Three Exhibitions

Vadehra Art Gallery (New Delhi) presents Zaam Arif: Deewaar

Artwin Gallery (Moscow) presents To Everything Spurn, Spurn, Spurn featuring Javkhlan Ariunbold, Akhmat Bikanov, Bakhyt Bubikanova, Saule Dyussenbina, Nuriia Nurgalieva, Yuma Radne, Shamil Shaaev, Slavs and Tatars, and Alexander Volkov

Hafez Gallery (Jeddah) presents Ibrahim El Dessouki: Testimony of the Soil

GALLERY 1

Vadehra Art Gallery presents a solo exhibition by Houston-based artist Zaam Arif. Curated by London-based curator Ben Broome, the exhibition is titled Deewaar (Hindi for "the wall"). Arif’s work features includes portraits, still lifes and surrealist interiors that draw on a wealth of cinematic and literary influences. Arif’s figures often reflect a deep introspection and analysis of the human condition: internal narrative moments that probe the perplexities of memory, presence and identity – a construction of the self in time.

GALLERY 2

Presented by Artwin Gallery and curated by Slavs and Tatars & Asya Yaghmurian, this exhibition presents works by eight artists exploring notions of disdain and contempt. Revisiting the Pete Seeger song Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season), made famous by The Byrds in 1965, these newly commissioned paintings, watercolours and sculptures ask what it means to kick back, whether at a lover or an epoch. All the artists – Javkhlan Ariunbold, Akhmat Bikanov, Bakhyt Bubikanova, Saule Dyussenbina, Nuriia Nurgalieva, Yuma Radne, Shamil Shaaev, Slavs and Tatars, and Alexander Volkov – hail from Central Asia and the Caucasus, a region that is currently in the cultural spotlight with the debut of the Bukhara Biennial and the opening of new institutions the Almaty Museum of Art and the Tselinny Center for Contemporary Culture.

GALLERY 3

Hafez Gallery presents Testimony of the Soil, a solo exhibition by renowned Egyptian painter Ibrahim El Dessouki. Curated by Dr Sara Raza, it explores the complex relationship between the land, power and labour through new and recent paintings inspired by Egypt’s socio-political history, cinema and literature. Debuting a new series of cotton-flower paintings, El Dessouki draws upon Ottoman and British colonial history, loosely inspired by a pivotal scene set in a cotton field from Youssef Chahine’s acclaimed film Al Ard (1969). Alongside these paintings, El Dessouki presents three other bodies of work featuring cacti, olive trees and earth paintings, exploring the idea of the soil as both a literal and symbolic arena for themes of resilience, nourishment, melancholy, despair and disillusionment.

Photo Credits:

Vadehra Art Gallery Images: Courtesy of Vadehra Art Gallery and the artist. Photography by Juliana Vasquez.

Hafez Gallery Image: Courtesy of Hafez Gallery and the artist. Photography by Tom Carter.