LAST CHANCE Hassan Sharif: I Am the Single Work Artist

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

LAST CHANCE Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist September, 2017 This looks sure to be one of the highlights of the UAE’s art season – a landmark retrospective for one of the pioneers of conceptual art and experimental practice in the Middle East, covering Sharif’s diverse body of work from the early 1970s to his untimely death in 2016. The exhibition will encompass Sharif’s early newspaper caricature and comic strip drawings, ‘semi-system’ works, performances, paintings and ‘urban archeology’ objects, plus artworks speciﬁcally commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. This retrospective is the culmination of Sharif’s long and storied history with the Emirate of Sharjah, where he ﬁrst began staging interventions and exhibitions of contemporary art when he returned to the UAE after graduating from the Byam Shaw School of Art in London in 1984. Moving between roles as an artist, educator, critic and writer, Sharif not only sought to encourage Emirati audiences to engage with contemporary art in exhibitions but also on the page, through his Arabic translations of historical art texts and manifestos. His CV also includes the founding or co-founding of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, Sharjah (1980); Al Mareija Art Atelier, Sharjah (1984); Art Atelier in the Youth Theatre and Arts, Dubai (1987); and The Flying House, Dubai (2007). His work is part of the collections at the Sharjah Art Museum and Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah; the Centre Georges Pompidou and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha; and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; He has been widely shown, most recently in the UAE as part of the group exhibitions The Creative Act: Performance – Process – resence (Manarat al Saadiyat, 2017); But We Cannot See Them: Tracing a UAE Art Community 1988-2008 (NYUAD Art Gallery, 2017); Is Old Gold? (Ductac, 2017); and do it (SAF, 2016) – not to mention eight Sharjah Biennials since 1993, most recently in Sharjah Biennial 12 (2015). This exhibition is curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, director of the Sharjah Art Foundation..

Copy Link

Recommended publications

Press Release
gb agency 18 rue des 4 fils 75003 paris tel + 33 1 44 78 00 60 / email [email protected] / www.gbagency.fr — Parallel Forms January 11 - February 22, 2014 With works by Ji í Kovanda, Július Koller, Ana Jotta, Tamas St.Turba and Hassan Sharif. ř The idea of this exhibition started with a coincidence: the simultaneity of an exhibition of Hassan Sharif with a new project by Ji í Kovanda. Very soon, the parallel between the ř — performances realized by Hassan Sharif in the desert of Hatta and the actions of Ji í Kovanda in Prague became clear; this proximity between the two universes questioned howř art has simultaneously grown up at the fringes and at the center and so emphasized the way we look at and legitimate an artistic practice. If Hassan Sharif and Ji í Kovanda were aware of some influences, their geopolitical context has given to their work itsř peculiarity. We later discovered that the parallel has already been drawn by Paulina Kolczynska in a text entitled 'A Tale from the World of Parallel Thinking' highlighting the formal and conceptual interplays between the two artists. Be it in Prague or Dubai, they both turn their immediate environments into field experiments. The absence of audience in their performances (invisible gestures amongst the anonymous crowd by Ji í Kovanda and solitary walks in the desert by Hassan Sharif) does not have the same origin butř reveals a certain fragility. They both take the measure of their space, be it public or private, often urban, in order to redefine their world and position their work.
[Show full text]
Paths to the World, Paths Home (Print Version)
Universes in Universe / Nafas Art Magazine / Paths to the World, Paths Home Paths to the World, Paths Home Hassan Sharif: Semi-System Drawings and Performance Art, 1979-1985 By Paulina Kolczynska It began around 1981 when Hassan Sharif, a young fine arts student from Dubai, completed his foundation courses at the Warwick College and joined The Byam Shaw School of Art. From the beginning, Hassan expressed great interest in experimenting in art and showed heightened sensitivity and understanding of the avant-garde strategies and concepts that permutated the art community at that time. Once becoming acquainted with Kenneth Martin’s (1905-1984) Chance and Order theory, Sharif very quickly adopted it in his independent experimentations in drawings and Performance Art. The philosophical base for his art was, therefore, grounded in the British Constructivist movement, which focused strictly on inventing new means of generating forms. It is important to understand that Kenneth Martin, as the leading theorist of British Constructivism, devoted his life to defining the relationship between movement and construction as a means of generating a variety of sculptural structures. Martin’s most prominent student, Peter Lowe, also a sculptor, defined the scope of the research by focusing on the order of forms. These were also the times when Constructivism / Post-Constructivism was functioning rather as a component or an undercurrent of much larger and complex movement called Fluxus ("flow"). Fluxus, although having its origins in New York in the 1960’s, trickled down to Europe and Japan over the years and remained a vital framework for many artists for a period of at least two decades , in the 70’s and 80’s specifically.
