ART DUBAI MODERNMARCH 19-22, 2014

Welcome to Art DubAi moDern 2014.

Over the last seven years, Art Dubai, the leading international art fair in the Middle East and South Asia, has become a cornerstone of the region’s booming contemporary art community. Recognised as one of the most globalised meeting points in the art world today, Art Dubai places an emphasis on maintaining its intimate, human scale while foregrounding quality and diversity.

The eighth edition of Art Dubai takes place March 19-22, 2014, at Madinat Jumeirah. Besides the gallery halls, the fair’s extensive programme includes commissioned projects, artists’ and curators ‘residencies, radio and film, an exhibition of new works by winners of the annual The Abraaj Group Art Prize and the critically acclaimed Global Art Forum. Art Dubai is part of Art Week, an umbrella initiative that highlights the plethora of exhibitions, projects and events that now coincide with the fair each March, the most dynamic time in the UAE’s cultural calendar. Special events include Design Days Dubai, the only fair in Asia dedicated to product and furniture design; Sikka, the fair run by Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) and dedicated to new work by UAE-based artists; and Galleries Nights, featuring 40 new exhibitions across Al Quoz and the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC); plus other projects, museum shows and major events throughout the Emirates, Qatar and the Gulf. We look forward to welcoming you in March 2014.

VISITING ThE FAIR

locAtionMadinat JumeirahAl Sufouh Road, Umm SuqeimExit 39 (Interchange 4) from Sheikh Zayed RoadDubai, UAE

opening times WeDnesDAy mArch 191PM – 4PM Art Dubai Ladies Preview3PM – 6PM Global Art Forum4PM – 9:30PM Art Dubai Opening (by invitation only) thursDAy mArch 203PM – 6PM Global Art Forum4PM – 9:30PM Art Dubai Programme and Gallery halls FriDAy mArch 212PM – 9:30PM Art Dubai Programme and Gallery halls3PM – 6PM Global Art Forum sAturDAy mArch 2212PM – 6:30PM Art Dubai Programme and Gallery halls

ADmission Tickets to Art Dubai can be purchased onsite during the fair. One-Day Pass: 50 AEDThree-Day Pass: 80 AED Children 18 years old and under are admitted free of charge. University students can also enter free upon show of student ID. All visiting groups must pre-book by calling Art Dubai at +971 4 358 7121.

It is suggested that students move through the exhibition in small groups looking at and discussing objects, graphics, and relevant text. These materials include an exhibition briefing sheet for adults to help focus students’ thoughts in each section of the exhibition.

gAllery etiquette

· Please do not touch the artworks for your safety and the safety of the artworks. · Photography is allowed in the exhibition. · Please note that food, drinks and chewing gum are not allowed in the exhibition. · Pencils can be used for writing or sketching. No crayons, pens, markers or wet materials are permitted in the fair. · Please do not lean on walls or pedestals and do not use them as writing surfaces. · Please silence mobile phones and please use a soft voice so that you do not distract other groups in the exhibition. · Running is not permitted within the exhibition so you do not hurt yourself or damage the artworks.

INTRODUCTION

The Guide offers a starting point for visitors who wish to know more about how to approach Modern Art in South Asia and the Middle East through the fair.

About modern Art:Modern Art, or Modernism, is the loose term given to the succession of styles and movements in art and architecture which dominated Western culture from 19th Century up until the 1960s. Modern Art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. Movements associated with Modern art include Impressionism, Cubism, Bauhaus, Surrealism, Futurism, Pop Art and Op Art. Modern Art rejects the past as a model for the art of the present and is characterised by constant innovation. Modern Art grew out of the Impressionist’s rejection of the ‘imitation of life’ school of art. Their emphasis on the act of painting, on the paint itself, can be seen in the Expressionist and Cubist Art of the turn-of-the-century. Modern art was also often driven by various social and political agendas, which were often utopian. Modernism was, in general, associated with ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress. Since the 1970s artists and movements began to react against Modernism and post-modernism was formed.

