PRESS RELEASE But Still Tomorrow Builds into My Face Private Preview: 14 March, 2016 14 March – 19 May, 2016

Artists: Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács, Daniele Genadry, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Yazan Khalili, Taus Makhacheva, Shahpour Pouyan, Pia Rönicke

Curated by Nat Muller

Before the time of day – I am Before the wonder of the sun – I burn. Trees run behind me. Blossoms walk in my shadow. But still tomorrow Builds into my face (Adonis, “The Pages of Day and Night”)

Lawrie Shabibi is delighted to announce But Still Tomorrow Builds into My Face, a group show curated by Nat Muller. The exhibition takes on a timely topic: the disappearance and loss of cultural and other types of heritage. The works explore the relationship between collecting, power, history, conflict and identity. By snatching away subjects from the jaws of time and permanent loss, and by fixing them in memory, the works become poetic and political acts of preservation.

The title is taken from the poem “The Pages of Day and Night” by the Syrian poet Adonis in which he describes the cycle of time passing and how tomorrow always comes even as he forcefully clings to yesterday. In her series of the same name, Danish artist Pia Rönicke shows photogravures of plant material taken from Copenhagen’s herbarium. Her selection is based on a cross-reference between plant samples collected during the 1760s Danish Arabia Expedition to Egypt, Arabia and Syria, and the species that were recently sent for safekeeping to the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway from the gene bank in Aleppo, Syria. The herbarium samples divulge data on plant matter as well as on the geo-political contexts they were collected in. They are what Rönicke calls, a growing “collection of anticipation”.

Tunis-born Nadia Kaabi-Linke’s Archive of Tunis Banalities demonstrates her unique technique of wall rubbings. Like an archeologist she uncovers a specific urban memory and brings the streets of Tunis, prior to the 2011 uprisings, into the gallery space. In Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukács’ ghostly, yet ornamental video the flattened motif of 19th century illustrations of the ruins of Palmyra are brought to life as if they were liquid. Created before the destruction of Palmyra by ISIS, the violence of the present overshadows the past and the artists’ intent.

Iranian artist Shahpour Pouyan’s sculpture of the tomb of the 11th century Muqarnas dome of Sharaf ad- Dawla, a Shi’ite mausoleum near Mosul, Iraq is another example of a site forever lost. It was recently destroyed by ISIS. Long-fascinated by its shape, and hoping he would one day visit it, Pouyan kept an image of it pinned to his desk. His sculpture thus is a preservation of an image, a memorial to a gone monument.

The violence, but also poetics, of loss and absence run consistently through the exhibition. This seemingly contradictory dynamic is well illustrated in the works by Palestinian artist Yazan Khalili and those of Lebanese artist Daniele Genadry. In his series of photographs The Day we Saw Nothing In Front of Us Khalili has taken images of the landscape in the Palestinian occupied territories in which he has scratched out the Israeli settlements on the horizon, thus revealing an image in which violence can be enacted upon the violence depicted. Genadry’s screenprints on mylar are based on landscape photographs taken over the course of ten years from the same town in Mount . These ephemeral-looking pieces have a sensibility of the durational while being fleeting at the same time. They question what seeing and not seeing might actually mean.

Finally, in her video Tightrope Dagestani artist Taus Makhacheva continues her querying of the production of history in the post-Soviet era. A tightrope walker crosses the abyss of a canyon in the highlands of the Caucasus’ mountains transporting artworks of various Dagestani artists. This balancing act highlights how art history is threatened by amnesia and how an equilibrium can be found between the fragile balance of post-Soviet subjectivity and a traditional, national and contemporary narrative. Moreover, as with all the works in the exhibition But Still Tomorrow Builds into My Face, it asks what the role and the position of the artist is in these tumultuous times.

Biographies:

Persijn Broersen (b. Amsterdam, 1973) & Margit Lukács (b. Delft, 1974) work in a wide variety of media- most notably video, animation and graphics- producing a myriad of works that reflect on the depiction of nature in our increasingly virtual society. With intricate layers of (filmed) footage, digital animation and images appropriated from the media they demonstrate how reality, (mass) media and fiction are strongly intertwined in contemporary culture. Broersen and Lukács studied at the Sandberg Institute and at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Their films, installations and graphic work have been shown internationally, including: Biennale of Sydney (AUS), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL), Muhka (BE), Centre Pompidou (FR), Shanghai World Expo (CN), Casa Enscendida, Madrid (ES). Their films have been shown at several festivals including LAForum in Los Angeles, Kassel Dokumentar and filmfestival (DE), Paris Rencontres (FR, DE& ES), New York Film Festival (USA), IDFA, Amsterdam (NL) -and International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL). The artists are currently living and working in Amsterdam.

