man he had developed agoraphobia (fear of open spaces and public places), and moved to a cottage in Dunsyre, in the Pentland Hills outside Edinburgh, with his wife Sue. He stayed there for the rest of his life, never going beyond the gate to leave Little Sparta, which was the name he gave to his five-
LE JOURNAL / lebanon / NEWS & REVIEWS
bottom: Ian Hamilton Finlay Terra Mare Exhibition, 2014 Installation view Courtesy of the artist & Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut/ Hamburg
below: Ian Hamilton Finlay Wave, 1990 Engraved glass, wooden stand 57,5 x 17,5 x 6 cm Courtesy of the artist & SfeirSemler Gallery Beirut/ Hamburg
right: Ian Hamilton Finlay Mare Terra, 2002 (design from 1973) Wall Painting Variable Dimensions Courtesy of the artist & SfeirSemler Gallery Beirut/ Hamburg
acre garden – a reference to Edinburgh being called the Athens of the North. The garden is considered by many to be his masterpiece for the 275 artworks installed there, made in collaboration with Sue and local craftspeople. At Sfeir-Semler, elements from the archetypal Arcadian garden, one of Finlay’s ideological touchstones, appear as neoclassical statues like those in the grounds of grand houses, and in roseprinted strips bearing rose-themed boat names, and wild flowers, arranged as a clock according to the time of day each flower opens to face the sun. These references to Land sit alongside just as many made to the Sea. In the opening room, tapestries and minimal modern glass planes bear Finlay’s lyric play around the word ‘waves’ and his poetry on the fading fishing industry. Perhaps following his naval experience, or perhaps in response to humanity’s ongoing perpetration of war, some pieces depict a tank or an aircraft carrier, juxtaposed with soothing words such as Lullaby or Arcadia.
Discussing her decision to show Finlay in Beirut, Andrée Sfeir-Semler mentions his references to the ongoing threat of war hanging over a paradisical imagined garden, to the fading craft of fishing, and to calligraphy and the written word, as important keynotes that resonate in Lebanon. “He’s a conceptual artist after all, and many of his central concepts are relevant to the experiences of Lebanese people." Finlay’s work has been shown at Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Centre Pompidou, the New Museum, Serpentine Gallery, Documenta and many other influential galleries and museums, yet its impact, although powerful, is discreet. The show’s most notable feature is its feeling of rhythm, as the pulse of his lyrics manifest throughout the space in physical form, they build up a silent beat that is the signature of all great poets, and the aim of concrete poetry. The exhibition is witty, as well as moving, and is quite unlike any other shown in Lebanon.
Terra Mare continues at Sfeir-Semler until 1st November 2014
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LE JOURNAL / qatar / NEWS & REVIEWS
COMPOSITE ART IN A HYBRID SPACE
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Words: Nour Harb
French photographer Frank Perrin brings his panoramas on the postcapitalist condition to Station this autumn as part of Beirut Art Fair
top: Frank Perrin, Archeology 02 below: Ruins 01, from Sana'a to Washington
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rank Perrin is well-known on the Paris scene and for his glossy magazine Crash but his critical acclaim stems from a tenyear art project named PostCapitalism, described by the photographer himself as, “a visual and mental encyclopedia, a reasoned catalog of our constantly changing contemporary obsessions.” The project has 14 sections, and the two being exhibited in Beirut at Station this September play with how symbols of power are communicated in the 21st century. The two sets of two-metrelong photographic panoramas explore the way the iconography of architecture is used to represent authority and wealth. Each picture in both series is a composite façade, but while Ruins is made from cutup images of buildings taken from bank notes, Archeology shows photographs of the famous Italian film set Cinecitta, where buildings have been recompiled in 3D. Perrin calls this process “scanning collage” and sees this re-appropriation as a tool for emphasising "the kitsch and ridiculous truth of symbols of power." The idea is to undermine the regular context in which these symbols are seen by revealing them as
merely facades, just as ripe for quotation and ridicule as any other image in digital culture. To make the globalism of his message quite clear, Perrin compiles the facades of key economic nodes like central banks and power stations from many different countries. National icons from Lebanon, Brazil, Bhutan, the US, Yemen, and Hong Kong sit lined up side by side. Since opening next to Beirut Art Center and Ashkal Alwan one year ago, Station has evolved into a hybrid cultural space that regularly hosts exhibitions of video, photography, and installation art, in addition to events for some of Lebanon’s landmark festivals such as Beirut Design Week, PhotoMed, and – in this case – Beirut Art Fair. As in this show by Perrin, Station actively works to integrate creative cultural products and practitioners from overseas (for example Serbia, France, the US and Switzerland) with the local scene in the region (including Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon).