Source: http://www.artrepublic.com/art_terms/38-modern-art.html

In 2014, Art Dubai launches a new section devoted to Modern Art from the Middle East and South Asia.

Art Dubai Modern includes 11 galleries, each of which presents a solo or two-person show, featuring work by Modern Masters. Galleries were asked to submit proposals

for booth exhibitions by artists whose work has proven highly influential during the twentieth century and on later generations of artists. These proposals were reviewed by an advisory board, made up of curators and historians with a particular interest in Modernist practices of the Middle East and Asia.

The 2013-14 Art Dubai Modern curatorial committee includes Savita Apte, an art historian specialising in modern and contemporary South Asian art and chair of The Abraaj Group Art Prize; Catherine David, a renowned curator with an extensive experience in the Middle East, whose exhibitions include Documenta X; Kristine Khouri, a researcher and a writer based in Beirut and co-founder of the history of Arab Modernities in the Visual Arts Study Group; and Nada Shabout, an art historian specialising in modern Arab and Iraqi art, and curator, among other exhibitions, of ‘Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art’, at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar (2010). The term ‘modernism’ claims universality yet comes out of the particular context of Western art history. As a specific period in the development of Western art, it nurtured an avant-garde that went against the academic establishment supported by the state.

In the Indian context, according to Indian art critic Geeta Kapur, ’moderism’ forms a double discourse with nationalism and the national and the modern are in constant dialogue. Nationalist art, for example promoted the use of traditional or indigenous motifs. Modernism had constructed a paradoxical view of such motifs – sometimes rendering them as progressive signs, at other times subverting them as conservative and traditional. Yet, this paradoxical position is a marker of India’s particular form of modernism: “Given India’s sustained struggle for independence and the precise mode of its decolonialisation, its cultural life is alternately conservative and progressive”. The relationship between the notion of tradition and nationalism and modernism is a particular feature of cultural development in post-colonial societies. The nature of this relationship changes with time and in each artist’s work.

MINA AL SALAM BALLROOM

INDEXM1: Zahoor ul Akhlaq ArtChowk, Karachi

M2: Nasser Al Yousif / Rashid Al Khalifa Albareh Art Gallery, Manama

M3: huguette CalandGalerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut

M4: Michel BasbousAgial Art Gallery, Beirut

M5: Syed Sadequain / M. F. husainAicon Gallery, New York / London

M6: BayaElmarsa, Tunis / Dubai

M7: Nabil NahasLawrie Shabibi, Dubai

M8: Rasheed AraeenGrosvenor Gallery, London

M9: Ardeshir MohassesShirin Gallery, Tehran / New York

M10: hamed Abdalla / Adam heneinKarim Francis, Cairo

M11: Anwar Jalal Shemza Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai

And featuring a special presentation of works by Abdulkader Al Rais (with hunar Gallery, Dubai).

the inner sanctum Zahoor ul Akhlaq was born in Delhi in 1941. The artist studied at the National College of Arts in Lahore, where he graduated in 1962. Subsequently, he furthered his studies in the UK, at hornsey College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London, and then in the United States, at Yale University.

Akhlaq’s work ranges from painting to sculpture and design. Given his background, he aims to create a link between traditional South Asian art and modern abstraction through his work, and his paintings are a great example of this convergence.

Speaking about art, the artist notes, “There is no such thing as a concept of painting. If there is…it is always changing.” “The most interesting part [of creating a painting] is when you suddenly realize it is finished. I may not paint for a while and then it comes. And whenever I start again, the first paintings I do tend to be in black colors. Division of space is very important in Oriental paintings. I am very influenced by this concept, and also by the rhythm of calligraphy, so after painting for some time in oils, I moved to just plain forms. . . . But please don’t call my work abstract. Abstraction is a term which belongs to a particular age in the history of art.”

