Latest news with #Mathaf
ILoveQatar.net
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- ILoveQatar.net
Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices Exhibition
The exhibition focuses on contemporary experiences of community life and exile, including the benefits and perils of transnational crossings. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art presents Your Ghosts Are Mine: Expanded Cinemas, Amplified Voices, an exhibition featuring works by more than 40 filmmakers and artists from the Arab world, Africa, and Southeast Asia. In 2024, it premiered to great acclaim at ACP-Palazzo Franchetti in Venice to coincide with the 60th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Comprising of seven galleries divided into ten immersive sections, each one is dedicated to themes such as deserts (i.e., cradles of civilisation and places of rebirth), ruins (i.e., relics of culture), borders (i.e., demarcations between allowed and forbidden places), and cosmos (i.e., exploration of the last frontier). The films and video works span genres including fiction, documentary, animation, and memoir, often blending fantasy with fact, modernity with tradition, spirituality with postcolonial sensibilities. Through the development of film and video collections, Mathaf, dedicated to modern and contemporary art from the Arab world, and the Art Mill Museum, Qatar's future museum of international modern and contemporary art, are proposing a new approach to the various forms of cinema, from feature film to video art, in order to fully include them in the writing of a global art history. Museum Hours: Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday: 9 am – 7 pm Monday: Closed Thursday: 9 am – 9 pm Friday: 1:30 pm - 7 pm Source: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha Note: The details mentioned in this event listing are sourced from the organizers' official announcements and are subject to change. Please check with the organizer directly before making plans.
CairoScene
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
The World's Largest Modern Arab Art Collection Is in This Doha Museum
With over 9,000 works, Mathaf isn't just a museum—it's loud, political, playful, and deeply personal. If your Qatar itinerary is heavy on sunsets, souqs, and skyline views—pause for a moment and make space for a different kind of thrill: the electric jolt of contemporary Arab art. Tucked inside Doha's Education City, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art isn't just a museum—it's the region's brainiest, boldest, and most rebellious creative clubhouse. And somehow, it still feels like a secret. Home to the world's largest collection of modern and contemporary Arab art (over 9,000 works, if you're counting), Mathaf (Arabic for 'museum') is anything but quiet. It's where painters, poets, rebels, and rule-breakers from across the Arab world come to have a say—and a moment. Think surrealist paintings from Syria, feminist sculptures from Sudan, abstract experiments from Iraq, and political pop from Palestine. Opened in 2010 as part of Qatar Museums' sweeping cultural vision, this under-the-radar institution features sharply curated exhibitions with a refreshingly unpretentious energy. You don't need an art degree to get it. Just curiosity—and maybe a little time to let it all sink in. And this being Doha, of course there's more: salons, panels, screenings, and the kind of people-watching that could launch a whole new personality era. Whether you drop in for 30 minutes or settle in for the full afternoon, Mathaf will leave you thinking, questioning, and probably Googling at least three new artists on your ride home. Located just 20 minutes from the city center (and, pro tip: very near some very good coffee), this museum is a must for anyone who wants to get under the surface of the Arab world—not just past or present, but future too. So go ahead. Skip the expected. And step inside a space where art isn't hung up in a vacuum. It's loud, political, playful, and deeply personal.
