The Farjam Collection is renowned for its vast collection of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art, which is a testament to the region’s vibrant artistic culture. The collection includes works by both established and emerging artists from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, and represents a diverse range of media, styles, and themes.
One of the most significant aspects of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art in the Farjam Collection is its representation of the region’s cultural and political landscape. Many of the works address issues of identity, displacement, and conflict, providing insight into the complex social and political realities of the region. The works often explore themes such as migration, gender, religion, and the impact of globalization on local cultures.
The Farjam Collection is also significant because it features works by some of the most important contemporary artists from the Middle East. The collection includes works by Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, and Syrian artist Khaled Takreti, among many others. These artists have gained international recognition for their unique and insightful perspectives on the Middle East and their contributions to contemporary art.
Another important aspect of modern contemporary Middle Eastern art in the Farjam Collection is its innovation and experimentation with different media and techniques. Many of the works in the collection employ traditional techniques such as calligraphy, but also incorporate new technologies and materials. For example, the collection includes works that use photography, video, and digital media to explore themes of identity and globalization.
Finally, the importance of contemporary modern Middle Eastern art in the Farjam Collection extends beyond its aesthetic and cultural significance. The collection serves as a platform for promoting greater understanding and appreciation of the region’s art and culture. The collection has been exhibited in many venues worldwide, including the British Museum, the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and the Venice Biennale, among others. Through these exhibitions and other initiatives, the collection helps to promote greater awareness of the unique and innovative contributions of Middle Eastern artists to contemporary art.
In conclusion, the Farjam Collection’s modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art is an important and valuable part of the collection. It provides insight into the complex social and political realities of the region and showcases the diverse and innovative perspectives of Middle Eastern artists. The collection serves as a platform for promoting greater understanding and appreciation of the region’s art and culture and helps to highlight the unique contributions of Middle Eastern artists to contemporary art.
View of Sirros
MAHMOUD SAID
(born Alexandria, Egypt, 1897; died Alexandria, Egypt, 1964)
1949
Oil on canvas
71 × 91 cm
K1612
Egyptian painter Mahmoud Said is perhaps best known for his
boldly rendered, celebratory depictions of Egyptian life, rural and
urban alike.1 Born to a wealthy political family, Said began his early
arts studies under the tutelage of Italian painters Amelia da Forno
Casonato and Arturo Zanieri.2 While ultimately educated as a
lawyer, Said continued to pursue painting alongside his legal work.
He frequently travelled to Paris for arts training, notably studying at
the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the Académie Julian.3
Said was a founding member of La Chimere, an artist’s group that
sought a modern Egyptian aesthetic that drew on the country’s
ancient past and contemporary present, alongside fellow artists
Mahmoud Mokhtar (cat. 134), Mohammed Naghi (cat. 141) and
Ragheb Ayad.4
An early painting in the artists’ oeuvre, Laundry at Kobba
showcases Said’s germinal experiments with the conventions of
European landscape painting, particularly French Impressionism.
Depicting the courtyard of the Royal Palace of Kobba in Alexandria,
Said’s use of short, loose brushstrokes and unblended whorls of
colour echoes the techniques of French Impressionists like Claude
Monet and Georges Seurat.
In View of Sirros, we see the artist’s developed signature
approach to landscape painting, characterised by robust, simplified
volumes and a richly saturated colour palette. Painted during
the artist’s travels in coastal Greece, View of Sirros captures the
rolling hills surrounding the harbuor of the island of Sirros. Said’s
depiction gives particular attention to the austere buildings
densely populating the port city, which he renders as reduced
planes punctuated by pared-down architectural details and
angular shadows. The boats and minutely rendered fishermen in
the foreground recall Said’s many paintings of coastal life in Egypt
and Lebanon, as well as Nile scenes, drawing parallels across the
Mediterranean. [SD]
Message/Messenger
ABDULNASSER GHAREM
(born Khamis Mushait, Saudi Arabia, 1973)
2010
Installation of wood and copper
300 × 78 cm
N0149
Message/Messenger consists of a wooden dome, 3 metres wide,
enclosed within a burnished copper sleeve, its surface covered by
the classic vegetal style of ornament known as ‘arabesque’ that is
one of the defining features of Islamic art. This golden dome is a
direct evocation of the dome of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
Central to the three monotheistic religions, it was built on the
Temple Mount, the Haram al-Sharif, in 691 by the Umayyad caliph
Al-Walid. While the proportions and colour echo the dome, this is
not a simple copy. Abdulnasser Gharem has propped it open with
a crescent moon, or hilal, that is often placed at the top of mosque
domes. Attached to it is a golden cord, and underneath is a white
dove. There is great deal of symbolism here and it is rooted in
Gharem’s culture and outlook on life. As he describes:
Rich people in Saudi Arabia keep horses, everyone else catches
pigeons or doves and keeps them instead. It’s easy. You set up the