As Professor of Art and head of Department in the Faculty of Fine Art at the National College of Arts, Lahore from 1979 un-til his retirement, he was an innovator responsible in part for revamping the departments of miniatures and printmaking, and provided hands on guidance. Akhlaq passed away in Lahore in 1999.

m1: ZAhoor ul AkhlAqARTChOWK, KARAChI

Zahoor ul Akhlaq, Untitled, 1982, Acrylic on wood, 121.9 x 91.4 cm, Cour-tesy of ArtChowk

Zahoor ul Akhlaque, Untitled (Butoh Series), 1994, Acrylic on canvas, 101.6 x 152.4 cm, Courtesy of ArtChowk

paintings of sheikh rashid Al khalifa from the late 1970s, early 1980s and his mentor nasser Al yousif

Nasser AlYousif (1940 - 2006) The exhibited works by Al Yousif, in stunning, bold, graphic black and white compositions, primarily depict figures and shapes in scenes from everyday life.

They are about human beings – and the sublime that can be found in the lives of ordinary people. These moving works depict universal themes from the yearning for home to the comfort of family to the need to belong to a community to the power of individual acts of kindness.

Many of Al Yousif’s works specifically examine Bahraini culture, and thus are correctly celebrated as “documenting” a side of Bahraini life not well known to the wider world. The life of fishing and worship and family and “Island” culture that has recently been eclipsed by the modernity that has come to the Kingdom.

his works are colourful but have obscure references to the traditional culture of the Arabian Gulf that can mis-lead the viewer into thinking that he is confronted with folklore painting in the manner of a visual documentary.

m2: nAsser Al yousiF / rAshiD Al khAliFA ALBAREh ART GALLERY, MANAMA

Nasser Al Yousif, Traditional Dance, 2004, Linocut, 31 x46 cm, Albareh Art Gallery

Rashid Al Khalifa, Metamorphosis VI, 1997, Oil on Canvas, 100x120 cm, Albareh Art Gallery

Shaikh  Rashid bin Khalifa Alkhalifa  (born 1952, Bahrain) was the first president and the current  honorary president  of the Bahrain Arts Society, a non-profit organisation for Bahraini artists to gather and hold their painting exhibitions.

he has painted for over 40 years, with his work exploring vari-ous artistic genres from Realism to Impressionism, all of which gradually evolved to Individualism, a notable prelude to his re-cent work, a dual concept of Abstract and the colour field. he is often considered to be one of the kingdom’s most famous artists.

he did much experimenting in the two decades between the 1970s and 1980s. his knowledge and comprehension of anato-my, perspective and composition were the foundations for his figurative and landscape paintings. his works in this period ex-hibits characteristics of Romanticism, Abstract Expressionism and Impressionism as well as Realism.

In his new paintings, the landscape and the figurative morphed into an abstraction of the colour spectrum. While, Alkhalifa maintained his focus on the aesthetics of what post-modern-ism’s adherents might identify as a re-contextualisation of an art genre, his works were never created as exercises in post-modernist theory.

The exhibited works, from his Metamorphoses Series as well as some elegant, abstract oils of fragmented figures and Biomor-phic Sketches in gouache, pen, and charcoal, are emblematic of the transitionally important period when Alkhalifa began to transform earlier figurative and landscape work into increas-ingly abstract rhapsodies of color and form

biography:Born in Lebanon in 1931, huguette El Khoury Ca-land graduated from the A.U.B in Fine Arts. She has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Beirut, Rome, Tokyo, Paris, Monaco, Barcelona, Venice, Geneva, Strasbourg, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. She also designed a line of clothing for the famous designer Pierre Cardin, illustrations for books, sculptures and writing of screenplays.

statement: Far from being inert objects, huguette Caland’s paintings, drawings and sculptures incarnate breathing. her work has always been experimen-tal in the manner and the medium of expression. She is, in the broadest meaning of the word, a humanist in her art: sensual, spiritual, nostalgic, humorous, whimsical, fearful, daring, pragmatic and impulsive.