Daniele Genadry (b.Baltimore, 1980) graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Studio Art and Mathematics, and earned her MFA in Painting from the Slade School of Art in . Her work considers the construction of visual experience through memory and movement. Multiple viewpoints, decentralized images, and shifting frames within the work address the distance necessary to merge a documented moment with the narrative passing geographies. She has participated in residencies at the Bronx Museum, Anderson Ranch Art Center (USA), Fondazione Ratti (Italy), Frans Masereel Centrum (), and in 2013- 14 she was the Abbey Scholar at the British School at Rome. Recent exhibitions include Missing Real, Taymour Grahne Gallery, NYC (2015); Roman Remains, Transition Gallery, London (2015); This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time, SMBA, Amsterdam (2014) and AUB Galleries, (2015); HARD COPY, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome (2014); and Bronx Calling, 2nd Aim Biennial, The Bronx Museum, NYC (2013). In 2015 she was the recipient of the Basil H. Alkazzi Award for Excellence in Painting. Genadry lives and works in New York.

Nadia Kaabi-Linke (b.Tunis, 1978) studied at the University of Fine Arts in Tunis (1999) before receiving a PhD from the Sorbonne University in Paris (2008). Her installations, objects and pictorial works are embedded in urban contexts, intertwined with memory and geographically and politically constructed identities. Her solo shows include Walk the Line, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas (2015); FAHRENHEIT311: Seven Legends of Machismo, Lawrie Shabibi, (2015); No Frills, Cristina Guerra Contemporary, Lisbon (2015); The Future Rewound and the Cabinet of Souls, Mosaic Rooms, London (2014); Stranded, preso por fios, Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2014) and In confinement my desolate mind desires, Experimenter, ArtBasel Hong Kong (2014). In 2016 she will participate in But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, Curated by Sara Raza, Guggenheim, NY, USA and the Dallas Art Fair, TX, USA. She has participated in group exhibitions at the MARTa Herford Museum, (2016); Bardo Museum, Carthage (2015); Galerie ISA, Mumbai (2015); Art Dubai Contemporary (2015); Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College, Pennsylvania (2014); Savvy Contemporary, (2014); Etopia Center for Art and Technology, Zaragoza (2014); Villa Datris, Paris (2014); Château de Penthes, Geneva (2014); Lousiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek (2014); Greenhouse, Berlin (2014); Summaria Lunn Gallery, London (2013); Bahrain National Museum, Manama (2013); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); the Nam June Paik Art Center at Geonggi-do, Korea (2013); the Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2012; Herbert F Johnson Museum, Ithaca, New York (2012); the 54th Venice Biennial, Venice (2011) and the 9th Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah (2009). Her works are part of several public and private collections including the Burger Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York; M+, Museum of Visual Culture Hong Kong and the Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Kaabi-Linke lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Yazan Khalili (b. Palestine, 1981) received a degree in Architecture from Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine in 2003, graduating in 2010 with a Master’s degree from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. Khalili completed residencies at the Delfina Foundation, London, UK, in 2008 and the National Film School of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark in 2006. Khalili is currently pursuing an MFA degree at Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. He has participated in numerous solo exhibitions including: On Love and Other Landscapes, Mumbai Art Room, Mumbai, India (2015); The Aliens, Transit Gallery, Mechelen, Belgium (2015); Regarding Distance, E.O.A.Projects, London, UK (2014); On Love and Other Landscapes, Imane Fares Gallery, Paris, (2013); Landscape of Darkness, Transit Gallery, Mechelen, Belgium (2011); Urban Impression, French Cultural Centres, Palestine (2007-8) and Margins, The Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2008). He has previously participated in several group shows including: EXTRACT V, Kunstforeningen GL Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark (2015); A Million Lines, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, Krakow, Poland (2015); the First Biennial of Photography by contemporary Arab artists, Institut du Monde Arabe & Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France (2015); Blindness of Love, Lawrie Shabibi, Present Future section, Artissima, Turin, Italy (2015); The Island, (in collaboration with Arnar Asgiersson) Absolut Art Bar, Art Dubai, Dubai, UAE (2015); On Love and Other Landscapes, LA MER AU MILIEU DES TERRES // MARE MEDI TERRANEUM, Es Baluard Museu d'Art

Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Palma, Majorca, Spain, (2015); Love Letters to a Union / The Falling Camrades, Forum Expanded, Berlinale, Berlin, Germany (2015); Blindness of Love, Eye on Palestine, , Belgium (2014); Love Letter to Mars, OCA, Oslo, Norway (2014) and Love Letter to Mars, Al-Mawred Al- Thaqafi, Cairo, Egypt (2014). Khalili’s work is in several prominent collections including the , London, UK; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE and the Imperial War Museum, London, UK. In 2015 Khalili received a grant from The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture as well as one from the Young Arab Theatre Fund. In 2006 Khalili received the A.M. Qattan Foundation’s Young Artists Award and was nominated for the KLM Paul Huf Award in 2009, 2010 and 2012, as well as the Bellagio Award in 2013. Khalli lives and works in and out of Palestine.

Taus Makhacheva (b. Moscow, 1983) has developed a performance-based practice that questions traditional forms of history-making as well as cultural and gender norms. Working predominantly with video and photography, Makhacheva adopts a humorous criticality to everyday life in an attempt to reconcile the contemporary with the nostalgic, the local with the global and tradition with progress. Her selected solo exhibitions include Vababai Vadadai!, Narrative Projects, London, UK (2015); (In)sidenotes, Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala, Sweden (2015); Dagestan. Not for Sale at artSumer Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey (2014); A Walk, A Dance, A Ritual at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig, Germany (2014); What? Whose? Why? at Raf Projects, Tehran, (2013); Story Demands to be Continued Republic of Dagestan Union of Artists, Makhachkala, Russia (2013) and Let Me Be Part of A Narrative, Paperworks Gallery, Moscow, Russia (2012). Recent group exhibitions include: Lost in the Archive, Riga Art Space, Riga, Latvia (2015); MELT, minus20degree Art and Architecture Winter Biennale, Flachau, Austria (2015); Crossing Lines, Gallery on the Corner, London UK (2015); The School of Kyiv, Kyiv Biennial (2015); House of Clothes, Lvivska Square, Kyiv, Ukraine (2015); Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow,Russia (2015); Too Early, Too Late. Middle East And Modernity, Arte Fiera, Bologna (2015); Love me, Love me not, collateral exhibition, 55th Venice Biennale (2013); Re: emerge - Towards a New Cultural Cartography, Sharjah Biennial 11 (2013) and City States - Makhachkala, Topography of Masculinity, 7th Liverpool Biennial, (2012).In 2014 she won the Future of Europe prize at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig, she was the recipient of the Innovation Prize, the Russian state award for contemporary art in Moscow, in 2012 and in 2011 was shortlisted for the Kandinsky Art Prize. Her works are in the collections of Tate Modern, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Museum of Modern Art, Antwerp; National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow; Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul; Uppsala Konstmuseum, Uppsala; Video Insight Foundation, Turin; Yarat Foundation, Baku; Dagestan Museum of Fine Art, Makhavhkala and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco, CA. Makhacheva currently lives and works between Makhachkala and Moscow.

Shahpour Pouyan (b.Isfahan, 1979) has an MFA in Integrated Practices and New Forms at Pratt Institute, New York, and has an MFA in Painting from the Tehran University of Art. He previously studied Neoplatonic Philosophy at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy and received a diploma in Math and Physics from Elmieh School, Tehran. Between 2007 and 2009 he taught art history and the history of Persian Architecture at Science and Culture University, Tehran. Pouyan has had numerous solo gallery shows including XVA Gallery, Dubai (2009), Sixty Six Art Gallery, Tehran (2010), Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2011 and 2014) and Copperfield gallery, London (2015). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions and art fairs around the world, most recently in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2014), UNTITLED Art Fair, Miami Beach, Florida (2014), the Mykonos Biennale, (2013) and Art 13 London, UK (2013). His work has also been included in publications produced both in and out of Iran and is part of many prominent private collections and of the permanent collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. He has participated in several international residencies including International Cite Des Arts, Paris, the Pegasus Art Foundation, Hyderabad, India, and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, in March 2014. Pouyan currently lives and works in New York.