trap using a basket or any kind of dome, and you leave out some
water or sugar. Soon you have a bird. Keep that bird in the trap for
twenty days and it knows this is its home. It will not leave you.1
The enigmatically titled Message/Messenger is characteristic
of the way Gharem approaches his multidisciplinary work, from
photography to film and installation. Sirat was made following
the collapse of a bridge during a flash flood in the 1980s resulting
in the loss of life. Over the broken structure, Gharem spraypainted
repetitions of the word sirat, which means path but
has an association with the phrase Sirat al-Mustaqim, the ‘right
path’, mentioned in the Qurʾan (1:6). For Gharem ‘the right path
is something people from all over the world are looking for. It is
something that connects people of every faith and ideology.’2
A major figure of the Saudi art scene while also holding a senior
position in the army, Gharem is one of a group, along with Ahmed
Mater (cat. 00), who trained at Al-Muftaha Art Village in Abha.3 [VP]
My Eggplant Patch in Gerash
SAMIA HALABY
(born Jerusalem, 1936; lives and works in New York)
1982
Oil on canvas
107 x 122 cm
K2250
Samia Halaby is an artist, activist, educator, and scholar whose
practice is defined by her investments in abstraction. For Halaby,
abstraction holds the potential to radically shift both visual
perception and wider perceptions of the world. Born in Jerusalem,
she and her family were displaced from Palestine in 1948.1
Immigrating first to Lebanon, then to Ohio, Halaby was educated in
the American Midwest, receiving her bachelors from the University
of Cincinnati in 1959, a masters of art in painting from Michigan State
University in 1960, and a masters of fine art from Indiana University,
Bloomington in 1963. From her foundational education, Halaby has
built a prolific and wide-ranging arts practice that incorporates
experiments in painting, drawing, printmaking, and computerbased
kinetic art. In additional to her arts practice, Halaby has had
a long pedagogical practice teaching at the university level. Notably,
she was the first woman to hold the position of Associate Professor
at the Yale School of Art where she taught for a decade. Halaby has
based her practice in New York since 1976, where she works from
her TriBeCa studio.
Halaby’s painting practice is largely informed by her theories of
vision and further shaped by her engagement with historical arts
sources ranging from Islamic architecture to Soviet avant-garde
painting, her travels in and beyond the Middle East, and her own
background as an Arab-Palestinian. This synthesis of source material
manifests as abstract paintings that foreground her explorations of
geometric form, light, and color drawn from reality and transformed
through painting. In My Eggplant Patch in Gergash, Halaby renders
the organic shapes of a garden plot into a mosaic of purple, green,
and yellow swatches. Likewise, in Red and White Neighborhoods
we see a dynamic tumble of red and white hued squares and
rectangles. Positioned across the plane of the canvas, they evoke
the schematic quality of urban planning maps.
Untitled
SHAKIR HASSAN AL SAID
(born Samawah, Iraq, 1925; died Baghdad, Iraq, 2004)
1954
Oil on paper
49 × 64 cm
K2075
Shakir Hassan Al Said is widely considered one of Iraq’s most
influential modern artists and thinkers. He was not only prolific in
his artistic production, but was also an important teacher, critic and
theorist, writing books and articles that have provided a foundation
for an art historical understanding of Iraqi cultural modernism of
the twentieth century.1 In 1951 he co-founded the Baghdad Group
for Modern Art with Jewad Selim and wrote the group’s manifesto
espousing the synthesis of international avant-garde styles with
iconographies of relevance to the local Iraqi context.2 Al Said’s
Untitled from 1954 is indicative of this negotiation. Utilising
modernist abstraction, the painting flattens the representation of
a still life into a series of brightly coloured patterns, the contours
of the plants and their vases giving way to the crescents, roundels
and pointed ovals that are suggestive of an Iraqi visual vocabulary.
Characteristically, forms blend and emerge from the configuration
of abstract shapes: for instance, a rooster – a common motif in Al
Said’s oeuvre – appears out of the plant’s vegetation.
As Al Said’s philosophic investigations progressed into the
1960s, he moved further away from figuration in favour of a
deeper exploration of the Arabic letter as a fundamental mode
of abstraction. This led the artist into ever-more esoteric and
introspective engagements with the picture plane, culminating in
the idea of the ‘One Dimension’, an approach to art-making that
sought to transcend the two-dimensional surface by means of
expressing, and ultimately collapsing, complex temporal and spatial
relationships.3 Untitled from 1992 demonstrates Al Said’s methods
for achieving this transcendence. The wooden surface has been
marked with dripped, sprayed and accumulated paint that has then
been scratched and pierced, opening the surface to that which is
beyond and, thus, extending the painting into both space and time
as both immediate and eternal. [TF]
Jelly Fish No.3
HASSAN SHARIF
(born Dubai, UAE, 1951; died Dubai, UAE, 2016)
2011
Oil on canvas
200 × 145 cm
K2067
Hassan Sharif is known as a pioneer of conceptual art in the UAE,
developing a deep experimental and performance practice in
Dubai in the early 1980s. In addition to his own practice, Sharif
focused on arts education, writing about art and mentoring other
artists. He encouraged the engagement of artists and audiences in
contemporary art conversations by providing Arabic translations
of historical art texts and manifestos. Within a single decade, he
was a founding member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society (1980),
the Mreijeh Studio (1984) and the Art Atelier in the Youth Theatre
and Arts (1987).1 In 2007 he co-founded The Flying House with his
brother Abdul-Raheem Sharif, a key Dubai institution promoting
contemporary artists in the UAE.