curatorial statement:

Bringing life into shapes

…For the past five decades, from Beirut to Paris, from Paris to Venice (California) and back to Bei-rut, huguette Caland has been painting, drawing and sculpting. In her particular visual approach, Caland always narrates stories. The story of her life, her quest of freedom, the story of her be-loved ones and people she had met, the story of places she had lived in, traveled to or dreamed of…

GREGORY BUChAKJIANPhOTOGRAPhER & ART hISTORIAN

m3: huguette cAlAnD GALERIE JANINE RUBEIZ, BEIRUT

huguette Caland, Sans titre, 1964, huile sur toile, 71 x 50 cm, Courtesy of Galerie Janine Rubeiz

huguette El Khoury Caland, Une Ville, 1968, Oil on canvas, 80 x 100 cm, Courtesy of Galerie Janine Rubeiz

Contemporary Rachana Lebanon, is the realization of Sculptor Michel Basbous, who was born in this small town, blessed with an exceptional vibrant light that would soon breathe life into the stones.

After a two year stay in Paris Basbous returned to Lebanon and rented a garage as his studio, placing his works once realised directly on the side of the road, working in open air. Working in situ, with the help of his brother Alfred, the statues started to merge with the rocky landscape.

Rachana became an international venue: journalists, writers, artists, art lovers and architects discovered in this small village a warm and permanent welcome that is hard to find elsewhere. But the dream of Basbous was to make this village a venue for sculptors and artists that would sojourn there in order to create, in individual habitations, some ultra modern architectural units of which he had already created a prototype, or a similar unit, of the original house: the foundry. It was the house that he would later on call, “how to inhabit a sculpture”. The foundry remained a specimen waiting to be developed. From this unaccomplished dream emerged the idea of the Rachana Sculpture Symposium.

Michel Basbous is the forerunner of modern sculpture in Lebanon. he has worked in vari-ous materials and styles, as his specialty was to experiment in tactile forms and materials. he even converted ready-made objects like car radiators into valid art works. he was the first to do monumental stone sculptures in Lebanon.

m4: michel bAsbous AGIAL ART GALLERY, BEIRUT

Michel Basbous, Untitled, 1968, Cedar wood, 66.5x28x18cm, Agial Art Gallery

Michel Basbous, Radiator, 1976, Brass and plaster enamel, 45x38.5cm, Agial Art Gallery

m.F. husainThe name Maqbool Fida husain has become almost synonymous with Indian art. One of the most celebrated and internationally recognized Indian artists of the 20th century, M.F. husain has also received recognition as a printmaker, photographer and filmmaker. he is often referred to as the ‘Picasso of India’.

husain was associated with Indian modernism in the 1940s. his narrative paintings, executed in a modified Cubist style, can be caustic and funny as well as serious and somber.

m5: syeD sADequAin / m. F. husAinAICON GALLERY, NEW YORK / LONDON

Syed Sadequain, Untitled, 1961, Oil on canvas, 151 x 212 cms, Aicon Gallery

M. F. husain, Three Donkeys, 1971, Oil on canvas, 26.5 x 44 in., Courtesy of Aicon Gallery

syed sadequainSyed Sadequain Ahmed Naqvi, also often referred to as Sadequain Naqqash or just Sadequain, was born in 1930. Sadequain was one of Pakistan’s most prolific and loved artists, his career has served as inspiration for many artists.

Sadequain was a social commentator working mainly in the style of calligraphy and drawings. From a family of calligraphers, Sadequain joined the Progressive Writers and Artists Movement in late 1940s. his calligraphic style is widely considered iconic by many critics of South Asian art.

Before Sadeqain, few painters had experimented with the medium in Pakistan. Sadequain is commended for bringing calligraphy into a mainstream art form, as most of the known Pakistani artists have followed Sadequain and calligraphic art now dominates the art scene.

