Art of the Mid East

Congratulations Ayyam!

The Young Collectors Auction | Official Results

Ayyam Auctions’ thirteenth sale, The Young Collectors Auction, totaled $550,000 from sales of seventy-two of the seventy-five lots offered on auction. 

Dubai—On the evening of May 15, Ayyam Auctions held its seventh edition of The Young Collectors Auction in Dubai, amassing $550,000 from seventy-five lots. 

Held at Ayyam Art Center in Alserkal Avenue, the public sale featured an astounding collection of Arab and Iranian art. The diverse selection of works set established figures such as Samia Halaby, Assad Arabi and Safwan Dahoul alongside burgeoning Iranian talents, Ramin Shirdel, Navid Azimi Sajadi and Shadi Ghadirian on the auction block, allowing new collectors and seasoned bidders to find unique works for their collections. 

In an informal yet vibrant and packed salesroom, moderately priced painting, sculpture, photography, limited edition prints and installation works from renowned and emerging artists throughout the region were fiercely vied for. Enthusiastic bidding generated a dynamic ambiance for those bidding as well as those enjoying the spectacle. 

The highlights of the evening came with competitive bidding over works by emerging artists such as Ramin Shirdel, whose Eshgh 2 sold for and impressive $20,400 from an estimate of $5,000-$6,000, Shurooq Amin’s estimated $8,000-$12,000 My Harem in Heaven, which sold for $18,000, and Elias Izoli’s strikingly modern portrait that brought in $14,400 over an estimate of $5,000-$6,000. Acclaimed still life artist Othman Moussa’s The First Sin surpassed its estimate of $8,000-$12,000 with a final hammer price of $16,800, Kais Salman’s 2012 painting Chrome Platinum sold for $9,200, and an older work of Mohannad Orabi fetched $19,200, surpassing its estimate of $8,000-$12,000. 

With record attendance, record sales and an exciting salesroom, Ayyam Auctions greatly anticipates its next edition of The Young Collectors Auction.

About Ayyam Auctions
Ayyam Auctions is the first of its kind among commercial spaces in the region and was launched in 2009 as part of Ayyam Gallery’s innovative approach to catering to its diverse range of clients. Initiated with the Young Collectors Auction in Dubai in 2009, these public sales have highlighted some of the Middle East’s most exciting figures, featuring prominent and budding artists from across the Arab world, Turkey and Iran. Recently, Ayyam Auctions has worked with other Middle Eastern galleries to insure a blue-chip selection of painting, sculpture and photography that is at once authoritative and robust. Expanding the number of lots with each edition, The Young Collectors Auction, Dubai Sale and Beirut Sale have become an essential part of the region’s world-renowned lineup of yearly art events. 

Click here for the detailed results

Click here for the auction catalogue

(information and pictures kindly provided by Ayyam Gallery)

Barcode

By Joseph Chahfé, May 2012 

Wednesday May 9, 2012 Starting 6:00 pm 

The bar code has become the icon that is most present in our world today. We see it everywhere, on merchandise, objects, and on whatever we use in our daily lives. It is there to identify each unique element. Even we, as individuals are identified with a bar code, as in our passport. We are all branded which allows the system to control our history of activities.
Through diverse communication media, the government and business organizations around the world accelerate consumption, a conspiracy where we have become the pawns of the game. Especially with advancing technology, our global economic system creates an addiction to consumption. An individual’s identity depends on the social and cultural environment, the family milieu, the surroundings, and the place where one is brought up. Furthermore, the identity evolves from personal experiences and social displacement. Civil identity (technical identification) is necessary in a civil order to manage our society as a group within the borders, in a geographical territory to limit and identify our space.

A civil identity such as a birth certificate or other, alone, cannot determine our social belonging. It is not our origins. Our identity stems from our memories through all their senses. We are our memories, but our native land is not what defines us. We are made out of all the lands we have inhabited, all those which have filled our senses. Each one of them is a fragment of our essence. They make each one of us unique. The fragmented mirror bar code is a self-reflection of our fragmented identity. The physical confrontation of the viewers facing a bar code reflects their image and standardizes a commercial imposed political identity. They can either assimilate or ask questions, reflect or do their own social investigation. It is our destiny as humans to be constantly confronted with mystery, the unknown, the necessity of reinventing ourselves.
Joseph Chahfé

Lara Atallah ‘If Walls Could Talk’
Tuesday, May 22 at Ayyam Gallery, Beirut from 7-9pm

From May 22 until June 20, Ayyam Gallery Beirut will debut the series that won second place at the 2011 Shahbab Ayyam Photography Competition, ‘If Walls Could Talk’ by the exceptionally talented emerging Lebanese photographer, Lara Atallah. 

Lara Atallah lends a voice to the current social problems and dissatisfactions encountered by the Lebanese in an urban environment through her photographic portrayal of various issues. Atallah states, “My aim is to tackle the issue, the photography is a means not an end.” In this exhibition, ‘If Walls Could Talk’, Lara Atallah unveils two societal problems for consideration. 