[Show full text]
DUCTAC Dubai - UAE [email protected] 002 003 Mind Dubai Contemporary Contents
DUCTAC Dubai - UAE [email protected] www.ductac.org 002 003 MinD Dubai Contemporary Contents 010 Foreword Colette Mol / Joseph Fowler 014 Dubai Contemporary Mohammed Kazem 019 Visual Polyphony Cristiana de Marchi 035 Abdul Rahman Al Ma’aini 047 Corrina Celeste Mehiel 059 Cristiana de Marchi 071 Hassan Sharif 081 Jessica Mein 091 Joe Girandola 101 Layla Juma 117 Lujin Yoon 131 Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim 143 Nelly Massera Foreword DUCTAC’s Gallery of Light collaborates with both local and international artists and curators to exhibit arts practice that is evolving and experimental. Now in its third year, the Gallery’s alternative art platform “MinD” (Made in Dubai) aims to function as a barometer, reflecting the state and mood of art in the UAE. The initiative serves to advance the cultural dialogue in the UAE, to provoke public interest, input and debate around new artistic developments, encouraging fresh thinking and new ways of viewing and appreciating contemporary art. “MinD” is part of our ongoing initiative to provide a platform for UAE-based artists, in order to build a dynamic and vital foundation for visual arts in the Emirates. On behalf of the team at DUCTAC we would like to express our sincere gratitude to Mohammed Kazem, a leading figure in the development of contemporary art in the UAE, for his vision, discernment and dedication in curating this exhibition. We would also like to offer special thanks to the co-editor of this catalogue Cristiana de Marchi, for her insightful observations and words, and to Corrina Mehiel and Lujin Yoon for their contributions to both the catalogue and to the exhibition as a whole.
[Show full text]
Second Lahore Biennale: Between the Sun and the Moon Curated by Hoor Al Qasimi Features 20+ New Commissions and Work by More Than 70 International Artists
For Immediate Release 6 January 2020 Second Lahore Biennale: between the sun and the moon Curated by Hoor Al Qasimi Features 20+ New Commissions and Work by More Than 70 International Artists Installed Across Cultural and Heritage Sites Throughout Lahore, Pakistan, from 26 January to 29 February 2020 Lahore, Pakistan—6 January 2020—The Lahore Biennale Foundation today revealed a list of over 70 participating artists for the second edition of the Lahore Biennale (LB02), running from 26 January through 29 February 2020. Curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, LB02: between the sun and the moon brings a plethora of artistic projects to cultural and heritage sites throughout the city of Lahore including more than 20 new commissions by artists from across the region and around the world, including Alia Farid, Diana Al-Hadid, Hassan Hajjaj, Haroon Mirza, Hajra Waheed and Simone Fattal, among many others. Other participating artists include Anwar Saeed, Rasheed Araeen and the late Madiha Aijaz. With a focus on the Global South, where ongoing social disaffection is being aggravated by climate change, LB02 responds to the cultural and ecological history of Lahore and aims to awaken awareness of humanity’s daunting contemporary predicament. Works presented in LB02 will explore human entanglement with the environment while revisiting traditional understandings of the self and their cosmological underpinnings. Inspiration for this thematic focus is drawn from intellectual and cultural exchange between South and West Asia. “For centuries, inhabitants of these regions oriented themselves with reference to the sun, the moon, and the constellations.