Archeology and Ruins runs from 19th – 28th September at Station, Jisr El Wati
LE JOURNAL / lebanon / NEWS & REVIEWS
Historic home for Rolex in Jounieh Words: Frank Hornby
Giuseppe Penone: process and practice Words: John Ovans
above: Giuseppe Penone, Essere Flume. © Archivia Penone left: Giuseppe Penone, Nel Legno. © Archivia Penone bottom: Giuseppe Penone, Toyota Municipal Museum. © Archivia Penone
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rte povera – translating as ‘poor art’ – was a term coined by Italian art historian Germano Celant to represent a movement that was one of the most significant to come out of Europe during the 1960s. It was a reaction against modernist abstract painting, with about a dozen Italian artists associated with the movement choosing earthy, commonplace materials which evinced a preindustrial age – the likes of rocks, clothing, rope and paper all found themselves morphed into sculptures which dealt with notions of time, nature, language and space. One of the principal figures was Giuseppe Penone, the youngest of the group, whose best-known series of six action-performances typify this period. The upcoming exhibition at the Beirut Art Center is less of a retrospective, more of a means of exposing his artistic process, with his portfolio ranging from large sculpture and in-situ installations, to sketches and photographic documentations of early projects. The ‘breath’ in the title refers to the way that the sculptures have been interconnected with the human body as a means of ‘measuring’ through imprints, sounds and representations.
Breath is a Sculpture runs 16th September – 29th November at Beirut Art Center
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rom hiking and beaches to bar-hopping and super nightclubs, you could never say there wasn’t a lot going on Jounieh Bay – and now it boasts its very own Rolex store, housed within the old souk. The opening coincided with the tenth anniversary of Rolex’s representatives A&S Chronora, who opened the flagship store on Weygand Street in Beirut last April. Refreshingly, the company showed its commitment to Lebanon’s cultural heritage – quite visibly and prolifically in steep decline over the past decade due to overdevelopment – by occupying a 19th-century house. The showroom is coupled with an exhibition hall, while the interior fuses Rolex design with traditional Lebanese architecture. Umming and ahhing about which watch to buy? The new store also features a VIP room offering consulting services, so strap some bling to your wrist and trip the light fantastic thanks to Jounieh’s infamous nightlife.
