ART DUBAI MARCH 18-21, 2015 EDUCATION GUIDE MODERN 1
EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
ARTDUBAI.AE
WELCOME TO ART DUBAI Art Dubai is the leading international art fair in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Taking place every year in March, Art Dubai presents a select, yet diverse choice of around 90 galleries from the UAE, and from around the world, covering three programmes: Contemporary, Modern, devoted to masters from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and Marker, a curated section of art spaces that focuses each year on a particular theme or geography.
ABOUT
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Art Dubai’s extensive non-profit programme includes commissioned projects such as film and radio programmes, artists’ and curators’ residencies; educational initiatives for children through to professionals, including the year-round art school Campus Art Dubai; an annual exhibition of works by winners of The Abraaj Group Art Prize, and the Global Art Forum. Over the last eight years, Art Dubai 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, it places it’s emphasis on maintaining it’s intimate human scale while foregrounding quality and diversity.
Art Dubai is part of Art Week, an umbrella initiative that showcases the broad programme of cultural 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, a fair dedicated to new work by UAE-based artists and run by Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, and Galleries Nights, featuring over 40 new exhibitions across Al Quoz and the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), as well as other projects, such as museum shows and major events throughout the Emirates, Qatar and the Gulf. Art Dubai is held under the Patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai Art Dubai Ladies Preview is held under the patronage of HH Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Women Establishment, Wife of HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs UAE
EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
Art Dubai is held in partnership with The Abraaj Group and is sponsored by Emaar and Julius Baer. Madinat Jumeirah is home to the event. Mashreq Private Banking is the exclusive partner of Art Dubai Modern. The Dubai Culture and Arts Authority is also an important partner of Art Dubai, supporting the fair’s year-round education programme.
WEDNESDAY MARCH 18 Art Dubai Ladies’ Preview Global Art Forum 9 Art Dubai Opening
3pm – 7:30pm 4pm – 9.30pm
THURSDAY MARCH 19 Global Art Forum 9 Art Dubai Programme and Gallery Halls
2pm – 9.30pm 5:30pm – 7:30pm
FRIDAY MARCH 20 Art Dubai Programme and Gallery Halls Global Art Forum 9: 89plus
12pm - 6.30pm
SATURDAY MARCH 21 Art Dubai Programme and Gallery Halls
LOCATION Madinat Jumeirah, Al Sufouh Road, Umm Suqeim Exit 39 (Interchange 4 from Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai, UAE
ADMISSION Tickets to Art Dubai can be purchased onsite during the fair. One-Day Pass: 50 AED Three-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 emailing Art Dubai at noor@artdubai.ae. 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 works of art for your safety and the safety of the works of art. • 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 works of art.
ART DUBAI OPENING TIMES
1pm – 4pm 3pm – 7:30pm 4pm – 9:30pm
INTRODUCTION The Guide offers a starting point for visitors who wish to know more about how to approach Modern Art in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa through the fair.
INTRODUCTION
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ABOUT MODERN ART Modern Art, and Modernism are loose terms given to a succession of styles and movements in art and architecture which dominated Western culture since the 19th century up to the 1960s. It includes art work from the period of 1860 to 1970, and reflexes style and philosophy during that era. The term is usually associated with the rejection of past traditions in a spirit of experimentation. Movements associated with Modern Art include Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism, Bauhaus, Pop Art, and Op Art. Modern Art means a hard cut with the art forms of the past, and stands for progressive innovation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing, and the use of unusual materials.
Expressionists went a step further by using simple shapes and strong contrasting colours in order to express their experience. The appellative and subjective predominates. Cubism was at first sight a concentration on forms. The Cubist did not want to show the apparent world. Instead, it is primarily interested in the question of structure and space to bring up values and forces of distributions with each other. Surrealism stood quite in contrast to all those new found ways of expression, foremost formally. It denoted a spiritual movement, which manifested itself as a living art and life against traditional standards since the 1920s. Psychoanalytic theories, fantastic, unconscious, absurd and are therefore fantastic features mark it’s expression by trying to reflect the deeper states of the soul and dreams. Futurism, with it’s Italian Futurist Manifesto was conceived as a provocative taboo. Youth, violence, aggression, speed, war and ruthlessness were. The destruction of libraries, museums and academies as a stronghold should make room for a new culture pave. At 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.
EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
Impressionism might be called the source of this new movement. The rejection of naturalistic painting in favour of just catching light reflections was shocking to the society of the 19th century.