[Show full text]
Sharjah Retrospective Sheds New Light on Hassan Sharif Legacy
22 November 19, 2017 Culture Sharjah retrospective sheds new light on Hassan Sharif legacy N.P. Krishna Kumar been recreated in a gallery called “Hassan’s Atelier” exactly the way he had left it along with the last Sharjah pieces he was working on and the jumble of raw material that he used. landmark retrospective Sheikha Hoor took the “I Am the titled “Hassan Sharif: I Single Work Artist” title from Sha- Am the Single Work Art- rif’s writings referring to “his con- ist” at the Sharjah Art ceptual exploration of duration and Foundation (SAF) cel- repetition.” ebratesA the life and work of the late The works are organised into nar- Emirati artist, a pioneer who liber- rative chapters, each with its own ated a nascent art practice in the space. The chapters’ titles were also United Arab Emirates of the early inspired by Sharif’s own words, col- 1970s. lected from recorded conversations. Curated by SAF President Sheikha The show is arranged as a visual nar- Hoor al-Qasimi, the exhibition in- rative that unfolds Sharif’s journey, cludes approximately 300 works in six other chapters: “…so I created spanning the foundation’s spaces in a semi system,” “My little tiny box,” the Al Mareija Square area and Bait “I’m loyal to colour,” “Performance Al Serkal in the Arts Square. is good,” “I’m an object maker” and “The show has been in the mak- “Things in my room.” ing for a number of years with the Born in 1951, Sharif lived and Avant-garde vision. Late Emirati artist Hassan Sharif.
[Show full text]
Art Dubai Pays Tribute to the Late Hassan Sharif the Original Provocateur Revolutionised the UAE’S Art Scene
Art Dubai 2017 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, ART DUBAI 2017 Art Dubai pays tribute to the late Hassan Sharif The original provocateur revolutionised the UAE’s art scene. by GARETH HARRIS When Hassan Sharif died in September last year, his Dubai- based gallery, Isabelle van den Eynde, paid tribute to the Emirati artist’s maverick spirit. “Sharif didn’t put stock in conventions of age, identity or the need for comfort. Only art and the restless making of art grasped his attention,” said a statement, highlighting the achievements of the Dubai-born polymath dubbed the godfather of conceptual art in the Gulf. At Art Dubai, a ra of special events and exhibitions explores why Sharif matters. e life Sharif’s career began in the late 1970s as a satirical caricaturist, drawing cartoons for the Akhbar Dubai newspaper, but his vision and practice were transformed aer studying at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London from 1979 to 1984. He returned to the UAE with the aim of building an audience for contemporary art in the Gulf. “Sharif was probably the greatest artist from the UAE and was active at a time when the ﬂedgling [UAE] federation was seeking an identity. Sharif, to a large degree, helped de ne that identity,” says Sultan Sooud Al- Qassemi, the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, which includes several works by the artist. His bold, Fluxus-like performance pieces made waves, especially in the conservative UAE. “For his earliest experimental work of the 1980s, Sharif brought friends to the edges of Dubai and they were the audience for his performances – jumping in the desert, tying rope between rocks – using apparently simple gestures to pointedly question ideals of technical skill, mastery and accomplishment,” says a spokeswoman for Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde.
[Show full text]
Landmark Hassan Sharif Retrospective to Be Presented By
Landmark Hassan Sharif Retrospective to be Presented by Sharjah Art Foundation in November 2017 Featuring a Complete Installation of the Artist’s Studio and Never-Before-Seen Late Works, Comprehensive Survey Traces His Experimental Practice and Enduring Influence on Contemporary Art in the United Arab Emirates Sharjah, UAE – 28 September 2017 – This November, Sharjah Art Foundation presents a landmark retrospective of pioneering conceptual artist Hassan Sharif, marking the largest and most comprehensive survey of the artist’s work to date. Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist traces nearly five decades of the artist’s multimedia practice, including painting, sculpture, assemblage, drawing, installation, and photography, as well as never-before-seen late works by the artist. The entirety of Sharif’s studio— recently donated to Sharjah Art Foundation by the artist’s estate—will also be on view for the first time, providing new perspective on the artist’s practice. Curated by Sharjah Art Foundation President and Director Hoor Al Qasimi, I Am The Single Work Artist is the culmination of the artist’s lifelong role as an advocate and pioneer for the development of contemporary art and thought in the United Arab Emirates and in Sharjah, where he first began staging interventions and exhibitions of contemporary art, and exhibited at the first Sharjah Biennial in 1993. On view from 4 November 2017 to 3 February 2018, the exhibition will span all of Sharjah Art Foundation’s spaces in the Al Mureijah Square area and Bait Al Serkal in Arts Square. Admission is free and open to the public.