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LE JOURNAL / lebanon / NEWS & REVIEWS
Improving Landscapes: Beirut’s Floating Gardens Words: Rawad J. Bou Malhab
Green Studios brings innovative designs to a city much in need of plant life. Evolving from a conversation between four friends, this startup works with architects, designers, and public spaces to weave greenery among the existing architecture of Beirut
A Green wall by Green Studios at Sultan Ibrahim restaurant, Lebanon
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s the city sprawls into a concrete colossus and construction increases, the more conscientious property developers have been looking to ways to transform Beirut into a less hostile environment. For many, our neglected urban space has become a daily struggle to commute, live and grow in. Sometimes it seems Beirut is a city that its own people have loved to kill. Landscape architecture is the building block of every successful metropolis. It lays the groundwork for people’s social and economic behaviour and helps citizens to function better. As Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe wrote in The Landscape of Man (1975): “It is only in the present century [20th century] that the collective landscape has emerged as a social necessity. We are promoting a landscape art on a scale never conceived of in history”. Against this backdrop, Green Studios aims to transform Beirut’s urban environment piece by piece through each individual project, contributing to a gradual improvement. The concept came to life in 2009 when four friends saw the potential of hydroponic technology and decided to invest in its application on green walls and roof gardens. Soon afterwards Marc Abi Haila, Jamil Corbani, Zeina Kronfol and Oliver Wehbe were implementing their first project in Downtown Beirut. The startup was awarded Best Business Plan of the Year in 2011 at the MIT Enterprise Forum for the pan-Arab region. A year later, Green Studios won
LE JOURNAL / lebanon / NEWS & REVIEWS
Mutated Landscape designs by Green Studios; Floating Clouds, Swinging Webs and Suspended Dots
Lebanon’s Best Business of the Year 2012 and the rising design studio was nominated by Pritzker Prize winning Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron to install 93 green walls at the Beirut Terraces. Today, these hydroponic green walls come with an intelligent system that controls water, irrigation, light, humidity and nutrition. As technology improves, so does the possibility of greening a city that has high summer temperatures and limited water supplies - like Beirut or any city in the Middle East. The studio will present their vision for urban development at this year’s real estate exhibition Cityscape Global in Dubai. “Our approach to projects always bounces back and forth between design and technology”, says Zeina Kronfol, the creative director. The company started experimenting with the Floating Gardens as part of their Mutating Landscapes project at Beirut Design Week 2014. These took hydroponics to a different level, both in terms of functionality and aesthetics, informing their ongoing understanding of what hydroponics can do. This clever and flexible creation uses a skin made of different fibres combined that allows the roots of the vegetation to grow without the use of soil. These fibres are flexible enough to take any geometrical shape, and the team spends time researching not only the design and engineering of each installation, but also the agricultural aspect, considering which types of plants can flourish in such transplanted contexts. This solutionist creative studio has matured to become a regional pioneer in designing, executing and maintaining green walls and roof gardens. This year Green Studios was selected as Endeavor’s high impact entrepreneur at the 52nd International Selection Panel in Indonesia and in November they will exhibit at the American Society of Landscape Architects’ annual meeting and expo in Denver, Colorado. This recognition from around the world marks that their innovations are relevant beyond Beirut - although it is here that they continue to make such a welcome positive impact.
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LE JOURNAL / qatar / NEWS & REVIEWS
A DIFFICULT BEAUTY Words: Nour Harb
Mathaf will host the first solo show in the Gulf by brave storyteller and celebrated art star Shirin Neshat, the New York-based Iranian whose photography and film work has revealed aspects of life in Islamic lands to a global audience
Shirin Neshat, My House is On Fire, from The Book of Kings series, 2012. Ink on LE silver gelatin print 47 1/8 x 60 inches (119.7 x 152.4 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York.
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he imagery of Shirin Neshat is both beautiful and bleak as she cinematically depicts the complex realities of personal experience in politically repressive societies. She often focuses in particular on the experiences of women, portraying female stories and mindsets that are notably absent from the world stage. Although visually alluring, Neshat’s work addresses difficult subjects as she integrates aspects of politics, religion, gender, power and violence, and she isn’t afraid to mix uncomfortable truths with moments of happiness and poignancy, just as they often mix in real life. The artist’s use of mythic and historic references gives her work a timeless atmosphere that renders is subject matter relevant to different types of audiences, which is the key to her success around the world and in particular in the US, the place she has made home. Neshat lives in selfimposed exile from Iran, despite being born in Qazvin. Educated at Berkeley, California, her feature-length film Women Without Men won the 2009 Venice Film Festival Silver Lion
award for best directing, while more recently, she was recognised by the World Economic Forum in Davos with the 2014 Crystal Award. Following the solo show of another strong female artistic voice Mona Hatoum, Neshat’s subject matter makes Mathaf’s choice to exhibit her a bold and promising decision for the Gulf’s gradual journey towards artistic diversity and reduced censorship. The exhibition will introduce a group of new works alongside existing ones, plus interventions including the photographic series The Book of Kings (2011) and Our House is on Fire (2013) as well as the video installation Turbulent (1998). According to the museum, these all “build relationships between ancient mythologies and contemporary events that are challenging our lives”.