Within his own work, Sharif drew on ideas associated with the
Fluxus movement, particularly non-elitism and intermedia, and
challenged conformist views of art. He questioned methods of
display, re-evaluated the nature and conventions of performance
art, and responded to the human impulse to document one’s
presence in the landscape. He authored four books and wrote over
50 essays. Whether writing, teaching or making, Sharif pursued a
contemporary art vocabulary that explored common materials,
consumerism, time, social action, mathematical systems and
systemic processes. An example of Sharif’s experimentation with
mathematical systems is his work One Two from his renowned
‘Semi-Systems’ series. This ink on paper series was informed
by his study of British Constructionism. Here, Sharif repeated a
monotonous gesture framed by a set of invented geometric rules.
When mistakes inevitably occurred, he celebrated, claiming that ‘Art
is a result of errors’.2
Sharif graduated from the Byam Shaw School of Art, London, in
1984 and returned to the UAE shortly after. He had solo exhibitions
in the UAE, France, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, USA, Qatar and
Lebanon. He also exhibited in the UAE’s national pavilion at the
Venice Biennale on two occasions (2009 and 2015). [BK]
Evolution of Man
AHMED MATER
(born Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, 1979)
2010
Five light boxes, edition 5/8
79.2 × 59.4 cm each light box
H0399
Ahmed Mater is an interdisciplinary artist who uses photography,
film, sculpture and performance to document and dissect the
realities of contemporary Saudi Arabia. Mater’s training as a
physician has informed his artistic practice, which employs
research-based investigative techniques to unveil unofficial
histories and probe collective memories.1 Evolution of Man
scrutinises the environmental and social risks of oil through a
provocative series of images illuminated in individual LED light
boxes. The oscillating forms radiate out towards the viewer,
stunning in their crisp glow and graphic clarity. Placed side by
side, the images are meant to be read sequentially as the shifting
silhouettes mutate from the simplified representation of a gasoline
pump to the X-rayed torso of a man holding a gun to his head.
Conversely, the direction of ‘evolution’ is not dictated by the
artist creating a recursive loop wherein a cycle of success and
suicide flows unremittingly between man and machine. Indeed,
Mater is known for his interrogations of the relationship between
oil and its conflicting contexts of rapid economic development
and sociocultural and environmental degradation. Exploring the
contradictions of oil prospecting and production, he represents
oil as a substance and industry that in many ways brings great
prosperity, but also poverty.
With an aesthetic characteristic of Mater’s larger oeuvre,
Evolution of Man relies on the visually powerful index of the
X-rayed human form, combining the dual trajectories of the artist’s
professional life as an artist and a medical doctor.2 A symbol of
technological advancement in the modern age, an X-ray is both
a helpful diagnostic tool and a frightening vision of human frailty.
Its illuminated structures and darkened cavities evoke anxieties of
illness, fragmentation and decay. Produced in 2010, Mater refers to
Evolution of Man as a warning against a ‘spiral of destruction’.3 In
2016 Mater transferred the work to a series of five fabric prints and
installed them as flags on a hill in Standing Rock, North Dakota.4 The
site became famous for its widespread protests by First Nations
Americans against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a conduit for the
transportation of oil across the sacred lands of the Sioux peoples.
Horizontal and Vertical Earthwork
MARCOS GRIGORIAN
(born Kropotkin, Russia, 1925; died Yerevan, Armenia, 2007)
1982–8
Straw on canvas
188 x 188 cm each panel
K2222
Marcos Grigorian was an Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist
of Armenian origin who was also active as an art teacher, curator,
gallerist and cinema actor. After finishing his primary education in
Iran, in 1950, he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome with
Italian artist Roberto Melli. Graduating in 1954, he returned to Iran
and opened the Galerie Esthétique. In 1958 he organised the First
Tehran Biennial, after representing Iran in the 1956 Venice Biennale.
In the 1960s he spent time in the USA and was exposed to the art
scene there. During the 1970s Grigorian became an influential teacher
at the Tehran University Faculty of Fine Arts, where he reintegrated
local popular culture and ‘folk art’ in modernist pedagogy.
Grigorian’s ‘Earthworks’ series, which he began in New York, fulfil
the canvas (becoming textured and three-dimensional) with a
mixture of clay and straw called ‘kahgel’ referencing the traditional
‘adobe’ architecture of central Iran. This aesthetic appropriation
of organic elements associated Grigorian with Land Art early on.
His use of soil, sand and mud adds to the regular apparition of
minimalistic but cosmological shapes, such as the spiral, the cross
or converging lines, as in Convergence and Horizontal and Vertical
Earthwork. In the rare work Untitled from the ‘Tree of Life’ series
we can see all of Grigorian’s fundamental principles in gestation.