Sadequain also painted classical literature from the poetic verses of Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz.

biography:Baya Mahieddine (1931-1998) was a self-taught Algerian painter. In 1947, at the age of sixteen, she had her first exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Maeght, which represented Picasso and Braque. She then had the opportunity to work with Picasso at his studio in Vallauris. Since then, Baya has participated in many major group exhibitions throughout North Africa, Europe, Cuba and Japan.

Artist statement:Baya’s work is a mix of surreal, childlike imagery, typically of richly colored, two-dimensional forms whose spatial composition transgresses all rules of order. French Surrealist, André Breton, attributed her success to her ability to work within a complex culture of diverse influences. her work is rich in symbols and ornamentation ranging from mystical to pagan to Islamic in origin, all of which reflect her Arab-Berber identity.

curatorial statement:This exhibition highlights the work of one of the most talented and influential female, Algerian artists through a unique selection of Baya’s early works from the 1940’s up to the 1990’s. Baya, as a major figure of Arab art, paved the way in the field of contemporary painting not only in Algeria but also throughout the Arab world. She established a unique way of painting and an unparalleled style, both of which contributed to the advancement of the arts in the region. 

m6: bAyAELMARSA, TUNIS / DUBAI

Baya, Femme à la robe rose, 1945, Watercolor and gouache on paper, 59x47 cm, Elmarsa Gallery

Baya, Le paon, 1945, Watercolor and gouache on paper, 30.5x47 cm, Elmarsa Gallery

solo abstract geometry in the 1970s:

The focus of this exhibition is on an early and lesser-known period of Nabil Nahas’s artistic career, which has been well-established in New York art circles for decades, and more recently in the Middle East.

Nahas’s works from 1977-1980 demonstrate his twin sources of inspiration – an early obsession with the geometrical abstraction of Islamic art, coupled with a desire to make sense of it within the context of recent innovations in American abstract art.

Nahas’s quick progression between styles belies the technical finesse of these early works, and also the ground-breaking nature of this series.

Nahas studied in the United States instead of Paris, a more usual route for Lebanese art students at the time.

m7: nAbil nAhAsLAWRIE ShABIBI, DUBAI

Nabil Nahas, Untitled, 1979, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 122 cm, Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

Nabil Nahas, Untitled, 1978, Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 122cm, Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

As a student at Yale between 1971-73, Nahas personally encountered the artists Frank Stella, Al held, Larry Poons, Robert Rauschenberg and Alex Katz, among others. Stella and Poons made the biggest impact on Nahas’s works of the 1970s- both Stella and Poons’ work becoming increasingly hard-edged. In the first works he exhibited in New York following his graduation at Yale, the first of three exhibitions at the Robert Miller Gallery, Nahas used geometric forms.

his 1977 paintings, with their overlapping planes (at least three in each work), their emphasis on the diagonal and their pastel shades, were far removed from the rectangles of Mondrian and Albers, and also the works of Stella and held. Rather, Nahas used geometry in a less recognizable way- the abstractions of these paintings do not feel like geometry so much as decorative motifs- they demonstrate Nahas’ immersion in Islamic art.

Nahas’s 1978 paintings show dramatic changes; the delicate colours and subtle overlaps gave way to bolder tonalities and a harder-edged Euclidean geometry. Between the years of 1979-1980 Nahas’ sharp edges again gave way to thickly layered painting with a blurring of edges, which led to further experimentations with painting.

minimalist sculptures from the 1960s and 70s Trained as a civil engineer, Rasheed Araeen turned to art as a profession. While still in Karachi in 1959, he pioneered the idea of making sculpture by burning and transforming an object from one material into another.