Shirin Neshat: Afterwards runs 9th November 15 – 2014th February 2015 at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
LE JOURNAL / qatar / NEWS & REVIEWS
Going, going… Words: John Ovans
Sotheby’s hosts a spectacular auction in Qatar this October that sees works by paintings by Ayman Baalbaki and calligraphy by Nasrollah Afjei alongside contemporary hits from Damien Hirst
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ot a house full of bare walls and empty spaces? Come 13th October, you could be filling it with works by some of the most highly sought-after Middle Eastern and international contemporary artists, thanks to new auction by Sotheby’s London being held in Doha. The event follows on from last year’s record-breaking sale of Arab and Iranian and International Contemporary Art , and is described by Sotheby’s as “carefully curated” to meet the demands of an art-hungry Qatari crowd, as well as a dialogue between international artists and their Middle Eastern counterparts. The auction boasts the highest-valued work by Damien Hirst to be offered at auction in the Middle East, Tranquility, a canvas of butterflies and household gloss, part of the controversial butterfly series that is regarded as typical of Hirst in its representation of the tightrope balance of life and death. Elsewhere, bidders can look
forward to the likes of large-scale fantastical abstract landscapes by Ali Banisadr, which recalls the complexity of Persian miniatures and renderings of landscapes by Flemish Old Masters, and Lebanese painter Ayman Baalbaki, who depicts Lebanon’s war-torn history – one which he purports the country has forgotten through a kind of ‘amnesia’ – through his expressive brushstrokes and thick ridges of paint. Calligraphy master Nasrollah Afjel, a man who creates a visual language which divorces its impact from the need to understand it, is also up for sale. London residents, meanwhile, previously enjoyed a special exhibition of highlights from the sale back in July.
Middle Eastern & International Contemporary Artists sale will be on view from 6th October; the auction takes place on 13th October
top: Ali Banisadr (Iranian) The Chase oil on linen 2011 137.2 x 182.8cm $180,000-250,000 above: Mounir Farmanfarmaian (Iranian) Three Brothers 2008 170 x 48.5cm $70,000-100,000 right: Damien Hirst (U.K) Tranquility butterflies and household gloss on canvas 2008 231.8 x 323.2 by 12.7cm $1,000,000 – 1,500,000
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LE JOURNAL / qatar / NEWS & REVIEWS
T Summary, Part 1, Baya Mahieddine, title unknown, 1992, gouache and grap hite on paper, 75 x 100 cm. Courtesy of Mathaf : Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.
NEW HISTORIES OF MODERN ART Words: Nour Harb
Doha’s new art residency program Words: Tarek Ali
The latest expansion of the Qatar Museum Authorities program sees Doha fire station converted to benefit artists
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A coming exhibition that sets Arab modernity within international modernisms is the latest in the wave of efforts at history-making taking place in Gulf
he art narratives that are being told in the Arab countries and particularly in the Gulf have been erring towards the historic over the past year or possibly even two years. This mirrors a more general interest in history-making, as can be seen at this year’s two Arab pavilions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and at the most recent edition of Art Dubai, along with numerous exhibitions and – interestingly – in collecting trends across the region. In particular focus seems to be the modern history, as the recently developed Gulf nations move from emphasising the leap from their Bedouin roots to their hyper-active futurism, more towards building a continuous story that acknowledges the cultural expansions that took place in the 20th century. In art, this is often easy to do, as the region boasts many modern painters and sculptors who are now being brought back out into the light of the gallery. Mathaf’s contribution to this general history-building mood is notable because of its outstanding modern collection, and because this was originally one of the museum’s founding projects: to tell the story of modern art from an Arab point of view. For one of their Autumn exhibitions the museum will choose pieces that illustrate how histories of art in the region can be reconsidered. The curation aims to explore alternative relationships between art works and important yet sometimes lesser known historical moments that have influenced cultural transformations in society and politics in the global transition to modernity.