The first is gentrification; that silent pressure which quietly and powerfully alters a landscape and its social history, and forces families from their homes. When one thinks of gentrification, one wholly considers the ramifications of the people in the areas who are forced to evacuate. What is not readily considered is the loss of architectural heritage and more importantly, the loss of basic necessities for the area, such as a place for public education of the society’s youth. These by-products of gentrification form the second societal problem for consideration in this exhibition. 

‘If Walls Could Talk’ features twelve images taken within an abandoned public school on Bliss Street in Beirut. Beautifully capturing light and shade playfully dancing among the dust-covered tile-work and softly caressing the scrolling ironwork of the staircases, shadows are thrown, creating anamorphic forms to occupy the halls where young lives once took shape. Yet the abandoned silence is deafening and traces of these past lives are carelessly discarded within. While each image is aesthetically pleasing and poetically recounts the abandoned silence, it also harkens to a distant memory, a discarded story of youth that has been hiding in the cavities of one’s mind and now flashes forth with brilliance when gazing upon these desolate scenes. It begs the question of memory of place. If the edifice is destroyed do the memories live on? Can walls that no longer stand tell the stories they have quietly witnessed? 

Modernization brings a lack of authenticity, erasing the soul of a place. ‘If Walls Could Talk’ does not merely romanticize the disappearing architectural heritage of the city, it highlights the social and economical costs of the demolition. Lara Atallah observes gentrification transforming the demography of the Lebanese capital, causing the death of a heritage and the exodus of those who can no longer afford life in the city. Her first solo exhibition sheds light on the resulting, and often overlooked, neglect for the basic societal needs caused by the destructive forces of gentrification. 

Lara Atallah was born in Beirut in 1989 and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the American University of Beirut. Since graduating, she has dedicated her work to address social issues, translating her sentiments across different medias, from podcasts to writings and photography. Atallah has since expanded her work with a new series documenting everything from street vendors to construction sites, with the aim to capture the complex layers of Beiruti life. Placing second in the 2011 Shabab Ayyam Photography Competition in Dubai in 2011, her photographs have since been sold in the 12th and 13th editions of the Young Collectors Auction organized by Ayyam Auctions in Dubai. In 2012, Lara Atallah became the first recipient of the Khaled Ead Samawi Scholarship and will begin studies towards her MFA in Photography.

(info and pics kindly provided by Ayyam Gallery)

For more information Ayyam Gallery Beirut click here

Daniele was born in 1980, Lebanon/USA.

The exhibition includes a group of paintings, objects, printed images and installations, which address the process of seeing and remembering. These works began with a search for the (extinct) train line from Beirut to Riyaq, which the artist retraced in July 2011, photographing and filming the old stations and route along the way. Through a series of translations, she examines the relationship of perception & construction (fact and fiction) in the process of recalling a journey from both a physical and temporal distance.

The exhibition will run from 10 May – 8 June, 2012

For more information on the Agial Art Gallery click here

Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist From

Museum for African Art, New York

80 works encompassing over five decades of the artist’s career

EXHIBITION FROM 20 MARCH-31 MAY

VENUE: SHARJAH ART MUSEUM

Ibrahim El-Salahi, the Tree, 2001

Colored ink on watercolor paper, 21 ½ x21 in. (54.6 x 53.3 cm) framed

Collection of the artist

Photo: Museum for African Art / Andy Keate

Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist, an exhibition organized by the Museum for African Art, New York, highlights the exemplary work of Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi. The retrospective includes 80 works encompassing over five decades of the artist’s career. A Visionary Modernist follows work produced during El-Salahi’s travels from Sudan, while in self-imposed exile in Qatar, and on his continued spiritual journey in Oxford, United Kingdom.

 The exhibition highlights drawings, paintings, and literary ephemera on loan from international institutions and private collections.

El Salahi’s body of work is not bound within one style nor is it constrained by the early parameters of Sudanese aesthetic practices. His paintings combine a critical understanding of western art principles with reference to Sudanese and Islamic art forms. His trademark linear style remains a pre-eminent unifying device expressing the intuitive merging of Islamic spirituality with critical social consciousness.

Ibrahim El-Salahi studied at the School of Design at Gordon Memorial College in Khartoum, attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and was head of the Painting Department at the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum. El-Salahi’s work has been included in major exhibitions such as The Short Century, PS1, New York, 2002; Interventions: a dialogue between the modern and the contemporary, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar, 2010; and The Future of Tradition – The Tradition of Future: Masterpieces of Muhammadan Art, Haus der Kunst, Berlin Germany, 2011.

El-Salahi’s art is in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art; Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; Hampton University Art Museum, Virginia; New National Gallery, Berlin; Iwalewa-Haus, Bayreuth, Germany; National Gallery of Victoria, Sydney; and the Newcastle Art Gallery, Australia.

