Meem Gallery has brought together rare prints by well-known Arab modernists Assadour, Munira Al Kazi, Ahmed Morsi, Ibrahim Salahi, Hashem Samarchi and the late Ismail Fattah for Arab Print Volume III — the third iteration of a series of exhibitions aimed at furthering the understanding of an important but often neglected art form in the region. The show highlights the rich variety and creativity of Arab printmaking, through works that include etchings, lithographs and silkscreen prints, and range from abstract compositions to stylised figurative works. Also on display are books about the artists and catalogues from their shows in the 1960s and 1970s, that give visitors a sense of the times, and the issues that engaged these artists during this post-war period.
| Ahmed Morsi, Crowned Head, 1999 |
In the Western art world, artists moved away from printmaking after the invention and development of photography in the 1800s. But there was a resurgence of this medium in the early 20th century when Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Marc Chagall and other artists began exploring various methods of printmaking. The establishment of the Bauhaus School in Germany in 1919, which emphasised reuniting creativity with manufacturing, also led to greater advancements in printmaking techniques. In the later part of the century, artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Henry Moore and Frank Stella continued to experiment with this art form. It is during this post-war period, that artists from the Arab world, who went to study in Europe and the US, began incorporating this versatile medium into their practices to create artworks with a uniquely Arab ethos.
The show features key works by each artist, that offer insights into their art practices, and favourite themes. Morsi, who was born in Egypt in 1930, is an artist and poet, who published his first collection of poems at the age of 19, and began exhibiting his artworks alongside renowned modern Egyptian masters when he was in his early twenties. In 1955 he moved to Baghdad, where his work was influenced by the cultural renaissance in Iraq. He began experimenting with lithography after he moved to New York in 1974, where he is still based.
The show presents several etchings on zinc plate created by the artist in the 1990s, with narratives featuring human figures and symbols such as horses with broken legs. Also included are two versions of a well-known etching from 1999, titled Crowned Head, with green and red aquatint. Here the artist has depicted a face that is turned outwards as well as inwards, highlighting the dualities between our inner and outer worlds.
| Ismail Fattah, Faces, 1988 |
Al Kazi is among the few women modernists in the Arab art world. The artist, who is of Saudi-Kuwaiti origin, was born in India in 1939, and graduated from the Central School of Art and Design in London, where she focused on printmaking. She later moved to Ibiza, and is equally well-known for her paintings and prints. The show includes three signed and dated etchings by the artist from 1962. Titled, Mother and Child, Vision of the East and Primitive Women, the figurative works on paper highlight her mastery over the medium, and her engagement with feminine and oriental themes.
Sudanese master, Ibrahim Salahi studied art in Khartoum, and at the Slade School in London, returning to Sudan to teach at the School of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum. He later worked as the assistant cultural attaché at the Sudanese Embassy in London. In 1972, he became the undersecretary of culture and information, a job that landed him in jail as a political prisoner wrongly accused of anti-government activities. Since 1977, he has lived in voluntary exile, first in Qatar and then in the UK, where he is now based. The octogenarian artist is known for combining Western artistic traditions with elements of his African, Arab and Islamic heritage to create a new visual language that became a seminal part of the movement known as ‘the School of Khartoum’. His work in the show is an inkjet print on archival paper, titled The Resurrection, from 2009, a period when he began thinking of art as being an invitation to meditation, and worked mostly with a black and white palette. The large, monochromatic triptych is a highly detailed, complex composition featuring myriad human figures, and symbolic motifs such as chains, serpents, horses, books, and war banners. The mood is sombre, and the people appear to be grieving and fearful, perhaps waiting for a savior, yet there is a deep sense of spirituality in the work.
Assadour, who was born in Beirut in 1943, got his early training from renowned Lebanese master Paul Guiragossian, and later went to Italy to study art. He moved to Paris in 1964, where he studied engraving at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts, and developed his distinctive, detailed style of etching. He is the only artist in this show known primarily as a printmaker, and is represented by a series of beautifully textured etchings from the late 1990s as well as recent works, that speak about the human condition. The compositions have cryptic titles, and look like maps, with various figures, objects and symbols placed in different positions, perhaps charting moments and events in the artist’s personal journey, while also commenting on the collective journey of mankind through time and space.
Mosul-born Samarchi is regarded as one of the most important Arab Op artists of his generation. After doing his graduation and post-graduation in fine arts in Baghdad, the Iraqi artist studied graphic art in Lisbon. Along with his contemporaries Dia Azzawi, Rafa Nasiri, MohAmmad Muhriddin, Ismail Fattah and Saleh Al Jumaie, he formed the New Vision Group (Al Ru’yya Al Jadidah) in the 1960s, which called for new and daring ideas based on modern artistic and cultural values. The show includes an untitled silkscreen print by the artist from this period, featuring an abstract, geometric composition.
Fattah, who was born in Basra in 1934 and passed away in 2004, studied painting and sculpture in Baghdad, under renowned Iraqi artist Jewad Selim, and went to Italy for further training in sculpture and ceramics. After returning to Baghdad in 1965, he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts for over three decades. Apart from being president of the Society of Iraqi Artists for Abstract Art in the 1970s, he was also a member of the Baghdad Group of Modern Art, and a founding member of the New Vision Group. As one of Iraq’s most prominent modern sculptors, he was commissioned to create many public artworks, including The Monument of the Martyr, and monuments of Iraqi poets Al Wasiti and Al Farabi. He is represented in the show by an untitled lithograph from 1988. The work appears to be abstract, but a closer look reveals several upside down heads within the dark composition, compelling viewers to think about the situation in Iraq at that time.
Arab Print Volume III will run at Meem Gallery until September 20.
