Titled Summary, Part 1, the exhibition will feature 100 artists, bringing

in diverse thoughts, styles and influences from the region

Staff Reporter

 It’s raining exhibitions in Doha this autumn. As the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) unveiled the second instalment of its Building our Collection series with a look at Mughal and Safavid Albums last week, and readies to wow us with The Tiger’s Dream: Tipu Sultan on Monday, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art is joining the fervour with its permanent exhibition.

Come October 31 and the first floor of Mathaf will house a new presentation of the collection. This project positions and gives value to the heritage of Arab modernities within an international context. Titled Summary, Part 1, this exhibition selects works produced from the 20th century to give multiple entry points into the collection, through artistic research, historical moments, and aesthetic experimentations on the idea of an Arab modernity.

“The selection diversifies traditional linear histories of art in the region through a re-drawing of relationships between visual, historical, and experimental influences. These identify alternative relationships between the works and important yet sometimes lesser known historical moments that influenced cultural transformations in society and politics in the global transition to modernity,” says the note on the exhibition.

By narrating the story of the collection and documenting the art histories it contains, the exhibition interrogates new scholarly, educational, and experiential routes of access to contemporary tendencies. Presenting more than 100 artists from the collection, the exhibition manages to represent many parts of the Arab World.

In the work of Egyptian artist Abdel Hedi El Gazzar (1925-1966), for instance, the relationship between art and science is at play. Sudanese artist Ibrahim al-Salahi (born 1930) combines African and Arabic modernist visual trends, exemplifying artistic practices that were cross-referencing national cultures in progress.

The work of self-trained Algerian artist Baya Mehielddine (1931-1998), who was engaged with her contemporary peers in Paris in the late 1940s, tells stories of women from Algeria. Saudi Arabian artist Manal al-Dowayan’s (born 1973) research-based artistic practice engages a progressive take on collective memory. The exhibition also presents the work of modernist pioneer from Qatar, Jasim Zainy (1933-2012) who was central in establishing an art scene in the Gulf region in the 1960s.

Curated by Mathaf curators and researchers, Laura Barlow, Leonore-Namkha Beschi, Abdellah Karroum, and Yasser Mongy, the exhibition contributes to research into the collection and its interconnections with contemporary cultures, a responsibility that Mathaf considers to be central to the role of the museum today.

Soon after Mathaf hosts Summary, Part 1, it will unveil Iranian-born artist, filmmaker and photographer Shirin Neshat’s first solo exhibition in the region. Neshat is among the best-known Persian artists in the Western world.

The event will introduce a group of her new and existing works along with interventions including the photographic series, The Book of Kings (2011), Our House is on Fire (2013) as well as the video installation, Turbulent (1998), which build relationships between ancient mythologies and contemporary events that are challenging our lives.

Having lived most of her adult life in the US, in self-imposed exile from her homeland, Neshat’s work explores ideas of femininity, and delves into the complex social, religious and political realities that govern the identities of Muslim women worldwide.

Women without Men, Neshat’s first feature, which told the stories of four women struggling to escape oppression in Tehran, won her the Silver Lion for best director at the 2010 Venice Film Festival.

In July 2002, The New York Times wrote: “Walk into a Shirin Neshat film installation and the images seize you: big, memorable, physically beautiful, exploring the role of women in Islamic society in terms of cinematic poetry, so that even the stifling chador becomes powerfully expressive.” One of Neshat’s pieces, Stories of martyrdom, is already part of Mathaf’s permanent collection.

 

 

 

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