In 2014, Art Dubai launched a new section devoted to Modern Art from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. This year’s second edition of Art Dubai Modern includes 15 galleries, each of which present a single or two person show, featuring work by modern masters. Galleries were asked to submit proposals for booth exhibitions by artists whose work has proven influential during the twentieth century and later generations of artists. These proposals were reviewed by a jury and advisory board of curators and historians with a particular interest in Middle East and Asian Modernist movements.
INTRODUCTION
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The term ‘Modernism’ claims universality, yet derives from 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.
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 it’s decolonialisation, it’s 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. THE 2014-15 ART DUBAI MODERN CURATORIAL COMMITTEE INCLUDES Savita Apte, an art historian specialising in Modern and Contemporary South Asian art and chairman of The Abraaj Group Art Prize; Catherine David, a renowned curator with anextensive experience in the Middle East, whose engagements include the Documenta X; Kristine Khouri, a Beirut based researcher and writer and co-founder of the History of Arab Modernities in the Visual Arts Study Group; 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); Bisi Silva, a renowned curator specialising in Modern and Contemporary African Art and founder/director of Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA, Lagos).
EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
However, in Indian context, according to Indian art critic Geeta Kapur, ’Moderism’ forms a double discourse with nationalism, where 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.
MAP
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M14
M13
M12
M9
M8 M7
M1 M10
M2
M11
M3
M5
M4
M6
PROJECT SPACE: KAVEH GOLESTAN
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M15
INDEX
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M1: Farid Belkahia Le Violon Bleu, Tunis M2: Dia Azzawi / Marwan Meem Gallery, Dubai M3: Shahid Sajjad ArtChowk, Karachi M4: Ernesto Shikhani / Manuel Figueira Perve Galeria, Lisbon M5: Gouider Triki / Hatim Elmekki Elmarsa, Tunis / Dubai M6: Shafic Abboud Agial Art Gallery, Beirut M7: Shafic Abboud / Abdallah Benanteur Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris
M9: Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam Gallery Etemad, Tehran M10: Shafic Abboud Agial Art Gallery, Beirut M11: Project Space: Kaveh Golestan The Fantastical Polaroids of Kaveh Golestan, circa 1976 Presented by Archaeology of the Final Decade Curated by Vali Mahlouji M12: Mahmoud Hammad Green Art Gallery, Dubai M13: Kourosh Shishegaran Shirin Gallery, Tehran / New York M14: Jamil Molaeb Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut M15: Mohamed Melehi / Mohammed Hamidi Loft Art Gallery, Casablanca
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M8: Bruce Onabrakpeya Mydrim Gallery, Lagos
FARID BELKAHIA
M1: FARID BELKAHIA LE VIOLOON BLEU, TUNIS
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Farid Belkahia Aube 1984 Dye on skin 100 x 275 cm Courtesy of Le Violon Bleu
In the early 1960s Belkahia turned away from oil painting and started to work with large-scale hammered copper. Since the mid-1970s, Belkahia has increasingly focused on works made with leather while employing traditional techniques, including the use of naturally occurring dyes such as henna. These works, including Le Main, essentially highlight not only the organic shapes that define the content of the work, but the texture and dimensionality of the materials themselves. Belkahia typically uses sinuous, organic shapes that recall bodies or corporality, incorporating triangles, arrows, and hands, which often allude to questions of sexuality.
EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
Moroccan artist Farid Belkahia’s (1934-2014) first exhibition at Le Violon Bleu was in 2007. Titled ‘The ink of your eyes’ the show brought together important pieces from his collection. Ever since the gallery organized various solo shows of Belkahia across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Belkahia’s works are part of the collections of the Museum of Qatar and Guggenheim. Le Violon Bleu gallery also collaborated with Belkahia on different sculptures editions.
DIA AZZAWI / MARWAN
Meem Gallery presents two of the Middle East’s most well known modern masters, who are still creating works as contemporary artists. Showing the work of Iraqi born Dia Azzawi (b.1939) side by side with the work of Syrian-born Marwan (b.1934), Meem aims to open a conversation about the two artists, who both left their home countries in their early careers for Europe. Key works from the 1970’s have been acquired from both artists for this focused selection in order to catalogue and highlight their artmaking practices, themes and considerations.
EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
Marwan Untitled (Kopf) 1975 Tempera on canvas 195 x 260 cm Courtesy of Meem Gallery
M2: DIA AZZAWI / MARWAN MEEM GALLERY, DUBAI
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SHAHID SAJJAD
Shahid Sajjad (1936-2014) was a deeply philosophical artist for whom observing and recording the present was paramount. He spearheaded the group of artists that forms the historical modernist basis from which contemporary Pakistani artists inform their practices. A self-taught artist who became a fellow of the NCA and founding member of IVSAA, the study of his practice and its underlying thought process informs the curricula of both these institutions. Executing his works himself he imbued in them a compressed energy that was critically acclaimed, loved by his peers and revered by subsequent generations of artists.