Pia Rönicke (b. 1974, Denmark) often works with collections of different kinds; archives of letters, notes, images, newspapers, microfilm and online databases, to mention a few. She works with the blind spot –

that which always contains a spatial dimension, and a set of coordinates of unnoticed, undisclosed material. She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: A Story Within A Story, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, Sweden (2015); Old News (Again), Cneai, Chatou (2015); Women Forward, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde (2015); Human-Space-Machine, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2014); Buildering: Misbehaving the City, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2014); Reports from New Sweden, Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2013); Aurora, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2013); Dream and action find equal support in it, gb agency, Paris (2012); Community without Propinquity, Milton Keynes Art Gallery, Buckinghamshire (2011); Scanning Through Landscapes, Walden Affairs, Den Haag (2010); Facing, Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz (2009); Travel Stories, Casco, Utrecth (2008) and Archaeologies of the Future, Sala Rekalde, Bilboa (2007). Publications include Rosa’s Letters, Mousse Publishing, (2012). Rönicke lives and works in Copenhagen.

Nat Muller is an independent curator and critic. Her main interests include: the intersections of aesthetics, media and politics; media art and contemporary art in and from the Middle East. She is a regular contributor to Springerin, MetropolisM. Her writing has been published amongst others in Bidoun, ArtAsiaPacific, Art Papers, Hyperallergic, Canvas, X-tra, The Majalla, Art Margins and Harper’s Bazaar Arabia. She has also written numerous catalogue and monographic essays on artists from the Middle East. With Alessandro Ludovico she edited the Mag.net Reader2: Between Paper and Pixel (2007), and Mag.net Reader3: Processual Publishing, Actual Gestures (2009), based on a series of debates organized at Documenta XII. She has taught at universities and academies in The Netherlands and the Middle East, and has curated video and film screenings for projects and festivals internationally, including for Rotterdam's International Film Festival, Norwegian Short Film Festival and Video D.U.M.B.O. She is a board member of the IMPAKT Media Festival (Utrecht), and sits on the advisory board of Artterritories (Ramallah), the arts organization TENT (Rotterdam), the Fund for Creative Industries and e-Culture (NL), and served as a member of selection committee of the Mondriaan Fund (NL). Recent curated projects include Spectral Imprints for the Abraaj Group Art Prize in Dubai (2012), Adel Abidin’s solo exhibition I love to love… at Forum Box in Helsinki (2013), Memory Material at Akinci Gallery, Amsterdam (2014); Customs Made: Quotidian Practices & Everyday Rituals at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah (2014); This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam & American University of Beirut Gallery (2014/15). Nat is editorial correspondent for Ibraaz, a member of the editorial board of Broadsheet Magazine, Australia, and most recently was a speaker on BBC World's award-winning program The Doha Debates. In 2015 she curated a group show on contemporary Islamic miniatures Minor Heroisms for Galeri Zilberman (Istanbul) and Sadik Kwaish Alfraji’s acclaimed solo show Driven by Storms (Ali's Boat) at Ayyam Gallery in Dubai and she edited his first monograph, published by Schilt Publishing. She was Associate Curator for the Delfina Foundation’s Politics of Food Program in London. In 2016 she edited Nancy Atakan’s monograph Passing On published by Kehrer Verlag, as well as her solo show Sporting Chances at Pi Artworks (London). www.natmuller.com

About Lawrie Shabibi:

Lawrie Shabibi is a contemporary art gallery housed in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue. The gallery supports the long-term development of the careers of young international contemporary artists with a focus on those from the Middle East and North Africa. The gallery also organizes art historical exhibitions working with an older generation of artists from the region. Liaising with curators, institutions, museums and collectors the gallery has successfully introduced international artists to the region whilst at the same time presented Middle Eastern artists to the international contemporary arts community. By holding a regular programme of exhibitions, screenings and talks, publishing catalogues and participating in international art fairs, Lawrie Shabibi has in the space of five years been a forerunner in the development of the contemporary art scene in Dubai.

The gallery represents Hamra Abbas, Adel Abidin, Maliheh Afnan, Farhad Ahrarnia, Wafaa Bilal, Asad Faulwell, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Taus Makhacheva, Nabil Nahas, Driss Ouadahi, Shahpour Pouyan, Nathaniel Rackowe, Marwan Sahmarani, Larissa Sansour and Mona Saudi.

For information on Lawrie Shabibi please visit: www.lawrieshabibi.com

Contact For more information, please contact Margaret Antelme [email protected]

Lawrie Shabibi Contact Details: Alserkal Avenue, Unit 21, Al Quoz PO Box 123901 Dubai, UAE E - [email protected] T - +971 (0)4 346 9906 F - +971 (0)4 346 9902