[Show full text]
UAE Becomes an Incubator to Help Careers of Local Emerging Artists
Special Report Art & Culture in the Gulf Visual Arts UAE becomes an incubator to help careers of local emerging artists How are young, homegrown talents making a name for themselves and who are they? Emirati artist Afra Al Dhaheri questions social constructs around hair by using it in her paintings Nadine Khalil 6 HOURS AGO As the UAE allows more personal freedoms, a younger generation of local artists are seeking to work in ways not dictated by official institutions or commercial groups. Having recently announced significant social liberalisation, allowing unmarried couples and unrelated flatmates to live together for example, the United Arab Emirates also hopes to attract more cultural capital as part of efforts to diversify its economy. Pioneering Emirati artists are already represented abroad: the work of the late Hassan Sharif, credited with developing the UAE’s conceptual art movement, is currently on show at Sweden’s Malmö Konsthall in the largest European retrospective of his work. One of his collaborators, the early land artist Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, who works directly from the landscape with natural materials, will represent the UAE National Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale. At home, meanwhile, a new wave is surfacing, informed by earlier experimentation. As local galleries pay What is driving young artists to develop more attention to more grassroots initiatives? With a dearth young talent, they are of residencies and studio spaces in the picking up artists who UAE, more established local artists are helping emerging talent by giving them are socially engaged, space to create and exhibit their work. and inspired by changes in their Bait (“House”) 15, an artist-run studio in environment Abu Dhabi, was one of the first collectives to respond to the fact that artists still cannot rent studio spaces without a commercial licence.
[Show full text]
Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Founding Director of Sharjah Art
Hoor Al Qasimi, President and founding Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, is a practicing artist and curator, who launched Sharjah Art Foundation in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the role of art in Sharjah, the UAE, regionally and internationally. With a passion for supporting experimentation and innovation in the arts, Al Qasimi has continuously expanded the scope of the Foundation over its nearly ten-year history to include major exhibitions that have toured internationally, artist and curator residencies in visual art, film, and music, commissions and production grants for emerging artists, and a wide range of educational programming for children and adults in Sharjah. In 2003, Al Qasimi was appointed curator of Sharjah Biennial 6, and has since continued as Biennial Director. Under Al Qasimi’s leadership, the Sharjah Biennial has continued to grow as an internationally recognised platform for contemporary artists, curators, and cultural producers. Her leadership in the field led to her election as the new president of the International Biennial Association (IBA) in 2017, an appointment that transferred IBA’s headquarters to Sharjah. Complimenting her role at SAF, Al Qasimi also serves as the President of the Africa Institute as well as on the Board of Directors for the Sharjah Architecture Triennial which will debut its inaugural edition in November 2019. An accomplished curator, Al Qasimi has curated several major exhibitions mounted by Sharjah Art Foundation including the major retrospective Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist (2017), Yayoi Kusama, Dots Obsession (2016–17) and Robert Breer: Time Flies (2016–17). Other notable projects include 1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates, the UAE Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), Rasheed Araeen: Before and After Minimalism, Sharjah (2014), solo exhibitions for Simone Fattal (2016) and Farideh Lashai (2016), and Susan Hefuna: Another Place, Sharjah (2014).