Acrylic paint is employed not so much as a purely painterly material,
but more as a kind of organic dye and imprinted colour for ecological
pattern-making on traditional fabric. His use of burlap helps to
absorb and spread the paint: the profound earthy tones and
pseudo-vegetal irregular stripes resemble the shape of a tree trunk
or the roots of a wild plant, and provide an organic feel to these
seemingly abstract compositions.
Grigorian played an important role in Iranian modernism by
organising, in 1975, the Group of Free Painters and Sculptors
in Tehran, of which he was the founder member. Other artists
included Gholamhossein Nami, Morteza Momayez, Massoud
Arabshahi (cat. 00) and Faramarz Pilaram (cat. 00).
In 1991 Grigorian moved to Yerevan where he founded the Near
East Museum and a rug weaving workshop that is best exemplified
by works such as The Golden Rooster. Here we see a rooster, an
iconic motif in Persian culture, enhanced by dazzling wavy patterns,
providing an almost kinetic effect. Lilith Playing Monkey is an
example of Grigorian’s exploration of mythological topics as part of
his figurative practice.1
Rivers of Sadness
MONA SAUDI
(born Amman, Jordan, 1945; died Beirut, Lebanon, 2022)
Black marble
61 × 28 × 13 cm
N0169
Jordanian sculptor Mona Saudi’s practice has been defined by her
commitment to the labour-intensive process of carving natural
stone. Her hand-chiselled sculptures reflect the relationship
between humans and nature, combining architectural geometries
with the organic curves of natural forms. Saudi sources her
stones internationally and is particularly drawn to those from the
Mediterranean and wider Middle East, including marble, jade and
limestone from Jordan.1
Saudi was born in Amman and raised near the city’s many
archaeological sites, which served as her earliest artistic influence.
These sites provided her with a sense of connection to the
region’s ancient cultures and an appreciation for their skilful use
of natural materials.2 In 1963 Saudi left Amman for Beirut and
became immersed in the city’s vibrant arts community. There, she
enjoyed the mentorship of poet and artist Adonis and artist Paul
Guiragossian (cat. 00), among others. Saudi left Beirut to study
sculpture at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris,
graduating in 1968. While in Europe, she additionally trained with
marble carvers in Carrara, Italy. In 1970 Saudi retuned to Beirut
where she sustained a lifelong sculpture practice.
Throughout her practice, Saudi recursively returned to a series
of central motifs, including the sun, the earth, trees, water and
motherhood.3 Carved from black marble, Rivers of Sadness is one
of several works from Saudi’s oeuvre to reference the curving linear
form of a river. In other works, like Woman/River (1998), Saudi
draws parallels between the curvature of river bends and human
– particularly female – forms. Such parallels seem to be at play in
Rivers of Sadness as the upright carved forms visually suggest two
female silhouettes positioned side by side. In turn, Saudi’s choice of
black marble recalls the stone often used for grave markers in the
region and draws forward associations with mourning and loss. [SD]
Spoons and Copper Wire
Hassan Sharif
Spoons and Copper Wire, 2012
Copper wire and spoons
280 × 120 × 60 cm
N0170
Destination X
AYMAN BAALBAKI
(born Beirut, Lebanon, 1975)
2010
Car, suitcases, mattresses, rope and other found objects
Variable dimensions
N0134
Ayman Baalbaki’s Destination × is an installation consisting of a
small, weathered red car heavily laden with the bits and pieces of
everyday living: an ironing board, mattresses, furniture, bundles of
miscellaneous items and suitcases.1 Precariously perched atop the
woefully overloaded and outmoded vehicle, the household goods
are strapped together by a thin criss-crossing rope that threatens
to snap, spilling the jumbled contents. Initially sparking an element
of humour, the jocularity gives way to a quiet anxiety. Although
devoid of human presence, the installation speaks metonymically of
family and home, a domesticity that has been hurriedly condensed
and dislocated. The implied narrative signals something beyond
normality; something has happened.
The feelings of latent disaster are further heightened by the
cathode tube encircling the car. Glowing an electrified neon blue,
the circle traps the car and its goods in diasporic limbo, neither
leaving nor arriving but on the edge of both. ‘Destination X’ is
always an unknown.
