Sunday 1 April 2012

HASSAN SHARIF: WORKS 1980-2012 AT SFEIR-SEMLER GALLERY, BEIRUT

Hassan Sharif photographed next to the documentation of his 1980s performances

Shariff's 80s ink drawings












Shariff's more recent objects and paintings

and Shariff's documentation of his extraordinary performance work from the early 1980s





























Hassan Sharif and Catherine David in conversation at http://www.ashkalalwan.org introduced by Christine Tohme, director of Ashkal Alwan


Considered by many to be the founding father of the UAE's contemporary art scene, Hassan Sharif was born in 1951 and he lives and works in Dubai. He graduated from the Byam Shaw School of Art in London and published cartoons in newspapers and magazines through the 1970’s. He has played a significant role in the UAE arts’ scene, founding the Emirates Fine Art Society, and the Art Atelier in the Youth Theatre and Arts in Dubai. His work first received international attention when exhibited by Catherine David in 2009 at the Venice Biennale as part of the “ADACH Platform for Visual Arts”.
http://www.hassansharif.net

press release:
Sfeir-Semler Gallery is happy to announce the opening on Thursday 29th of March, 7-9 pm, of the solo show by the Emirati artist, Hassan Sharif. We will be presenting early work from the 70s and 80s along with new works from the last few years.

Hassan Sharif started making art in the 1970s and only in the last few years is receiving long overdue recognition. Sharif was born in 1951 in what is now modern day Dubai. He has been a witness to the transformation of this region from a largely nomadic backwater to a consumerist hub and has documented this through installation, painting, sculpture, drawing and performance, in a career which has spanned 5 decades.

Sharif’s early work often took the form of the execution of a simple action – washing, reading, measuring – and having the process photographed by his friends. In the absence of any artistic or creative infrastructure, Sharif documented and archived his own work, compiling on sheets of cardboard photographs, sketches, and notes.

In the early 80s, Sharif combined his interest in performance and experimental practice with a meticulous study of form, geometry and colour, showing an interest in the power of repetition. This would later translate into his installation works heaping objects in large stacks. These haphazard stacks, are made up of mass produced domestic objects, often imported from China or India.

The curator Catherine David, who first brought international attention to Sharif said of his work: To analyse closely these useless objects brings us closer to a wild archaeology – that is just as much poetic – of life in Dubai and in the UAE at the turn of the 21st century.

In March 2011, Catherine David, in collaboration with Mohammed Kazem, curated a solo exhibition of Sharif’s work in partnership with the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) and The Flying House, and published a monographic book, Hassan Sharif Works 1973-2011. Sharif's artwork is included in the collections of the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; the Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, U.A.E.; the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; and the Sittard Center, The Netherlands.

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