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Shahid Sajjad Untitled 1987 Deductive print on photographic paper 71 x 56 cm Courtesy of ArtChowk and the family of the artist
M3: SHAHID SAJJAD ARTCHOWK, KARACHI
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ERNESTO SHIKHANI / MANUEL FIGUEIRA
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Ernesto Shikhani Untitled 1983 Mixed media over paper 43 x 38 cm Courtesy of Perve Galeria
M4: ERNESTO SHIKHANI / MANUEL FIGUEIRA PERVE GALERIA, LISBON
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M4: ERNESTO SHIKHANI / MANUEL FIGUEIRA PERVE GALERIA, LISBON
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Manuel Figueira Musicornea 1991 Gouache on paper 57 x 37 cm Courtesy of Perve Galeria
Ernesto Shikhani (b.1934) and Manuel Figueira (b.1938) are both founders of an international artistic speech coming from Africa. The artworks by Shikhani produced in the 70s, 80s and 90s demonstrate his constant search for new ways of expression. Shikhani’s work reflects the importance of search for cultural identity and knowledge as inherent values in a sustained and sustainable development. The works by Figueira were made between 1960 and 1990 and develop a distinctive and unrepeatable narrative, re-reading the future along with the recreation of a certain type of human transfiguration and throughout the memory of time – magical artworks with a surrealist atmosphere and a symbolic power, appearing as Africa’s diverse voices embedded in an astonishing global discourse.
GOUIDER TRIKI / HATEM ELMEKKI
M5: GOUIDER TRIKI / HATIM ELMEKKI ELMARSA, TUNIS / DUBAI
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EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
Gouider Triki Untitled 1 Engraved in 1978, Printed in 2015 65 x 50 cm Courtesy of Elmarsa
M5: GOUIDER TRIKI / HATIM ELMEKKI ELMARSA, TUNIS / DUBAI
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Gouider Triki (b. 1949) and Hatim Elmekki (1918-2003) are pioneers in the history of North African art who have paved the way for the emergence of twentieth-century modernism, both visually and conceptually. In retrospect, their work constitutes an important link between the academic movement and modernity in North Africa. Elmekki is praised for his prolific body of work and diverse techniques, including his distinctive bold and aggressive style. Elmekki had international exposure through museums and prestigious institutions such as the V&A Museum in London and the Museum of Seoul. He was awarded La Croix de la LÊgion d’Honneur in France in 1980. Triki is a prominent Tunisian painter and engraver. He gained international recognition following his first exhibition in France at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1978 and at other prestigious institutions like the Institut du Monde Arabe in 1992 and at Darat El Founoun in Amman in 1998.
EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
Hatim Elmekki Le Couple 1954 Oil on canvas 46 x 38 cm Courtesy of Elmarsa
AREF EL RAYESS
The Park Gallery’s inaugural participation at Art Dubai is a solo exhibition of important early works by renowned Lebanese modernist Aref El Rayess (1928-2005), direct from the artist’s estate, comprising paintings from the 1960s. Exhibited are fine examples from his most diverse ‘Temps et Murs series’ or ‘Sand Period’, and from the chromatically captivating Flying Carpet series and the ‘Cells & Organisms series’. Rayess earned numerous awards in his lifetime, exhibiting at major galleries and institutions globally and was elected chairman of the Lebanese Association of Artists and Sculptors in 1969.
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Aref El Rayess Untitled 1960 Oil on masonite 61 x 91 cm Courtesy of Aref El Rayess Estate
M6: AREF EL RAYESS THE PARK GALLERY, LONDON
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SHAFIC ABBOUD / ABDALLAH BENANTEUR
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Shafic Abboud Season II 1959 Oil on masonite 130 x 130 cm Courtesy of the Succession of Shafic Abboud and Galerie Claude Lemand
M7: SHAFIC ABBOUD / ABDALLAH BENANTEUR GALERIE CLAUDE LEMAND, PARIS
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SHAFIC ABBOUD / ABDALLAH BENANTEUR
Galerie Claude Lemand presents works by Shafic Abboud (1926-2004) and Abdallah Benanteur (b. 1931) who were both influential Arab artists in the 20th and 21st century. Abboud paintings are a manifesto for freedom, colour and light, while appearing as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East. His work reflects his close relationship to Lebanon, to its landscapes and his childhood memories. Algerian artist Benanteur created lyrical landscapes infused with the light of his Mediterranean homeland, abstract or dotted with silhouettes of Algerian people walking. A new landscape, a kind of heavenly garden, an enchanted earth.