The installation acts as a poignant metaphor for states of forced
displacement, a subject the artist has experienced first-hand and
returns to consistently in his artistic production.2 There are, for
instance, several iterations of Destination X, with different cars and
belongings, pointing to a community of displaced families. Born
in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90), Baalbaki and his
brother Said (cat. 00) grew up in the shadow of violence, sudden
migration and the destruction of familiar places. The effect of
conflict on the architectural and sociological landscape is explored
in the artist’s better-known paintings wherein a thick, aggressive
application of paint renders his monumental portraits of keffiyehclad
men and Beiruti buildings as blurred and disintegrating, as
well as vivid and dynamic. Like the materiality of his paintings and
installations, Baalbaki’s work is multidimensional, swerving between
the deeply intertwined positions of the personal and the political,
reflecting the realities of wartime experience. [TF]
Thinker
AHMED ASKALANY
(born Nag Hammadi, Egypt, 1978)
2010
Bronze
H. 73 cm
N0150
Egyptian sculptor Ahmed Askalany has created a practice that
approaches his subject matter, typically human and animal figures,
with equal parts solemnity and gentle levity. Askalany was born
and raised in Nag Hammadi, a small village in Upper Egypt. He
was drawn to sculpture early in his youth and grew up using local
clay to craft small human and animal figurines.1 In 1995 Askalany
left Upper Egypt for Cairo to pursue a career as an artist. In Cairo
he joined a community of artist-artisans and worked as a potter
creating craft objects for the mass consumer market in Egypt. His
craftwork granted him access to the space and materials needed to
develop his own artistic practice.2 Askalany’s early oeuvre made use
of natural materials such as woven palm leaves and clay, which he
shaped into simplified animal and human forms. Beginning in 2008,
he shifted to working primarily in bronze, which he uses to craft
human figures characterised by their hyperbolic forms.3
Emerging from this shift in his practice, Askalany’s Thinker
presents a satirical reworking of Le Penseur (The Thinker) (1904),
the well-known and widely recognised bronze sculpture by the
celebrated French sculptor Auguste Rodin. While Rodin’s depiction
of a seated man with his head resting heavily on his hand as he
pensively gazes forward is often read as a triumphant depiction of
human – and particularly masculine – intellect, Askalany’s version
offers a more tongue-in-cheek view of the same subject. His take
on the sculpture presents an inflated body and exaggeratedly
voluminous legs and arms supporting a contrastingly tiny head to
humorous effect. This formal reworking serves to upend both the
naturalism and solemn gravity of Rodin’s original. [SD]
Maqam Essafa
NJA MAHDAOUI
(born Tunis, Tunisia, 1937)
2011
Bronze with gold leaf, edition 3/4
85 × 78 × 60 cm
N0157
Tunisian Nja Mahdaoui is of a generation of Arab artists who
continually derive inspiration from their native culture despite going
abroad for their studies.1 His prolific practice has been described
expressively by himself and others as an exploration of signs and
a choreography of letters.2 Indeed, Mahdaoui utilises the timehonoured
art of Arabic calligraphy as a conduit for the formal
expression of his gestural mark: one that can be both freely applied
and rigidly defined. Moving beyond any connection to a textual
understanding, Mahdaoui cultivates a visual language that relies on
the calligram – letters transformed into pictures – as an organising
principle, a perspective that communicates not only a profound
poetic that opens the viewer to the rhythms and structures of the
composition but also a transcendent abstraction that flows from
the spontaneity of emotive and sensual experience.3 Mahdaoui
began experimenting with the Arabic letter in the early 1970s after
working under one of the pioneers of the Iranian Saqqakhaneh
School, Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi (cat. 189).4
Mahdaoui performs his ‘calligraphic abstractions’ on a variety of
materials ranging from paper and ceramics to textiles and vellum.5
This reflects the artist’s delight in interacting with the surface of his
chosen support, manipulating the dynamic movements of colour
and line as they traverse the two-dimensional field, collecting,
crossing and covering each other in a vivid oscillation that creates
Mahdaoui’s unique vision.
The diptych Lamassat Hazaliya demonstrates Mahdaoui’s
engagement with the material surface as he fills the papyrus sheet
with concentric bands of calligraphic marks that radiate outwards
from a golden diamond. The frayed edges of the thick paper signify
its fragility and tactility even as the rigour of line reinforces an image
of stability. Likewise, the tapestry Traces en Soie invites the viewer
to contemplate the textures of the surface along with the drama of
gestural line and vibrant, complimentary colour. To create Traces en
Soi, the artist collaborated with a master weaver from Aubusson, a
city in France famous for its textiles. Mahdaoui’s sculpture Maqam
Essafa, another collaborative undertaking, which engaged graphic
design and metalsmithing, translates the principles of surface and
form into three dimensions. With its shining gold leaf on a reflective
base, the calligraphic curves tangle, morph and leap in the gestural
dance of sign characteristic of Mahdaoui’s oeuvre. [TF]
When Meeting the Man
MAHMOUD MOKHTAR
(born Tunbarah, Egypt, 1891; died Cairo, Egypt, 1934)
1929
Bronze
H. 44 cm
N0112
One of Egypt’s most groundbreaking modern artists, Mahmoud
Mokhtar is recognised for his graceful sculptures skilfully crafted
from carved stone and bronze casting. Mokhtar was born into a
farming family in Tunbarah, an agrarian village in Egypt’s Nile Delta.
From a young age, he experimented with sculpting, creating small
figurines from mud sourced from the Nile.1 In 1908 Mokhtar was
among the first students to enter the newly established École
Égyptienne des Beaux-Arts in Cairo. There, he was trained in an
academic style but began to introduce neo-Pharaonic imagery into
his work. 2 In 1912, after graduating from the École Égyptienne des
Beaux-Arts, Mokhtar was granted a scholarship to continue his fine
art studies at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris,
where he trained in the studio of French sculptor Jules-Félix Coutan.
