Summer in color in Lebanon, Abu Dhabi and Egypt: Where to be this weekend in the Middle East
Consider this your weekly shortcut to what matters in the region's buzzing cultural scene.
If you walk around the streets of Beirut, it's not hard to find a couple of shiny art galleries, displaying the next big artists. Here's our pick of two you can't miss this week:
If you're around Clemenceau, make sure to visit the Salah Barakat Gallery and take a trip inside Azza Abo Rabieh's vibrant and multidimensional world.
Abo Rabieh, a Syrian artist living in Beirut, is known for blending tulle and painting on her canvas, creating an almost illusionary effect that makes you never want to leave the inside of her brain. It is often so seamless and light that you find yourself perceiving everyday objects, such as strawberries and buildings, as infinitely delicate.
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Water runs our lives, or at least that's the narrative that Joumana Jamhouri invokes in her latest photography exhibit at Mar Mkhayel's Galerie Tanit. Water demarcates our cities, reflects the sky, shapes the horizon and keeps us and our plants healthy and happy. It's a force much bigger than any of us, and Jamhouri's pictures of vast landscapes and close-ups of fish will feel like taking a swim on a hot summer day.
What does summer mean to you? Artbooth Gallery, in Al Rawdah, Abu Dhabi, asked that question to 10 multi-disciplinary artists. The answers are what summer feels like — bold, hot, bright, vague and melancholic. The artist's individualism shines through, yet it still comes together to build a cohesive experience and a universalized vision.
Summered is showcasing artworks by Soraya Abu Naba'a, Gilbert Halaby, Asaad Arabi, James Mathews, Habuba Farah, Noor Bahjat, Bruno Sfeir, Oussama Diab, Layal Khawly and Elias Naman until September.
Ever noticed the men on the streets in Lebanon who collect bottles from garbage cans to sell later? Artist Béchir Boussandel couldn't help but become obsessed with them as he visited his homeland in Tunisia, and began a journey into a new medium — blown glass.
His exhibition at Tabari Artspace in DFIC, Dubai, "Tempted By Other Suns," tackles his long-time muses: migration, urban transformation and survival. Boussandel, raised in France, blends paint, blown glass, metal and other organic materials to tell his story and that of the men he met on the streets of Tunisia.
As French philosopher Claire Marin said, 'Like migratory birds, we are always tempted by other suns.'
This Saturday, head to Dar al-Anda Art Gallery in Amman, Jordan, to catch the opening of painter Hiba Sweis' latest exhibition, "Let There Be Color and the World Shall Breathe." In a world where light was created on the first day, Sweis explores the reality of this theory. If light were present, then color would be the first word it spoke.
In our lives, we cannot experience any of our senses without color or hues. Even our touch, our hearing, our feelings are bright, loud, dull or overwhelming. Sweis tries to translate her saturated world on canvases, taking you on a trippy yet reflective experience.
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Safar Khan Gallery in Zamalek, Cairo, is hosting another Anthology exhibition, this time (and fittingly, given today's theme) focusing on each artist's interpretation of the Egyptian summer. Running until mid-September, the show will feature multiple revisits and changes by the curators, allowing you to visit periodically and compare and contrast the additions you love or dislike, making the exhibition an ever-evolving experience.
Head over to visit your favorite established artists' latest works, or meet new and emerging voices in the scene, working in sculpture, photography, fabric appliqué, mosaics and various forms of painting.
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This month, Stal Gallery in Muscat, Oman, is showcasing emerging artists in Omani contemporary art, particularly those who are not afraid to use bold colors to tell their stories. "Narratives of Colors" is a joint exhibition by H.H. Sayyidah Afra al-Said, Anwar Sonya, Hassan Meer, Moosa Omar, Idris al-Hooti and Hussain Obaid, which explores identity, memory and storytelling in screaming colors.
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