El-Salahi has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, 1964-65; Order of Knowledge, Arts and Letters, Sudan, 1975; Honorary Award, Prince Klaus Fund, 2001

A Visionary Modernist is guest curated by Dr. Salah M. Hassan, Professor of African and African Diaspora Art History and Visual Culture at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist is organized by the Museum for African Art, New York, and has been supported, in part, by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support has been provided by the Sharjah Art Museum and the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development.

 About Sharjah Museums Department:

The Sharjah Museums Department (SMD) was established in 2006 by His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the UAE Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, as an independent government entity that aims to provide highest standard of museums to Sharjah’s residents and visitors, by offering a range of facilities, organizing specialized exhibitions, and launching educational programmes, in addition to publishing research and reaching all social groups. SMD manages more than 17 sites in the emirate, covering most types of art, Islamic culture, archaeology, heritage, sciences, aquaculture and the history of the emirate of Sharjah and the region. 

(All info and pictures provided by the Sharjah Museum of Art)

For more information on the Sharjah Museum of Art click here

Johny Mokbel has amassed one of the finest collections of Lebanese art in private hands. Whether it is Chafic Abboud or Ayman Baalbaki, the Mokbel Art Collection holds  Lebanese artwork from a wide array of time periods and art forms. The Mokbel Collection is also one of the first collections in Lebanon to be showcased to the public and promoted through its own website and at the Menasart fair.

1. Johnny, can you tell me when you started to collect art?

1999

2. What initially got you interested in art?

Art itself

3. What was the first piece you ever collected?

Summer Day I & Summer Day II by Paul Guiragossian

4. Do you still love that piece?

Sure

5. When did you first start collecting?

1999 seriously collecting Lebanese-made art

 6. How has your collecting taste developed?

It developed well, as today I am open to all types and school of art providing that the quality is in there

7. Do you still collect the same artists you collected when you first started? 

Yes

8. Your collection consists solely of Lebanese art, why have you chosen to focus your collecting on Lebanese art?

Quality and still-affordable prices

9. As a follow up question, do you think Lebanese art should be categorized with Middle Eastern art? Why, why not?

If you scrutinize Christie’s last couple of auctions you will notice that Lebanese artists have a good bite of the cake despite the fact that we are a small country with only 4 million inhabitant in comparison to Syria, Iran, Egypt, Turkey … so I believe that Lebanon must have it’s own identity and say ‘art from Lebanon’ however since Lebanon has been always a message and a source of inspiration and reference to the countries in our surrounding why not make them benefit as well from our strength so why not? Let is be categorized with Middle Eastern art.

10. Who are some of the artists you collect and what characteristics of these works attracts you?

Paul Guiragossian, Chafik Abboud, Aref Rayess, Ayman Baalbaki, Tagreed Darghout, etc to each one his own style of expression

11. Are the artists you collect from the same time period or do you mix contemporary and more traditional works?

I mix and it is a part of my personality

12. What are some of the characteristics Lebanese artwork share? How would you define Lebanese art?

For the young artists the artworks convey their post war trauma and so our society as for the founding fathers of modern Lebanese art they are the continuity but made in Lebanon of other international schools

13. What do you think of the art scene in Beirut today? The galleries, collectors etc.?

It’s booming 

14. What do you think is needed to further enhance Lebanon’s art scene?

Market our art scene and artists more aggressively

 15. Do you normally buy your artwork from the artist directly or from a gallery/dealer?

It depends where the opportunity to catch the right piece is. Sometime you find it in the primary and some other time in the secondary markets (auction) from where I buy is not important for me what is important is the piece itself and that’s all, all the rest are details

16. What do you think of the Middle Eastern art scene at the moment? 

It is booming

 17. Would you ever think of collecting non-Lebanese artwork from the region? Why? Why not?

Yes why not but you need a bigger budget to do it right now

For more information on the Mokbel Art Collection, check out the website here:

http://www.mokbelartcollection.com/aboutmac.htm

Our Mission

The mission of the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation is to display, interpret, research and further develop the museum’s collections for a wide range of local, national and international audiences, and to stimulate knowledge, appreciation and enjoyment of Islamic art, history, science and culture.

About the Museum
Welcome to Sharjah’s Museum of Islamic Civilization, the first of its kind in the UAE. Situated right at the historical heart of Sharjah on the Majarrah Waterfront, this fascinating Museum started its life as a traditional Middle Eastern souq or indoor market.

• Prayer rooms.
• Cafeteria with tea, coffee, cool drinks and snacks.
• Gift shop.
• Parking with designated spaces for visitors with disabilities.
• Wheelchair access and bathroom facilities for visitors with disabilities
• Lifts as well as stairs
• 

(info and pictures kindly provided by the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization)

For more information on the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization click here:

http://www.islamicmuseum.ae/

Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization
PO Box 39939, Sharjah, UAE
Tel:+ 971 6 5655455
Fax: + 971 6 5652988
Email: info@islamicmuseum.ae

Location

The Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization is located on the Corniche Street in al-Majjarah Area. It is situated on the opposite side of the Corniche Street from Sharjah Creek, and is highly visible due to its size and gold dome. Ample parking is available behind the museum, accessible from Gulf Road.