After arriving in London in 1964, the Pakistani-born, British artist encountered the fascinating modernist sculpture of Anthony Caro; which led him in 1965 to his pioneering Minimalist sculpture. In 1975 he turned to writing, which focused on the racist, Imperialist legacies that still prevailed and haunted art discourse in the West. In 1978 he founded an art magazine, ‘Black Phoenix’, which produced only three issues. however, this magazine was resurrected and re-launched by him as a theoretical art journal ‘Third Text’.

It’s hard to fit his work into the standard narratives of Minimalism. The differences between Araeen and his contemporaries are more striking than the similarities; unlike the production-line precision of Donald Judd, et al., or the car-culture finishes of the West Coast Minimalists, Araeen’s wooden and metal modules were usually hand-assembled, never quite perfect and often intended to be rearranged by the unwashed hands of passers-by. 

m8: rAsheeD ArAeenGROSVENOR GALLERY, LONDON

(3R+2B)SW, Rasheed Araeen, 1971, Painted wood, 77 x 75.5 x 15.5cm, Courtesy of Grosvenor Gallery

Rasheed Araeen, One Summer Afternoon, 1968, Painted wood, 74x50.5x51cm (max); 33.5x24x24.5cm (min), Courtesy of Grosvenor Gallery

Ardeshir mohasses (1938–2008)Satirist, illustrator, painter, cartoonist and political scientist, Mohasses is known for his biting humor, unflinching criticism of tyranny and hypocrisy, and his playful engagement with the contingencies of text and image on the page of a publication. In his depictions of contemporary Iranian daily life, he drew inspiration from a diverse array of sources — from the delicate illustrations of Qajar period illustrated manuscripts, to the cacophonous and absurd humanity represented by hieronymus Bosch, to the surrealist whimsy of Rene Magritte’s canvases. Mohasses’s caricatures turned an unsentimental gaze on scenes of quotidian and political life, exemplifying satire’s pivotal place as means of coded political critique within the development of modernist movements.

This exhibition presents original drawings alongside copies of the newspapers and publications in which these cartoons appeared, including Towfiq, Kayhan, Book of the Week, Cactus, the New York Times — bringing attention to the relationship between the original works and the contexts of their circulation. Mohasses’s 1976 visit to New York City became a permanent relocation due to the outbreak of war in Iran. As he recalled, “When I first arrived in New York, I saw the city full of Draculas for Charlie Chaplin. In New York, I feel I am part of a huge comic strip. This city’s influence brought … shapes, lines, and geometric figures that appeared in my work for the first time.” In 1986, as Mohasses was affected by Parkinson’s disease, his characteristic cross-hatchings and shadings were freed into looser, more expressive gestures. The concomitant factors of emigration and illness elicited new form, subject matter, and technique through which he relentlessly pushed his exacting vision of social life

m9: ArDeshir mohAssesShIRIN GALLERY, TEhRAN / NEW YORK

Ardeshir Mohasses, Untitled,, 1987, Collage on paper, 35 x 55.25 cm, Ard-eshir Mohasses Trust

Ardeshir Mohasses, Untitled, Date unknown, Ink on paper, 43 x 34.5 cm, Ardeshir Mo-hasses Trust

hamed Abdalla (1917-1985):Distinctly different from his Arab contemporaries and influenced by the abstract aesthetic of European Modernism, hamad Abdalla’s work intimately explores his vision of Egyptian daily life with a deep contemplation of the infinite. his individuality and early independence set him apart from the academic artists, and from the groups and movements of the thirties and forties. he was a pioneer, who even founded his own art school in 1942 where he taught many famous artists such as Taheyya halim and Indji Aflatoon, until 1948. Abdalla was exposed to the modern art movements of Europe, where he lived for 30 years, and integrated some of those movement’s pioneering ideas into his formal aesthetic. he, however, maintained a critical distance, wary of the danger of cultural assimilation with the West. Abdalla’s works based on the Arabic alphabet were a solution to the challenge of combining his cultural roots with the modern form and with his political engagement, while his late works came closer to a pure art form, as if he had reached a kind of ascetism or Sufism.