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Abdallah Benanteur To Claude Monet. Giverny. 1983 Oil on canvas 120 x 120 cm Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Claude Lemand
M7: SHAFIC ABBOUD / ABDALLAH BENANTEUR GALERIE CLAUDE LEMAND, PARIS
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BRUCE ONABRAKPEYA
Mydrim Gallery presents selected works by Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya (b.1932). During his formative years he experienced the significant period of the Nigerian Independence. Onobrakpeya was a leading member of the Zaria Art Society (1958-1962) and contributed to the development of a postcolonial aesthetic for African art. The works presented are from different periods and were part of various exhibitions including, ‘Spirit in Ascent’ (1968-1978), ‘Symbols of Ancestral Groves’ (1978-1985), and ‘Sahelian Masquerades’ (1985-1988). Onobrakpeya exhibited at the Tate Modern, the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the 44th Venice Biennale.
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Bruce Onabrakpeya Ono Obaro Ogwu 1988 Plastograph 50 x 68 cm Courtesy of Mydrim Gallery
M8: BRUCE ONABRAKPEYA MYDRIM GALLERY, LAGOS
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MOHSEN VAZIRI MOGHADDAM
Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam was born in Tehran in 1924. Vaziri is an Iranian artist, resident in Italy, who has held over 100 exhibitions all around the world. Throughout his lifetime he has constantly created works of art, painted and made sculptures. Etemad Gallery is presenting some of his most significant works from the 1960s and 1970s. Vaziri’s works were first exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1962. Today Vaziri’s works are part of important Museum’s permanent collections such as the MoMA in New York. A constant and central theme of his oeuvre is space – a dimension without limits, infinitely extended and expressed by colour. Aiming to reflect on the origins of this notion, he does not engage in the metaphysics of a geometric structure or a traditional depiction of nature, but focuses on the earliest principles of human experience.
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Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam Untitled from the Fear and Flight Series 1987 Acrylic on canvas 50 x 80 cm Courtesy of the artist and Etemad Gallery
M9: MOHSEN VAZIRI MOGHADDAM GALLERY ETEMAD, TEHRAN
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SHAFIC ABBOUD
M10: SHAFIC ABBOUD AGIAL ART GALLERY, BEIRUT
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Shafic Abboud Composition 1958 Oil on panel 92 x 64 cm Courtesy of the Estate of Shafic Abboud
Agial presents a solo exhibition of Lebanese modernist painter Shafic Abboud (1926-2004) who has influenced Arab painters in the 20th and 21st century. The selected works originate from his formative period in Paris, 1955-1965, during which he was part of the Paris school and under the influence of avant-garde artists. While Abboud is widely recognized for his abstract style these works are only formally abstract; Abboud begins to experiment with a softer palette and investigates the iconography of the East.
PROJECT SPACE: KAVEH GOLESTAN THE FANTASTICAL POLAROIDS OF KAVEH GOLESTAN, CIRCA 1976 PRESENTED BY ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE FINAL DECADE CURATED BY VALI MAHLOUJI
M11: PROJECT SPACE: KAVEH GOLESTAN CURATED BY VALI MAHLOUJI
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EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
Kaveh Golestan Untitled (DIV O DAD Series) 1976 Polaroid 9 x 9 cm Courtesy of Kaveh Golestan Estate
The Art Dubai Modern Project Space includes a series entitled Az Div o Dad (Polaroids, 1976) by photographer Kaveh Golestan, a rare and important series of works unseen since 1978. In 1976, Golestan, an artist now more recognized for his documentary photography, created a series of innovative and striking Polaroids by moving collaged fragments in front of an open shutter over long exposures. The process created fantastical and surrealistic works that blend fairytale and history. The images are visions of anthropomorphic figures set against natural and architectural backgrounds with references to modern and Qajar era histories. These works open a window onto an experimental side of Golestan’s practice, which has received little critical exposure to date.
The Az Div o Dad series is accompanied by a display of original artworks and collages, which shed light on the processes involved in the creation of the final Polaroids. As a medium, the Polaroid is an important photographic format, which was used by artists including David Hockney, Helmut Newton, Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol and Andrei Tarkovsky over a short period of time. Kaveh Golestan (1950-2003) was an influential Iranian pioneer of documentary photography and a recipient of the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 1979. Golestan was killed in Kifri in Northern Iraq while documenting the war in 2003. The archive of the late photographer contains some half a million negatives, documenting the social and political history of Iran during the second half of the twentieth century. Most of the work of Golestan remains unseen to date. The exhibition is aimed at raising awareness about the historically significant Golestan archive as a whole. Archaeology of the Final Decade aims to raise support for the conservation and digitization of this significant historical archive.
