Two new exhibitions now open at Mathaf

Two new special exhibitions are now open at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Tea with Nefertiti: The Making of the Artwork by the Artist, the Museum and the Public, will be on view until March 31 next year. Forever Now: Five Anecdotes from the Permanent Collection, is on view until June 1, 2013. The exhibitions highlight the work of contemporary vanguards and re-examines modernist pioneers from the Arab world. Their opening also coincided with the first activity of Mathaf’s Research Centre on Arab Modernity, which was launched under the direction of art historian and Mathaf advisor Dr Nada Shabout. Dedicated to generating scholarship and research around the field of modern Arab art, the Centre’s inaugural programme was an academic symposium ‘Perception: Past and Present’ on Saturday. Tea with Nefertiti explores how an artwork can acquire numerous meanings and functions that can embody a number of diverse narratives. It departs from an excavation of the contested histories by which Egyptian collections have been amassed in international museums from the 19th century onwards. With Egypt as a case-in-point, it features works that question the framing of cultures, through the mechanisms of display by which the artwork is presented and evaluated. The exhibition traces the journeys that specific artworks have made in time and place. In doing so, it unpacks the complex relationships that exist between such artworks, the artists who first made them, and the institutions that exhibited them. Curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath of Art Reoriented, Tea with Nefertiti is organised along three thematic chapters. ‘The Artist’s Perspective’ looks at the artwork through the eyes of the artist, highlighting a process of exploration, negotiation, and formalistic awareness that marks the creation of an artwork. ‘The Museum’s Perspective’ examines how the meaning of an artwork is altered when viewed in the context of a museum exhibition. ‘The Public’s Perspective’ considers the role of social constructs such as mass media and collective history. The exhibition features 80 artworks dating from about 1800 BC to 2012, including antiquities, modernist artworks, work from 26 international contemporary artists and collectives (including a new commission from Bassem Yousri), and more than 50 archival documents and publications. Additionally, the exhibition presents new scholarship highlighting connections between modernist artists and ancient and contemporary moments. Tea with Nefertiti features Pharaonic, Coptic, Islamic and Orientalist artworks, as well as modernist works by Armand (Armenak Arzrouni), Honoré Daumier, Maurice Denis, Kees van Dongen, Mamduh Muhamad Fathallah, Francis Frith, Alberto Giacometti, Georges Henein, Ida Kar, Paul Klee, Van Leo, Lee Miller, Amedeo Modigliani, Mahmoud Moukhtar, Amy Nimr, Georges Sabbagh and Ramses Younan. Contemporary artists featured in the exhibition are Ghada Amer, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, Mohamad Said Baalbaki, Taha Belal, Thomas Demand, Gilbert & George, Candida Höfer, Iman Issa, J&K (Janne Schäfer & Kristine Agergaard), Emily Jacir, William Kentridge, Susanne Kriemann, Little Warsaw (Balint Havas & Andras Galik), Maha Maamoun, Vik Muniz, Youssef Nabil, Xenia Nikolskaya, Lorraine O’Grady, Grayson Perry, Nida Sinnokrot, Thomas Struth, David G. Tretiakoff, Ai Weiwei, Ala Younis, and Bassem Yousri. Exhibition highlights include Vik Muniz’s Tupperware Sarcophagus (2010), which illustrates the framing of Egypt in the image of the mummy; William Kentridge’s video Carnets d’Egypte (2010), which excavates the history of the Egyptian collection at the Louvre; and Taha Belal’s Pyramids (2007), which captures the use of the Pyramids in projecting a variety of agendas within public settings. “Tea with Nefertiti is a reflection of a curatorial desire to challenge the mechanisms of visual and literary display through which the artwork is conventionally presented. It invites people to become more critical of how they look at exhibitions in general,” said curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath. The exhibition is the result of two years of academic research by its curators. It is accompanied by a new academic publication authored by Bardaouil and edited by Fellrath. Following the Mathaf presentation, Tea with Nefertiti will travel to the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), where it will be complemented by an academic conference jointly organised by Mathaf and the Institut National de l’Historie de l’Art (INHA), then travel to the Centre for Fine Arts, BOZAR (Brussels) and other venues. Forever Now: Five Anecdotes from the Permanent Collection posits a new understanding of five diverse modern Arab artists: Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901-1991), Jewad Selim (1921-1961), Saliba Al-Doueihy (1913-1994), Salim Al-Dabbagh (b. 1941), and Ahmed Cherkaoui (1934–1967). Featuring 57 works from Mathaf’s collection, Forever Now examines artists’ interactions with their immediate environments, histories, and cultures. The stories presented trace the work and context of these artists, offering a nuanced dialogue between experience and history, fact and interpretation. The exhibition reflects the continuation of focused and analytical exhibitions that explore specific aspects of artists represented in the permanent collection. The five selected artists are from varied backgrounds, countries and generations. Each presents a unique process of artistic development and negotiation, but are united through process, heritage, geography and aspiration, navigating comfortably and confidently through different and disparate sources. Aside from the individual achievement, each of the five artists further contributed to the making of a regional movement in modern art in the Arab world. Their work bears witness to their times, highlighting each discourse as it emerged and evolved. Zeid, Selim, Douaihy and Cherkaoui are masters who were instrumental in negotiating innovative and important shifts during the early and mid-twentieth century, forging directions and initiating legacies for the development of modern art in the Arab world.