Summary, Part 1 opens 31st October 2014 at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art
Words: Tarek Ali
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ever mind burning buildings or cats stuck up trees – the Doha Fire Station has a more cultivated purpose looming, as the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) is transforming it with an artist-in-residence programme. Fire Station: Artists in Residence commences in November, and will see 20 residencies, each rolling out over nine months, accommodating “creative exchange” between artists living in Qatar and the public and culminating in an exhibition in the Garage Gallery – a 700-square-metre space that used to be, you guessed it, the fire engine garage. Work began on the site in August of last year, with the building divided into 24 studios and a gallery space. Redesigned and renovated by renowned Qatari architect Ibrahim Al Jaidah, the original property was built in 1982
as a Civil Defence Building, and served the community for 30 years, up until December 2012. Its integrity has been preserved, including its original façade, many features, and foundations, described by the organisers as “paying tribute to Doha’s heritage.” Inside, artists will occupy the 24 studios and a gallery space, accessible for 24 hours a day, and they’ll further benefit from visits by experts and professionals in the artistic field.
Artists can apply through an application form on the QMA website, but the program is at first only open to local Qatari artists and residents of Qatar. It will later open up to regional artists.
LE JOURNAL / qatar / NEWS & REVIEWS
A Bedouin Stadium Words: Tarek Ali
D Hamza Bounouna: Pyramid 01, 195 x 195 x 65cm, Mixed media on Plexiglas, 2014
VISUALISING POETRY
esert tradition has been embraced and magnified by the Qatari Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, with the design of the second final stadium for the 2022 World Cup, conceptualised as a giant Bedouin tent or Bayt Al Sha’ar, after which it is named. The black structure mimics canvas, and has contrasting white stripes, as per convention, when stripes were a means of signifying the nomadic family who lived in the tent. The interiors, meanwhile, will feature décor also inspired by traditional tents, washed in warm reds. The Committee reassured football fans wondering how the intense summer heat would affect play, maintaining that the structure was designed in such a way that the heat would only be moderate. Dar Al Handsasah is the design consultant on the project, while Qatari sports giant Aspire Zone Foundation will be delivering it. Work on Bayt Al Sha’ar began in July about 40km north of Doha, with plans for stands much larger than 2010’s design that was originally pitched to FIFA. The capacity for the new stadium will seat 60,000 people, meaning it will be appropriate as a semi-final venue, and is intended for finish in 2018. It follows on from the first stadium, currently under construction, which was designed by Zaha Hadid and Aecom.
Al Bayt stadium
Words: Frank Hornby
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ccupying two spaces shouldering a narrow alley, the Al Markhiya Gallery predominantly exhibits the work of Qatari and Gulf artists. Coming up in September is an exhibition entitled Verses and Impressions, which will display a variety of artistic interpretations of contemporary Arabic poetry, with works that use the likes of letters and calligraphy. Included on the roster of artists is Egyptian artist Hazem Elmestikawy, whose structural and architectural sculptures are inspired by recycling, language and urbanism. Three-dimensional works – often rendered in cardboard – of squares and cubes fold down like boxes or up like towers, playing with the idea of opening and closing, or what he refers to as “the secret of space”. Sharing the gallery is Hamza Bounoua, whose abstract and colourful paintings seek to turn history technicolour, with plexi-glass canvases inspired by a North African artistic discipline called Meredeen. Elsewhere are the prints of Bahrain-born Jamal Abdul Rahim, who often reappropriates and personalises iconic Western works with colour, texture and Middle Eastern symbols, while calligraphy comes to the fore in the works by Palestinian-American artist and linguist Fayeq Owesis, and Syrian calligrapher Khaled Al-Saa’l, and the ‘suspended poems’ of Tunisian calligrapher Abdallah Akar.