Upon his return to Egypt, Mokhtar joined fellow artists Mahmoud
Said (cat. 162), Mohammed Naghi (cat. 141) and Ragheb Ayad as a
member of La Chimere, an artist’s group dedicated to combining the
visual language of Egypt’s ancient past and contemporary present and
capturing the energy of the cultural and social change surrounding
Egypt’s 1919 Revolution and independence from colonial rule.3
While Mokhtar was drawn to a range of subjects, he frequently
returned to the figure of the fellaha, or Egyptian peasant woman.
During this period, the fellaha came to symbolise Egypt as a nation,
exemplified by Mokhtar’s celebrated monumental sculpture Nahdet
Misr (Egypt Awakening) (1919).4 Like Nahdet Misr, When Meeting the
Man centres the image of a veiled woman. However, while Nahdet
Misr presents a woman raising her veil, the figure in When Meeting
the Man offers the inverse gesture as she pulls her veil to cover her
face. Her establishment of privacy offers a more contemplative,
inwardly oriented counterpart to the sculptor’s monument to
national liberation. [SD]
Eshgh (Love)
Farhad Moshiri
Eshgh (Love), 2007
Swarovski crystals, glitter and acrylic on
canvas mounted on MDF
176 × 155 cm
K1319
Nagoo ke kheyli dire, Eshghat narafte az yad (Don’t say it’s too late, your love has not been forgotten)
FARHAD MOSHIRI
(born Shiraz, Iran, 1963)
2005
Oil, acrylic and glue on canvas
145.5 × 109.5 cm
K1753
Farhad Moshiri is a painter, sculptor and installation artist living
and working between Iran and France. Moshiri studied at the
California Institute of the Arts in the 1980s, where he first started
experimenting with installations, video art and painting, with the
opportunity to develop alongside artistic figures such as John
Baldessari and Don Buchla. He has come to be known as one
of Iran’s leading contemporary artists, with a unique talent for
eclecticism in his visual vocabulary.
His utilisation of delicate ornamental techniques ranging from
hand embroidery to calligraphy plays an ironic and powerful
contrast to his otherwise Pop and American visual references,
as demonstrated in Cowboy and Indian and Self-portrait Under
Water. Moshiri is most readily associated with his monumental
paintings of jars, decorated with calligraphic Persian poetic verse,
as receptacles of our fascination with archaeology. As one can see
in Nagoo ke kheyli dire, Eshghat narafte az yad, Moshiri’s jars are
inspired by ancient Persian urns (from Sassanid-era and thirteenth century Iranian pottery). They represent cracked and aged objects,
referencing a sense of nostalgia towards the past or the traditional,
while at the same time debunking its seemingly elitist affiliation
by superimposing popular grassroots poetry or commonplace
proverbs on them: words of love, hope and faith from the streets
and the Grand Bazaar of Tehran. Beyond their conceptual depth,
the execution of Moshiri’s jars entails a highly specialised glazed
craquelure technique, consisting of successive layers of paint
that are treated during the drying phases. The jars stand for a
paradoxical and sublime creative process, involving layers of
degradation, which provides the refined ambiguousness of their
archaeological quality, both real and fictionalised.
Beyond these works, Moshiri is also known for his menacing
knife arrangements (made of artisanal handmade knives collected
by the artist throughout Iran), forming, for example, the face of
a butcher. Neighbourhood Butcher points to social and political
violence in a humorous and subversive gesture, a spectacular vision
based on a performative image, all of which demonstrate the artist’s
outstanding sense of irony towards the concept of ‘Pop culture’
(and Iranian or Middle Eastern kitsch) in a global economy.
Moshiri’s Eshgh stands out as an iconic work, not only because
it is made of Swarovski crystals and glitter on canvas (a striking
metaphor for ‘love’ spreading into the universe), but also for the
fact that it broke the record for a Middle Eastern artwork at auction
(reaching the one million dollar mark in March 2008). As one of
the first artworks from the region to attract worldwide attention,
it contributed to shaping a new artistic landscape beneficial to the
general development of Middle Eastern artists.1 [MM]
Self-Portrait Under Water
FARHAD MOSHIRI
(born Shiraz, Iran, 1963)
2008
Mixed media on canvas
150 × 190 cm
K1582
Farhad Moshiri is a painter, sculptor and installation artist living
and working between Iran and France. Moshiri studied at the
California Institute of the Arts in the 1980s, where he first started
experimenting with installations, video art and painting, with the
opportunity to develop alongside artistic figures such as John
Baldessari and Don Buchla. He has come to be known as one
of Iran’s leading contemporary artists, with a unique talent for
eclecticism in his visual vocabulary.
His utilisation of delicate ornamental techniques ranging from
hand embroidery to calligraphy plays an ironic and powerful
contrast to his otherwise Pop and American visual references,
as demonstrated in Cowboy and Indian and Self-portrait Under
Water. Moshiri is most readily associated with his monumental
paintings of jars, decorated with calligraphic Persian poetic verse,
as receptacles of our fascination with archaeology. As one can see
in Nagoo ke kheyli dire, Eshghat narafte az yad, Moshiri’s jars are
inspired by ancient Persian urns (from Sassanid-era and thirteenth century Iranian pottery). They represent cracked and aged objects,
referencing a sense of nostalgia towards the past or the traditional,
while at the same time debunking its seemingly elitist affiliation
by superimposing popular grassroots poetry or commonplace
proverbs on them: words of love, hope and faith from the streets
and the Grand Bazaar of Tehran. Beyond their conceptual depth,
the execution of Moshiri’s jars entails a highly specialised glazed
craquelure technique, consisting of successive layers of paint
that are treated during the drying phases. The jars stand for a
paradoxical and sublime creative process, involving layers of
degradation, which provides the refined ambiguousness of their
archaeological quality, both real and fictionalised.
