Works drawn from the Barjeel Art Foundation collection, one of the largest and most important collections of Arab Modern and contemporary art, are due to go on show at the Whitechapel gallery in London this autumn. The collection, which is based in Sharjah, was founded by the commentator Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi who is known for his tweets about politics and art in the Middle East.
More than 100 works from the region dating from the 1900s to today will go on show in a year-long series of four displays billed as “the broadest single overview of Arab art to be shown in the UK to date”. The first exhibition “explores the emergence and development of a modern Arab art aesthetic from the early 20th century to 1967”, say the organisers (8 September-16 December). Artists featured include Dia Azzawi, Ervand Demirdjian, Hamed Ewais, and Kadhim Hayder.
The second display focuses on figurative works of art made between 1968 and 1987, by artists such as Kamal Boullata, Huguette Caland, and Marwan Kassab Bachi, among others. Photography and video pieces made between the early 1990s and 2010 will be shown in the third presentation, encompassing artists such as Yto Barrada, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. The final display in the Whitechapel cycle includes works that reflect urban life by Laurence Abu Hamdan, Etel Adnan, Iman Issa, and Jumana Manna. Omar Kholeif, the curator at the Whitechapel, will organise the exhibition series.
“The Barjeel foundation’s guiding principle is to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region by building a prominent, publicly accessible art collection in the UAE,” says a foundation statement. It regularly loans works to international institutions, and is currently showing a selection of pieces by twelve Arab artists at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (Home Ground, until 3 January 2016).