Arab News
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
‘Gulf Art Movements' exhibition showcases history of Arab creatives
JEDDAH: Art Jameel launched the 'Gulf Art Movements' exhibition on Thursday to trace the evolution of modern creatives in the Arabian Gulf from the 1930s to the early 2000s. The exhibition at Hayy Jameel in Jeddah, titled 'Redrawing the Boundaries: Art Movements and Collectives of the 20th Century Khaleej' opened on May 22 and runs until Oct. 15. It features works by more than 50 artists, drawn from 20 state and private collections, and traces the evolution of modern art movements in the Arabian Gulf from the 1930s to the early 2000s. The 'Redrawing the Boundaries' show explores the emergence and development of key art movements across Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. It examines how artists responded to dramatic shifts in their urban environments and societies while engaging with themes including changing landscapes, public and private spheres, and the rise of formal art institutions. The exhibition includes works from the Art Jameel Collection alongside loans from notable public and private collections, including Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Barjeel Art Foundation, the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth Collection, and the Sharjah Art Foundation. Featuring over 80 works, the exhibition highlights a variety of influences —from local folklore and traditions to Western modernist movements, as well as Egyptian and South Asian visual cultures. From the calligraphic abstraction of Hurufiyya, an artistic movement exploring the potential of Arabic script, to the experimental ethos of collectives such as The Five, The Circle, and the Shatta Collective, the exhibition captures the innovative spirit that defined a generation of artists. These artists not only shaped national art movements but also worked collaboratively, founded institutions, and envisioned new futures for art in the Gulf. The show builds on an earlier exhibition curated by Aisha Stoby titled 'Khaleej Modern: Pioneers and Collectives from the Arabian Peninsula,' which was held at New York University Abu Dhabi Art Gallery in 2022. In an exclusive interview with Arab News, Stoby elaborated on her curatorial approach. 'They were artists who were not just foundational figures within their practices, who are without question leaders of the art movements within their own countries, but were influential through all these criteria.' 'They were establishing institutions, mentoring, and building movements. So it was above and beyond the artwork.' The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections: 'The Landscape and Public Sphere,' 'Identity and Private Space,' 'Abstraction and Ephemerality,' and 'The Conceptual New Wave.' Stoby said: 'For me what became very pronounced is if you look at the material thematically, with it comes chronologies and with it comes geographies.' 'It seemed eventually that the most natural way that these conversations could come out themselves was by putting it into a thematic structure,' she added. The exhibition opens with a pairing of paintings in the first section, dedicated to landscape and public space. The two works, by Abdulkarim Al-Orrayed and Abdulhalim Radwi, set the tone for a dialogue between cities, histories, and artistic legacies. Al-Orrayed, a seminal figure in Bahraini modern art and a founding force behind numerous art institutions and ateliers, presents a large painting capturing the development of Manama — its houses, buildings, and evolving urban identity. In contrast, Radwi's piece captures the vibrancy of Jeddah's historic district, Al-Balad. His depiction of movement and bustle evokes the city's rich cultural rhythm. Displayed side by side, these works create one of Stoby's favorite moments in the exhibition, 'A conversation between two city centers,' reflecting shared regional experiences through local lenses. The second section, features deeply emotional and historical pieces, including two evocative works by Kuwaiti artist Thuraya Al-Baqsami. Created during the Gulf War, one of them is 'Note to the Invasion' and 'The Parting' of two people who are in love and being separated. It explores themes of separation, loss, migration and resilience. 'One piece reflects the devastation of conflict, while the other speaks to the aching tenderness of lovers pulled apart by war. These artworks do more than document — they humanize a collective trauma experienced across the Gulf,' said Stoby. In the third section, themed around abstraction and ephemerality, another wall greets visitors with three interconnected works. Among them is a piece by Abdulhalim Radwi portraying the Hajj, sourced from the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. 'It is an act of symbolic homecoming as the artwork returns to Jeddah, the city it represents. Beside it hangs 'Worshippers Leaving the Mosque' by Abdulrahman Al-Soliman. 'Together, these paintings resonate as a spiritual dialogue between two pioneering artists: one rooted in Jeddah, the other in Riyadh. 'The wall extends further with contributions from Khalifa Al-Qattan and Ali Al-Mahmeed, artists who reflect on the multifaceted ways religion is experienced in daily life across the region,' said Stoby. Finally, on the upper floor — where conceptual and new media works take center stage — a deeply symbolic film by Omani artist Anwar Sonya stands out. Known for his landscapes and cross-border artistic relationships, Sonya here turns his lens toward memory and myth. The work began as a documentary about a prominent woman who led an art institution in Kuwait. During filming, a coffee cup reading foretold she would live a long and dynamic life, only for her to pass away shortly thereafter. 'The project transformed into an elegiac reflection on mortality, folklore, and the unseen threads that bind lives and legacies. It became an artwork looking at her memory,' said Stoby. It portrays 'our relationship to myth, what is real, and what meaning we can hold onto,' Stoby added. Nora Razian, Art Jameel's deputy director and head of exhibitions and programs, said that 'Redrawing the Boundaries' offers 'a compelling rethink of modernism.' Razian added that it adds 'significantly to the study and understanding of a distinct aesthetic that developed across the Khaleej with a focus on the 1930s through to the early 2000s, a time of state formation, nation building and social transformation.' She added that the exhibition 'foregrounds the critical and foundational roles artists played in shaping institutions and cultivating creative communities during times of transformation.'