Beyond these works, Moshiri is also known for his menacing
knife arrangements (made of artisanal handmade knives collected
by the artist throughout Iran), forming, for example, the face of
a butcher. Neighbourhood Butcher points to social and political
violence in a humorous and subversive gesture, a spectacular vision
based on a performative image, all of which demonstrate the artist’s
outstanding sense of irony towards the concept of ‘Pop culture’
(and Iranian or Middle Eastern kitsch) in a global economy.
Moshiri’s Eshgh stands out as an iconic work, not only because
it is made of Swarovski crystals and glitter on canvas (a striking
metaphor for ‘love’ spreading into the universe), but also for the
fact that it broke the record for a Middle Eastern artwork at auction
(reaching the one million dollar mark in March 2008). As one of
the first artworks from the region to attract worldwide attention,
it contributed to shaping a new artistic landscape beneficial to the
general development of Middle Eastern artists.1 [MM]
The Clouds, the Wind, The Moon, The Sun And All the Cosmos Are For You
Charles-Hossein Zenderoudi
The Clouds, the Wind, The Moon, The Sun
And All the Cosmos Are For You, c.1958
99 × 70 cm
K2025
Untitled
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI
(born Tehran, Iran, 1940; died Paris, France, 2016)
1998
Photograph on canvas, in three parts
140 x 112 cm each, 140 x 112 cm overall
H0214 (1, 2, 3)
Abbas Kiarostami, well known for his films such as Where Is
the Friend’s House (1987), Close-Up (1990) and Taste of Cherry
(1997), was also an enthusiastic photographer. He started taking
photographs of rural landscapes in the late 1970s, an interest that
became more serious during the 1979 Iranian Revolution – a time
when movie-making became almost impossible.1 Although filmmaking
brought Kiarostami the most recognition, photography
was his favourite medium since it allowed for a more personal
expression without the burden of narration and entertainment.
His photographic oeuvre includes a large body of poetic images
capturing nature, resulting in several acclaimed series represented
by the works seen here.
During Kiarostami’s many travels while searching for locations
for film-making, he was saddened that he could not share the
magnificent scenery with friends. He recalled these times as
tortuous, inspiring him to take photos along the way in order ‘to
eternalise those moments of passion and pain’.2 In this work from
‘The Road’ series, Kiarostami highlighted the solitary life of a tree
amid a winding road, a repeated visual trope in many of his films.
Fascinated by the interaction of raindrops on a car’s windshield, seen in ‘The Wind and the Rain’ series, he photographed the
droplets as a constantly changing image, highlighting the obscured
and distorted view. In the ‘Snow White’ series, he captured the
pristine landscape covered with snow, describing it as a sheet of
white paper on which the trees appear like a minimalist ink drawing,
lending the photograph a painterly quality.3 Highly influenced by
Sohrab Sepehri, Kiarotami’s ‘The Trees and Crows’ series is the
photographic version of Sepehri’s celebrated ‘Tree’ series; the
inclusion of the crows was perhaps a visual response to Sepheri’s
poem, ‘Water’s Footsteps’.4
Born in Tehran in 1940, Kiarostami was initially trained as a
painter. He rose to fame as part of the Iranian Neorealist cinema
movement that began in the 1960s. He started his career as a filmmaker
at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children
and Young Adults, known as Kanoon, making films with simple,
slow-paced stories. He later worked in the realm of docufiction,
investigating themes of identity through cinema such as Close-
Up (1990), which is widely considered to be one of his best films.
Kiarostami’s 1997 film Taste of Cherry was awarded the Palme d’Or
at the Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first Iranian film to win
the prize. In addition to film-making and photography, Kiarostami
worked in painting and poetry.
Landscape
SOHRAB SEPEHRI
(born Qum, Iran, 1928; died Tehran, Iran, 1980)
1970s
Oil and charcoal on canvas
Three parts, 100 × 300 cm each
Signed in Persian
K0374, K0376 and K0377
Sohrab Sepehri, a painter and poet, is recognised internationally
for iconic landscapes of his native Kashan. Yet, for most Iranians,
Sepehri is better known simply as Sohrab, a poet who is
synonymous with a delicate sensibility and a voice that unifies
humanity and nature. As a painter, he ranks among artists whose
creative output was centred around their world view rather than
aesthetic values.1 His personal style is a testament to his sense
of adventure through his various travels and his range of training
in different techniques, which communicates the depth of his
philosophy. Like his poetry, Sepehri’s painting began with the
classical, in this case the realistic style of the Kamal al-Molk school.