Verses and Impressions runs 2nd September – 25th October at Al Markhiya Gallery
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LE JOURNAL / uae / NEWS & REVIEWS
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ith a title springing with optimism, like a lyric in a longlost Beatles track, the subject matter of We’ll Build This City on Art and Love comes as something of a surprise. Kuwaiti-Syrian artist Shurooq Amin – the first female Kuwaiti artist to be auctioned at Christie’s back in 2012 – has chosen to depict what she terms as ‘social maladies’ to explore everything from the roles of women in Arab society to child marriage in war-stricken regions to the marginalisation of the Bedouin in Kuwait. Across a series of mixed media works, Amin largely manages to approach each topic – however harrowing – with a sense of humour, and tongue firmly embedded in cheek. Her figures are painted in warm hues and generally elaborately attired with a tendency towards overstated social posturing. The hidden lives of the Arab patriarchy is exposed, from the religious man who’s a weekend alcoholic to the conservative father who moonlights as a secret playboy. All bright pinks and reds, the palette is vivacious, although these are countered by the sombre pieces recalling Kuwaiti history through photographic remnants and charcoal drawings. Additionally a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, Amin takes inspiration from the king of nonsense, British writer Lewis Carroll, whose Alice appears in a piece entitled Piece of the Pie: Who Stole the Tarts? in the form of a masked, pie-holding red-heeled woman, elongating on the canvas to the point that she achieves a kind of matriarchal dominance, as the men beside her bicker over the biggest slice of pie. The net Amin casts is ambitiously wide, yet is bound together by the central concern of how best to build sustainable relationships, societies and systems. In this sense, the outlook is bright, in that Amin envisions that such a world can be built in spite of its numerous fractures.
Shurooq Amin, We’ll Build This City on Art and Love runs 14th September- 30th October at Ayyam Gallery DIFC
Shurooq Amin’s social maladies Words: John Ovans
A solo show by the first female Kuwaiti artist to be auctioned at Christie’s opens at Ayyam Gallery
above: Shurooq Amin Family Potrait 1, 2013 Mixed media on canvas and wood frame 148 x 128 x 13 cm right top: Shurooq Amin Education and Beyond, 2014 Mixed media on paper in glass & stainless steel frame 101 x 135 cm right bottom: Shurooq Amin Pipe Dreams, 2014 Mixed media on paper in glass & stainless steel frame 101 x 135 cm
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LE JOURNAL / uae / NEWS & REVIEWS
T Fari and Chri performing at Prehen House 2013
Sonic art in focus at Tashkeel Words: Tarek Ali
ashkeel, the Dubai-based contemporary art organisation, launched a New Media Artists Residency this summer, in which three artists per year will benefit from the on-site facilities that include darkrooms, a photo studio, digital labs, printing studios, 3D workshops and textile studios, as well as engage with the public on their practice. This is done via a series of talks, which kick off this September with the duo currently in residence, Fari Bradley and Chris Weaver, both established sound artists and experimental musicians in the UK. Sound artist and audio hardware hacker Weaver was named Sonic Artist of the Year in 2013 by the British Academy of Songwriters; while Iranborn Bradley performs and DJs fringe genres and creates her own electronic circuits and sound sculpture installations for art shows, films and live improvised performances. Feeling brain-boggled? That’s where the seminars come in. First up is The Art of Listening, which introduces the subject of sound art with extracts of several pieces, including a piece by silence aficionado John Cage. This will segue, quite helpfully for the uninitiated, into What is Sound Art? the following week, followed by Curating Sound Art and then, Sound as a Genre and Protagonist. Each week participants will be required to partake in a ‘shared listening experience’ in the dark.
