ArteEast is pleased to conclude its historical modernisms series by featuring the work of Egyptian painter Hamed Nada (1924-1990) -- a revered figure in Egyptian art history who has still not received his due international recognition. Nada invented a style of figural manipulation and introduced a symbolic vocabulary that continues to influence many artists in Egypt. He also taught generations of students in art colleges in Cairo and Alexandria. Drawing on sources as diverse as European expressionism, Egyptian folk art, and ancient Egyptian art, Nada's work is most well-known for its surrealist commentary on the life of the urban poor and working classes. His tragicomic celebration and disdain of these people embodies the ambivalent nature of the support for social justice among many mid-century Egyptian modernists. This exhibition is accompanied by original and translated texts on his work by some of the most historically well-known art writers in Egypt.
ArteEast would like to thank Dr. Amany Fahmy (Cairo College of Fine Arts), Alexandra Seggerman (Yale University) and Mohammed Talaat Ali for their extraordinary assistance with this exhibition.
Kirsten Scheid and Jessica Winegar introduce the work of Louay Kayyali, a Syrian artist whose work was well-known in Syria during his life-time but was little known beyond Syria, perhaps due to his socialist commitment and lyrical figurative style. His posthumous entry to the auction market has not been accompanied by awareness of his goals in using modernism. This exhibition provides translations of Louay's own reflections on his work as well as paintings representing the array of his formal interests and approaches.
ArteEast is very excited to present the second installment of our series featuring historical modernisms in the Middle East, guest curated by Hengameh Fouladvand with assistance from Sharon Parker. Mohammad Ehsai was one of the leaders of modern calligraphy in Iran, producing many paintings, murals, and graphic designs that are eminent examples of "Naghashi Khat" – (modernist) calligraphic painting. Ehsai's painterly manipulation of calligraphic forms of Persian and Islamic/Arabic calligraphy places him at the intersection of those traditions, the Bauhaus School, the Swiss International Typographic Style, and abstract modernism in general. As an educator, he is known for his influence on generations of Iranian art students, such as Golnaz Fathi, who we featured in the Virtual Gallery in October 2005. Although a revered figure in the Iranian art scene for many decades, his works have only recently garnered the significant international attention they deserve. This exhibition provides a comprehensive view of his work, and essays by Hengameh Fouladvand and Massoud Mansouri situate it within the context of his internationalist modernist inquiry rooted in Islamic art and the Iranian art scene.
The Virtual Gallery launches its series of exhibitions exploring the history of modern art in the Middle East with Saloua Raouda Choucair. Born in Beirut in 1916, Raouda Choucair has devoted her career to rethinking art as a modernizing, civilizing, beautifying project and to applying Islamic aesthetics and mathematics to everyday experiences. Her sculptures combine a sense of contemporary global time and scientific discoveries with Sufic insights into human existence. Easily assimilated to abstract geometricism, her work has not been understood at home or abroad through its own terms…
ArteEast continues to bring you the best of the Beirut art scene with its fall 2007 Virtual Gallery exhibition featuring the work of painter Flavia Codsi. Codsi redefines realism and modernism by painting classic subjects in ways that shake up typical art historical chronologies and preconceived notions of contemporary Lebanese art. Her paintings of fruit and figures are far from straightforward portrayals of “reality” but rather investigations into what constitutes reality in a besieged country. Her work captures tensions between the seen and unseen, the particular and the universal, between pleasure and fear, candor and constraint. Viewers will also find comments on the body, gender, art world politics and history, and war. Codsi’s work has garnered prestigious prizes in Lebanon, and ArteEast is pleased to bring her work to new audiences.
