Contemporary Arab Art – Zahra's Blog + Brown Lady Art Collective

July 30, 2017

eL Seed’s New Scripts – Interview by Johnny Hanson for ARAMCO WORLD

EL SEED SPOKE BY PHONE
FROM HIS DUBAI STUDIO

Let’s start with “calligraffiti.” There are quite a few artists who do it now. Did you coin the term?
No, to be honest with you, this is a term that has been used the first time in New York for a show, I think in ’84. A show created by Jeffrey Deitch for some calligraphy artists and some graffiti artists from New York. He had this vision 30 years ago that calligraphy and graffiti would merge together. To be honest with you, me today, I don’t even use this word to define myself. I’m just using calligraphy in my artwork. I do sculpture, I do canvases, I do art installations. I’m trying to get out of the box that I think I used to be in a few years ago.

More: http://www.aramcoworld.com/en-US/Articles/July-2017/eL-Seed-s-New-Scripts

August 10, 2016August 10, 2016

Remembering Louay Kayali: Life Is On The Streets.

middle east revised

/The Match Seller by Louay Kayali/

Louay Kayali was a Syrian modern artist, a brilliant painter born in Aleppo in 1934. He began painting at the age of eleven and held his first solo exhibition when he was eighteen.

Kayali died in 1978, from burns incurred from his bed catching fire, reportedly from a cigarette (he suffered from depression, leaving many to think it was suicide).

Kayali studied art at the Accademia di Belle Arti, and met Syrian artist Wahbi Al-Hariri there – they would remain friends for the rest of Kayali’s life (Al-Hariri became his mentor). Later on, Fateh Moudarress (also mentored by Al-Hariri) and Kayali represented Syrian modern art at the Venice Biennial Fair.

/The Laundrette/

Kayali graduated in Rome in 1961 and returned to Syria where he started his career as a fine arts professor at Damascus University, where Fateh Moudarres also taught.

Kayali’s artwork changed during his life, he…

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June 23, 2016June 23, 2016

ART OF RESISTANCE, PALESTINE, SYRIA Ghayath Almadhoun: The Details.

Art by Safwan Dahoul/ Ghayath Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet born in Damascus, Syria, in 1979, and living in Stockholm since 2008. With the Syrian poet Lukman Derky, he founded Bayt al-Qasid (Hou…

Source: Ghayath Almadhoun: The Details.

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016

The Art Of Mohammad Khayata.

middle east revised

/Walking on Thread, photo via Mohammad Khayata website/

I was first introduced to Mohammad Khayata’s work while I was strolling down the streets of Beirut last November. On of his works (Walking on Thread) was exhibited in a gallery I passed by and it caught my eye immediately. I told myself I should remember his name and investigate more about his art when I come back home.

Khayata is a painter and a photographer, born in Damascus in 1985. His first solo exhibition was organized in Lebanon, three years ago.

Khayata’s work is beautiful – it’s sensitive, powerful, thoughtful. In Bits and Pieces, he portrays symbols of what went on in Syria, combining stories and memories like a patched work stitched and tied to a canvas.

The images capture real life grief – from the portrait of a man wrapped in a patched quilt made of memories to…

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March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

Salahi’s Garden & What’s Inevitable.

middle east revised

/photo: Behind the Mask 1 by El-Salahi © Haupt & Binder/

Ibrahim El-Salahi is a Sudanese artist, an important figure in African and Arab modernism. El-Salahi is considered a pioneer in Sudanese art and was a member of the Khartoum School that was founded by Osman Waqialla.

Hassan Musa writes about El-Salahi (he first heard stories about him when he was a teenage boy): “I was fascinated by the idea that an ordinary Muslim man could live as an artist, because in my imagination they were unreal creatures who came out of European literature”.

El-Salahi’s international success soon turned him into a national hero, so much so that in 1970 the Department of Tourism distributed a poster in which El-Salahi posed in his studio, with the caption “Sudanese artist at work”.

/photo © Ibrahim El-Salahi, via Tate/

El-Salahi developed his own style and was one of the first artists to elaborate the Arabic calligraphy…

View original post 369 more words

March 6, 2016March 6, 2016

From Mathaf to Madrid

Arab Hyphen

Suspended-Together-Manal-Al-Dowayan-2011-123-fiberglass-doves Manal Al Dowayan, Suspended Together

The exhibition Looking at the World Around You: Contemporary Works from Qatar Museums is being held from 9 February to 19 June 2016 at the Santander Art Gallery in Boadilla del Monte, Madrid, the “first major loan exhibition in Europe of works from Mathaf, the Arab Museum of Contemporary Art in Doha.”