The sound art program with artists in residence Fari Bradley and Chris Weaver runs from 3rd – 24th September at Tashkeel
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New exhibition space East Wing opens
riginally founded in Doha, international photography platform East Wing now jostles for space in Dubai, seeking to root out emerging talent and lesser-known names in the Middle East and beyond, ultimately to present, as they elicit, ‘new perspectives on subjects that matter’. One of these was ‘Ramadan in Yemen’ by Max Pam. Before blog platforms and digital photography came to be, the spirit nomadic travel was recorded in different ways. Nostalgia, for obvious reasons, finds effective mediums through black and white photography and inky diary entries, as conveyed in the documentation of the travels of the photographer, with the images solely utilising a square format. The exhibition records Pam’s experiences across Sanaa, Shibam, Taizz, and Al Mukallah, and across the country’s ever-morphing landscapes, from the desert to the coastline to the mountains. The lens, however, settles (often literally as well as metaphorically) on the lives of the everyday people.
Australian-born Pam was born in 1949, and grew up in suburban Melbourne in a culture still rippling with the aftershock of the end of the Second World War. He left at the age of 20, his propensity towards wanderlust and curiosity later funnelled into excellent storytelling by his distinctive voice. Pam characterfully described the exhibition as a representation of “that hot, spare and beautiful Ramadan… The faithful waiting for the moment. The cannon booms from the mosque in the afterglow of the day. KABOOMMMM and the frenzy of quat buying, tea drinking and food eating begins at the suqs and squares and oases and towns all over the country… An experience freely given to me by the generosity of the Yemeni people.” An accompanying book, published by Éditions Bessard, is now available for purchase, while next, we can look forward East Wing’s participation in Amsterdam’s UNSEEN Photo Fair. The Suq-boy in a Key shopYemen 1993-Photo by Max Pam-courtesy of East Wing
Words: John Ovans lj/13
LE JOURNAL / uae / NEWS & REVIEWS
A Shafic Abboud and Mahmoud Saïd at Christie’s
particular highlight Christie’s Autumn auction in Dubai this will be a series of paintings by Shafic Abboud (1926-2004). Alongside the watches, jewelled pens and numerous art objects being auctioned this October, ten paintings from the respected Lebanese modernist will be shown, coming from the exceptional private collection of Viviane & Robert Debbas, held in Beirut. The works from the Debbas collection are predicted to raise $2 million between them and will be auctioned at their own sale, separate from the separate owners sale and the fine watches sale. Abboud is quoted as having said, in 1982, “I only stop when both colour and light match. I cannot escape from colour, it is my fate and nature – my eyes have been dazzled forever.” Such sentiment can be found in the luminosity of his works, even the most abstract, of which some will be available at Christie’s. Other artworks will appear by notable artists including Mahmoud Saïd, Fateh Moudarres, Parviz Tanavoli, Hamed Owais,
Words: Nour Harb
Mahmoud Mokhtar, Charles Hossein Zenderoudi, Paul Guiragossian and Sohrab Sepehri. Three spectacular paintings by the father of modern Egyptian art, Mahmoud Saïd (1897-1964) will be of particular interest to certain collectors. These canvases include Bergère à Alamein which was originally in the private collection of Dr. Tharawat Okasha, Egyptian Minister of Culture from 1959 to 1964. Here Saïd manages to reflect the distinctive colours of El-Alamein, the Mediterranean town in the Matrouh Governorate in Egypt. The bergère or shepherdess embodies one of Saïd’s recurring subjects, that of the Egyptian fellaha or peasant. This painting is expected to sell for $400,000-600,000.
The sale of Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian and Turkish Art will be held by Christie’s at the Emirates Towers Hotel on 21st October
Shafic Abboud Untitled 1986
CARNIVALESQUE CHARACTERS Words: John Ovans
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veryone is pretending.’ Remember those words next time you log onto your Facebook account to click through a catalogue of impossibly beautiful, perfectly composed selfies. The social media generation was the inspiration behind this exhibition by Austrian painter Bernhard Buhmann, or more specifically, the way we seek to alter, or ‘preform’ our image shifting the perception others have of us to something altogether more favourable. Buhmann, who has a Masters in sociology, is seeking to explore the interplay between social systems and personal identities Characters in The Pretenders – his second solo show – are depicted here as strange, surrealist ‘creatures’, neither one thing nor the other, like illustrations in a headache-inducing children’s book. “They are screaming grotesque figures with masks which they don’t dare to take off
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(maybe they even don’t know that they could,” asserts Buhmann, “but they are always ready to switch.” This constant flux of personality is delineated by abstract figures struggling to control their own shape, aspiring towards uniqueness yet resisting the splintering of sameness. Take a bird-like Elvis, anthropomorphized on two legs with his famous tide of hair, an icon of glamour and success that others are attempting to mirror. In addition to his subjects, Buhmann is also interested in the parallel worlds that come into existence as a result of this social upkeep, manifested in carnivalesque worlds inhabited by masked figures looking to play every role that is expected of us.
