Hamed Abdalla

The Bed, Al Serir

George Merheb was born in 1960. He obtained a Master’s degree in Drawing and Painting from the Lebanese University of Beirut, Lebanon. Merheb completed a number of specialized course...

Since the 1940s, the Egyptian painter Hamed Abdalla is not only a visionary pioneer of modern art for the global south and Arab countries; he is also one of the first of his generation to envision painting as political art and activism. The current display focuses on a specific time of defeat and disillusion for a whole generation of Arab artists and intellectuals, in the aftermath of the “Six Days War” led by Israel and their allies (a war title which a lot of Arab activists consider propagandist, preferring to call it “The Defeat of 1967” or simply the “June 1967 War”). This persistent ideological wound became the symbol of failed dreams for the “Arab Nation” or Arab states alliances – including the short but emblematic Egyptian-Syrian achievement of the United Arab Republic. Another major failure, to which Abdalla will respond through the paintings on display here, is the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat program of “opening up” (Infitah) the Egyptian economy and give way to political compromise with the US and Israel – Abdalla assimilating this period to a vast state of Coma for all Arab people and territories. In a collective statement by a group of Egyptian artists exiled in Paris (including Abdalla), published in the Egyptian local journal Al-Dustur, on 5 December 1977, one can read: “This disaster is far greater than the defeat of June 1967. Rather, it approaches the scale of the disaster that took place in 1948 (…) To destroy the Arab people’s noble three decades-long struggle against imperialism and Zionism (…) Sadat is exploiting the stifling economic crisis that Egypt is currently facing (…) We must resist this betrayal of our nation or be crushed under the wheels of global imperialism for generations to come.” The works presented here reflect Abdalla’s transformation of the Hurrufiyyah aesthetics, to achieve his own way of “Arab Letterism”. It claims for a deeply experimental, non-decorative, politically committed and non-commercial use of the Arabic letter...

George Merheb was born in Lebanon in 1960 where he currently works and resides. He obtained a Master’s degree in Drawing and Painting from the Lebanese University of Beirut, Lebanon....

Fatima El-Hajj, born in Lebanon in 1953, graduated from the Lebanese University’s Fine Arts Institution, the completed a second degree at the Leningrad Fine Arts Academy, and finally...

Hédy Gobaa uses his immediate surroundings as his subject matter. Gobaa presents recognizable flora in a disembodied context, and the result is at once familiar and jarring. As of la...

Born in 1969 1991, Graduated top of his class at Iranian Society of Calligraphy, Tehran 1993, Graduated from the Wood Industry & Paper-making, Tehran Sol...

JACOB EL HANANI b. 1947 1947 Casablanca (Israeli) Title: Untitled, 1968 Technique: Signed and Dated Acrylic on Canvas Size: 73 x 93 cm. / 28.7 x 36.6 in. Additional Information...

Hédy Gobaa uses his immediate surroundings as his subject matter. Gobaa presents recognizable flora in a disembodied context, and the result is at once familiar and jarring. As of la...