Adam henein (b. 1929):Celebrated for his sculptural work in bronze, wood, clay, and granite, henein transforms solid material into ethereal presences through the use of simple lines, capturing the essentials of modernist form. henein received numerous awards for his work, which has been exhibited in Egypt, the Arab World, Europe and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Text By: Barjeel Art Foundation

m10: hAmeD AbDAllA / ADAm heneinKARIM FRANCIS, CAIRO

hamed Abdalla, Al Nadam, 1968, Acrylic on paper and masonit, 86x54.3x1.5cm, Courtesy of Karim Francis

Adam henein, Cheese Seller, 1956, Stone, 23x20x32cm, Courtesy of Karim Francis

Born in India in 1928 to a family in the carpet business, Anwar Jalal Shemza attended the Mayo College of Art in Lahore before enrolling at the Slade School of Art, London in 1956. In Pakistan, Shemza was well known as a writer, poet and playwright in Urdu. In London, he exhibited his paintings and worked as an art teacher. his work has been widely exhibited and collected, most notably by the Tate, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The British Museum.

his experience in Britain, marked by an existential crisis, led him to abandon all that he had done before and look for a new direction and language, one that would embrace modernism and take account of his cultural identity.

A series of paintings simply titled Square Composition  (1963) explore abstraction, geometry and pattern, the basis of much traditional Islamic art, portraying this modernist exploration. 24 x 24 inches in size, the paintings based on circles and squares would provide Shemza with a set of infinite yet flexible building blocks. he notes in Urdu “A circle – a square – a puzzle – for which a lifetime is not enough.”

m11: AnWAr JAlAl shemZAJhAVERI CONTEMPORARY, MUMBAI

Anwar Shemza, Square Composition 2, 1963, Oil on hardboard, 61 x 61 cm, Courtesy of Jhaveri Contemporary

Anwar Shemza, Square Composition 7, 1963, Oil on hardboard, 61x61cm, Courtesy of Jhaveri Contemporary

Abdulkader Al rais (b. 1951) born and lives in the united Arab emirates. Born in 1951 in the United Arab Emirates, Abdulkader Al Rais is a largely self-taught painter, whose influential works fluctuate between the realms of realism, impressionism, and abstraction all while drawing inspiration from a distinctly Emirati artistic and architectural heritage. Educated largely in Kuwait from the age of 6 until his return to Dubai in 1974, Al Rais originally worked as a labour inspector for the Ministry of Labour. It was only in the beginning of the 1990s that Al Rais devoted himself completely to his artistic career, which quickly flourished with several critical and commercial successes.

Perhaps most well-known for his Door and Window Series, Abdulkader Al Rais began to explore more traditional subject matter in the mid-1990s. While

AND FEATURING A SPECIAL PRESENTATION OF WORKS BY

AbDulkADer Al rAis (with hunar Gallery, Dubai)

Anwar Shemza, Square Composition 2, 1963, Oil on hardboard, 61 x 61 cm, Courtesy of Jhaveri Contemporary

Anwar Shemza, Square Composition 7, 1963, Oil on hardboard, 61x61cm, Courtesy of Jhaveri Contemporary

this interest originally manifested itself in paintings of ships and traditional Emirati houses, Al Rais began to concentrate on the architectural elements of the door and the window. As spaces of transition that define an interior versus an exterior, the door and the window take on unique symbolism in Al Rais’s works. Aesthetically, these paintings demonstrate Al Rais’s mastery of both watercolour and oil to produce the complex colour schemes, shadows, and details present in these works. Such an aesthetic creates an effect that captures both a sense of finite temporality and timelessness, or in other words, the works themselves fluctuate between the critical observation of Realism and the fleeting emotion of Impressionism.

educational guideDesigner: Moylin YuanEditors: Bettina Klein

© Art Dubai. All rights reserved.No part of this educational guide may be reproducedwithout prior permission from Art Dubai.

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