Bernhard Buhmann, The Pretenders runs 15th September – 28th October at Carbon 12
Carbon 12 Dubai-Bernhard Buhmann-Gudrun-Oil and acrylic on canvas200x150cm- 2014-Copyright Bernhard Buhmann, courtesy of Carbon 12
LE JOURNAL / uae / NEWS & REVIEWS
Abu Dhabi Art returns for its sixth edition Words: John Ovans
New monograph from Tabanlioglu Architects Words: Frank Hornby
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he award-winning Turkish architectural firm Tabanlioglu Architects is releasing a new book in the region this September, a monograph entitled Tabanlioglu Architects: Transparency and Modernity celebrating the firm’s local and international projects. The book was put together by Dutch designer Irma Boom, famous for her bold, iconoclastic publications; it features contributions from a roll-call of worldfamous writers and architects. Tablanlioglu began in the Sixties, founded by Dr Hayati Tabanlioglu, a prestigious architect who designed the Ataturk Culture Centre and Istanbul Ataturk Airport. It is at once a family business and the first international architectural practice to emerge from Turkey, with offices in Ankara, Dubai and Doha as well as a central office in Istanbul. Its design philosophy, meanwhile, very much revolves around integration and cultural renewal. The book illustrates the studio’s portfolio of a wide range of building types, from public and cultural buildings to complexes and industrial projects. Tabanlioglu is perhaps most famous for the Sapphire, the tallest structure in Istanbul segmented every third floor by a ‘garden buffer zone’ whereby the apartment is divided up into so-called ‘vertical neighbourhoods’. The Levent Loft, meanwhile, was a space transformed into apartments which propagate a sense of community due to the building’s unique shape.
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ovember will usher in the sixth edition of Abu Dhabi Art, an ‘evolving platform’ of programs aimed to introduce some of the world’s leading modern and contemporary art galleries to the public, as well as generally speaking, Abu Dhabi’s cultural landscape. Artists, cultural leaders, scholars and collectors will pour into Manarat Al Saadiyat on Saadiyat Island to participate in the three-day-long event, along with the public who will enjoy an interactive calendar of happenings made up of talks, book launches, film screenings, performing arts platform and other events, as well as the main draw, the art fair. The partaking galleries will be divided up into five distinct sections, which include Modern and Contemporary; Bidaya, which focuses on a new, emerging gallery; Signature, in which galleries promote new artists; Design; Beyond, which showcases large-scale installations, sculptures, and site-specific commissions. This year’s edition will also hail the return of Artists’ Waves, which hones in on new artistic movements. Abu Dhabi Art will welcome a broad range of galleries, including Ayyam Gallery, October Gallery, The Third Line, and Galerie Tanit, while a special Design Program will run in parallel featuring the prototypes of the winners of the Abu Dhabi Art UAE Designer Program.
Abu Dhabi Art runs 5th8-th November at Manarat Al Saadiyat on Saadiyat Island
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Two Less One, 2009, Gildedwood mirror, 2 elements 180 x 120 cm each, Courtesy Galleria Continua
Tabanlioglu Architects: Transparency and Modernity was launched in June at the Pavilion of Turkey at the Venice Architecture Biennial 2014; the book will be launched in Dubai at City scape 2014, which runs 21st23rd September. The monograph is published by Rizzoli-New York.
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autumn ISSUE > 2014