[Show full text]
Secondary Resource
advisory body, and the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. Territory and State Australian, the of initiative an Strategy, Craft and Arts Visual the and body, advisory This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and and funding arts its Council, Australia the through Government Australian the by assisted been has project This BENEFACTOR APT9 KIDS PRINCIPAL PRINCIPAL KIDS APT9 PRINCIPAL PARTNER PRINCIPAL STRATEGIC PARTNER STRATEGIC FOUNDING SUPPORTER FOUNDING SECONDARY RESOURCE SECONDARY 2018. Brisbane, Art, Modern of Gallery [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery I I Gallery Art Queensland catalogue], [exhibition APT9: The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art Art Contemporary of Triennial Pacific Asia 9th The APT9: New York; gb agency, Paris agency, gb York; New from drawn material with staff, Learning QAGOMA by developed been has resource Learning QAGOMA This Associates, Gray Alexander Dubai; Eynde, den van Isabelle Gallery Sharif; Hassan of Estate courtesy: Image (detail) 2015 (detail) / Dubai Eynde, den van Isabelle Gallery and Sharif Hassan of Estate © / Cutting and tying no.2 tying and Cutting by the Queensland Art Gallery. Art Queensland the by Hassan Sharif Hassan Iran/United Arab Emirates 1951–2016 / / 1951–2016 Emirates Arab Iran/United Auckland; Gallery, Rooms Two and artist The held is publication this in texts for Copyright publisher. the to addressed be should rights and reproduction (detail) 2015–16 (detail) courtesy: Image / artist The © / / b.1954 Zealand New Aotearoa Dead Bee Portrait #14 Portrait Bee Dead reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright owners.
[Show full text]
Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority Commissions Immersive
Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority Commissions Immersive and Interactive Installation for Upcoming Exhibition of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Collection Artwork by artists Hesam Rahmanian, Ramin Haerizadeh, and Rokni Haerizadeh will embody essence of The Creative Act: Performance • Process • Presence (Abu Dhabi—February 1, 2017)—Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) has commissioned artists Hesam Rahmanian, Ramin Haerizadeh, and Rokni Haerizadeh to create an installation inspired by the core themes of The Creative Act: Performance • Process • Presence, the second exhibition of works from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi collection, which opens 8 March 2017 at Manarat Al Saadiyat on Saadiyat Island. The exhibition will bring together artists of different generations from different places of the world who have emphasised performance, process, and human presence in their practice, offering a transcultural perspective on these defining aspects of contemporary art. Hesam Rahmanian (b. 1980, Knoxville, Tennessee; lives and works in Dubai), Ramin Haerizadeh (b. 1975, Tehran; lives and works in Dubai), and Rokni Haerizadeh (b. 1978, Tehran; lives and works in Dubai), create immersive installations that incorporate various mediums—such as painting, performance, photography, sculpture, and video—and are realised in collaboration with other contributors including artists, curators, musicians, and friends. For The Creative Act exhibition, they have created a multi-room installation that will feature site-specific paintings, videos, and artworks by other artists including: Nargess Hashemi and Laleh Khorramian made for this exhibition and from the artists’ art collection. It will take visitors on a journey through distinctive yet interconnected episodes or acts that offer reflections on the nature of art and how we represent ourselves and the world in which we live through words, images, gestures, and movement.
[Show full text]
Hassan Sharif Education
HASSAN SHARIF Hassan Sharif (1951-2016) made a vital contribution to conceptual art and experimental practice in the Middle East through 40 years of performance, installation, drawing, painting and assemblage. Prior to leaving the UAE to study in London in 1979, Sharif gained attention for his cartoons published in the UAE press - ironic, outspoken critiques of the rapid industrialisation of the Emirates and political deadlock of 1970s Arab Nationalism. As an artist, he rejected calligraphic abstraction, which was becoming the dominant discourse in the Middle East at that time, and pursued instead a pointedly contemporary vocabulary, drawing on the non-elitism and intermedia of Fluxus and the potential in British Constructionism's systemic processes of making. Sharif graduated from The Byam Shaw School of Art (now part of Central Saint Martins) in 1984 and returned to the UAE shortly after. He set about staging interventions and the first exhibitions of contemporary art in Sharjah, as well as translating art historical texts and manifestos into Arabic so as to provoke a local audience to engage with - or at least reject - contemporary art discourse. Beginning in 1982, Sharif began to formulate and document private performances of mundane activities (e.g. discussing art in a toilet cubicle with the faculty of The Byam Shaw School, jumping or digging holes in the UAE desert). Simultaneously, he began work on what he referred to as Experiments – formal exercises, like counting cars on a street in Dubai or tracing every instance of the letter ’t’ on a page of The Daily Mail newspaper. These absurdist and purposely boring practices were initially performed, in part, as an ironic response to the functionality of economics and globalisation: uselessness as gesture.
[Show full text]