However, his affiliation with Iranian modernists, such as Jalil
Ziapour, led him to create works in the manner of French Post-
Impressionism, his first of several styles of painting. Well versed
in the philosophies of Sufism, Buddhism, Taoism and western
traditions, Sepehri blended eastern concepts with western
techniques to create his own unique style of art-making. To decode
his highly conceptualised paintings, Sepehri’s poetry acts as an
essential key adding invaluable insight into the inner workings of his
artistic mind.
Untitled (1966), stemming from the artist’s second style, is an
example of the abstract paintings he produced between 1966 and
1970.2 Here, the presentation of ‘non-objective’ and pure geometric
forms – most likely informed by Russian Suprematism – is not far
from Sepehri’s spiritual stance, expressing complex thoughts in the
simplest, most economic fashion.3
The two untitled paintings from the late 1960s presented here
are among the best examples of Sepehri’s third artistic style, the socalled
‘Far East Phase’.4 They represent an abstracted view of vegetal
forms, rocky hills and village houses, rendered in such a way that
they are almost beyond recognition. However, despite his limited
palette, Sepehri still manages to faithfully capture the complexity
of the subject’s textures and tonal variations. Here, by shedding
any excess elements, his commitment to emphasising the void
demonstrates the Taoist principle for the expression of ‘truth’.5
The triptych Landscape (1970s), which depicts two highly
abstracted rocky hills and a cluster of tree trunks against the
backdrop of a village, provides a visual transition from Sepehri’s prior
abstract paintings towards his most celebrated works – the ‘Tree
Trunk’ series – as represented by the two untitled paintings from
the 1970s here. Demonstrating his fourth artistic style, produced
between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s, these works are simplistic
portrayals of tall, diagonally leaning tree trunks, made intentionally
ambiguous by their lack of detail. Whether presented in an empty
space or set against the backdrop of a subtle, rustic environment
as here, the backgrounds are always an important contrast to the
sharp lines of the trees. The austere trees evoke a metaphysical
essence, alluding to a feeling of solitude, clarity and inner peace,
all consistent with the artist’s character as attested by his friends.6
Introduced in the mid-1970s, Sepehri’s fifth and final artistic style
is characterised by a return to representational landscape paintings
of Kashan. From this period, Landscape (1978) features a semiabstract,
monochromatic bold line with an abundance of negative
space, highlighting the artist’s deeper philosophical ideas informed
by Japanese Zen Buddhism.
Sepehri graduated from the University of Fine Arts, Tehran,
in 1953. That same year he worked for the art magazine Panjayi
Khurous (Rooster’s Claw).7 He attended the École nationale
supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, to study lithography in 1957, then
travelled to Tokyo a year later to further his studies in lithography
and woodcarving. On his way back to Iran, he visited India where
he became familiar with Buddhist ideology. In 1961 he held a
short-term teaching position at the College of Decorative Arts,
Tehran.8 Widely exhibited in Iran and around the world, Sepehri
was awarded the first prize at the Second Tehran Biennial in 1960.
In 1976 he published his last book Hasht Ketab, leaving a legacy
unsurpassed in modern Persian literature. He is buried in Kashan,
his grave frequently visited by lovers of both art and literature.
Fabrication du Tapis
SHAFIC ABBOUD
(born Mhaidse, Lebanon, 1948; died Paris, France, 2003)
1998
Oil and graphite on canvas
132 × 144 cm
K2238
One of Lebanon’s most celebrated modern artists, Shafic Abboud is
most recognised for his vibrant compositional play with colour and
form. Working primarily as a painter, Abboud also experimented
with ceramics, sculpture, printmaking and textiles. He received
formative early mentorship from Lebanese painter César Gemayel
and pursued his arts studies at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-
Arts (ALBA). In 1947 Abboud left Lebanon for Paris, where he trained
in the studios of Parisian artists including Andre Lhote and Fernand
Léger, and later pursued further study at the École nationale
supérieure des Beaux-Arts, supported by a grant from the Lebanese
Ministry of Education in 1953. Recognised as an innovative abstract
artist, Abboud’s work was shown in the 1955 Salon des Réalités
Nouvelles, an annual Parisian salon dedicated to abstract art; he
became a member of the salon’s committee in 1962. A testament to
the artist’s generative role within the Parisian art world, Abboud’s
work was included in the inaugural Biennale de Paris in 1959.
While Abboud’s work largely manifests as highly abstract
compositions, his practice is grounded in observations and
experiences drawn from life that provide the impetus for his
paintings. Fabrication du Tapis presents his intimate familiarity with
the process of carpet weaving, born of his own experience with
textile work and the practices he probably observed during his
travels throughout Lebanon and Syria in the late 1990s following
the end of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–90); these travels inspired
a series of paintings that reflect his revived connection with the
Levant.1 In Fabrication du Tapis, Abboud renders the weaving
process into an abstracted visuality that suggests a carpet in
progress. As the rectangular patches of painted colour on the upper
right-hand corner of the composition give way to hatched graphite
lines, we can image the bare threads being filled with colour as the
carpet takes shape. [SD]
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