M11: PROJECT SPACE: KAVEH GOLESTAN CURATED BY VALI MAHLOUJI
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This project has been made possible with the generous support of Shulamit Nazarian, Shannon Niehus and anonymous donors EDUCATION GUIDE: MODERN
MAHMOUD HAMMAD
Green Art Gallery presents a solo booth for the late Syrian modernist Mahmoud Hammad (1923-1988). Although Hammad is best known for the paintings of his Abstract period, the booth focuses on his lesser known – but no less significant – Horan period. The works in this presentation span from 1958 to 1963 when he settled in Dara’a and began to consolidate his artistic identity, developing his own individual visual language. Regional politics and the Syrian quotidian – the family, the countryside, its social issues, its people – are evident in these paintings, studies, engraved medallions and lithographs which subtly speak to the ever-present tensions between rural and urban.
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Mahmoud Hammad Memory of the first of February 1958 Acrylic on paper 70 x 70 cm Courtesy of the artist and Green Art Gallery
M12: MAHMOUD HAMMAD GREEN ART GALLERY, DUBAI
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KOUROSH SHISHEGARAN
Known for his more familiar style of painting, scribbles and doodles, Koorosh Shishegaran (b. 1944) has experienced various styles. These include a wide array of experiments on different media and a range of approaches. The works before 80’s can be classified into different series, including Mass Production Works (1973-74), Appropriation of Works of Great Artists (1974-76), Postal Art (1976), Art+Art (1976-77), Art for Production (1977-78), and Political Social Posters (1978-81). Since 1983 Shishegaran has concentrated more on painting and drawing with his familiar feature: line.
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Kourosh Shishegaran Untitled 1992 Oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm Courtesy of the artist
M13: KOUROSH SHISHEGARAN SHIRIN GALLERY, TEHRAN / NEW YORK
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MAHMOUD HAMMAD
M14: JAMIL MOLAEB GALERIE JANINE RUBEIZ, BEIRUT
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Jamil Molaeb Birth 1982 Woodcut print on fabriano paper 100% cotton 76 x 56 cm Courtesy of Galerie Janine Rubeiz
Lebanese artist Jamil Molaeb interweaves traditional with modern painting depicting scenes of traditional rural life. The series of woodcuts presented stems from period of 1980-2000. “Through his woodcuts, Molaeb watches his familiar world with obvious affection and active sympathy, a world threatened by war, rampant globalization, mechanization, information technologies, real estate and financial speculation, in order to perpetuate its memory through a graphic approach imbued with hieraticism and sometimes solemnity which ennobles and idealizes even the minor aspects of peasant life. … Molaeb offers a range of works imbued by the nostalgia and hope of a quiet convivial life, a life worth living, despite the bellicose mood of the times.” — Excerpt from the book: Jamil Molaeb – Xylographies /Woodcuts by Joseph Tarrab.
MOHAMED MELEHI / MOHAMMED HAMIDI
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Mohamed Melehi Soleil Bleu 1975 Cellulosic painting 115 x 105 cm Courtesy of Loft Art Gallery
M15: MOHAMED MELEHI / MOHAMMED HAMIDI LOFT ART GALLERY, CASABLANCA
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M15: MOHAMED MELEHI / MOHAMMED HAMIDI LOFT ART GALLERY, CASABLANCA
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Mohammed Hamidi Untitled 1971 Mixed technique on wood 100 x 65 cm Courtesy of Loft Art Gallery
Loft Art Gallery proposes a dialogue between two major figures of modern art in Morocco. Mohamed Melehi and Hamidi have highly contributed to building Morocco’s Identity. Through its new language, Melehi’s work is an ongoing reflection on the Moroccan cultural heritage. His signature waves both recall his hometown shorelines and depict a certain rhythm and feminine curves. He participated in group shows at New York’s MoMA and was recently acquired by the Centre Pompidou. The Arab World Institute, Paris, made a special focus on Melehi’s work in 2015, recognizing him as a major Modern art pioneer. If we observe a pollination of forms in the 70s between the two artists, Hamidi evolved into a search of signs and symbols drawn from the sub-Saharan African art. The relatively recent recognition of his major contribution to the history of Moroccan art is a unique opportunity to discover the artist who has not yet had the international exposure he deserves.
EDUCATIONAL GUIDE Editors: Anahita Sadighi and Bettina Klein Design: Layan Attari Š Art Dubai. All rights reserved. No part of this educational guide may be reproduced without prior permission from Art Dubai.