This selection, more than 160 works in total, represents the history of contemporary Arab art as seen through the eyes of 34 artists, most of whom are natives of Arab nations like Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait and, of course, Qatar. However, the exhibition also includes works by foreign-born creators whose art is related to the Arab world, such as Yan Pen Ming and Cai Guo-Qiang from China and the Belgian master René Magritte.

Take a “virtual visit” of the exhibition here.

Featured artists include:

Lebanon

Etel Adnan
Saloua…

View original post 73 more words

March 6, 2016March 6, 2016

Exhibition “In Search of Lost Time” at SOAS

Arab Hyphen

The exhibition In Search of Lost Time (not the Proust novel), which runs at the Brunei Gallery, in the School of Oriental & African Studies until the 19th of March, “presents work by 13 artists who seek to reframe conventional interpretations of time in the Gulf.” The Arabic title of the exhibition, Urgent Memory is apt, as the exhibition

“explores the complex relationship between image, speed and time in the Gulf, questioning the chronological and territorial notion of the region and the paradigms of its underlying identity.”

In part, the exhibition examines the tensions between nostalgia and notions of tradition and authenticity and narratives of utopia, prosperity and the construction of a Gulf modernity.

Sophia Al Maria, coined the term “Gulf futurism,” which

has since been used as a byword for the way that a generation, forced indoors thanks to the intense heat, developed a view of the future informed almost exclusively…

View original post 152 more words

March 6, 2016March 6, 2016

Al Hangar and the New Generation of Saudi Artists

Arab Hyphen

d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net Myrna Award writes about Al Hangar (The Warehouse) an initiative by young Saudi artists, who describe it as a cultural movement which aims to “ignite a sense of community.”

Artists are individually invited to show work at Al Hangar, similarly to a biennial. And so far, they’ve been inundated with requests to participate, an indication of both the buzz around the alternative space, and the growing energy around Saudi’s art scene.

The initiative is led by Ramy Alquthamy and Nasser Al Salem who hope to provide this sense of community for emerging Saudi artists, the “generation in waiting” as they were referred to in Edge of Arabia’s exhibition from a couple of years ago, Rhizoma, which aimed:

to provide a clear vision of the radical transformation in Saudi art, which is now more affiliated with its roots, to the real culture represented by the awareness of the different living conditions in…

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February 11, 2016

New livery for Dubai Metro carriages featuring artworks by accomplished artists – Courtesy October Gallery London.

Dubai, UAE; April 28, 2015: The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), in collaboration with RTA, is redefining the UAE’s artistic landscape by working with local and international artists to wrap the Dubai Metro carriages with works of art.

The spectacular artworks of prominent artists, Abdulqader Al Rais, Rachid Koraichi and Safwan Dahoul have now debuted as Dubai Metro carriage wraps, following the unveiling of the first Dubai Metro carriage wrapped with a spellbinding photograph by HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council.

More: http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/artists/koraichi/dubai_metro.shtml

February 9, 2016

New generation of young Saudi artists RASHEED ABOU-ALSAMH from Arab News

Published — Sunday 7 February 2016

Featured image 1: Gharem Studio presents ‘Ricochet’ (image from The Arab British Centre)

Image 2 & 3: Ajlan Gharem, Paradise Has Many Gates, 2015. Courtesy of Gharem Studio

A group of young Saudi contemporary artists is causing a sensation in the country and throughout the Middle East with their modern works, questioning some of the aspects of our society.

Gathered in art collective called “Edge of Arabia,” these 20 men and 18 women are producing some of the most modern and sophisticated works of art I have ever seen. Unlike the more traditional Saudi artists who only paint landscapes or abstract images, these young innovators use digital photography, painting and large installations to express themselves and engage the viewer.
Ajlan Gharem, a young Saudi who was born in Khamis Mushayt and now teaches mathematics at a public high school in Riyadh, recently made a small mosque completely from wire, with a minaret, which lights up in green lights at night. Faithful can come and pray, and there is an imam to lead the five prayers of the day.

More: http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/876496

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EL SEED SPOKE BY PHONE FROM HIS DUBAI STUDIO

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EL SEED SPOKE BY PHONE
FROM HIS DUBAI STUDIO