Lawrie Shabibi is pleased to announce its sixth participation in Art Dubai (Booth E10) with a presentation of six artists who explore themes of time, rhythm and return through the analogy of story telling: Hamra Abbas, Farhad Ahrarnia, Mounir Fatmi, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Zak Ové and Shahpour Pouyan.
The centre piece of the booth will be a floor-based work “Please Do Not Step – Loss of a Magnificent History” by Hamra Abbas – a fantastical marble inlay text that points to the great tradition of story-telling in the Islamic world. The shape of the text block recalls that of a magic carpet zooming into space and the text is florid and obscure with references to a flying carpet personified, it’s possible transformation into an airplane and the scattering of migrants around the world’s oceans.
Shahpour Pouyan will present ceramic pieces that also explore themes of time and travel. Having carried out a test for his own DNA make-up the artist discovered that he had ancestral roots to over thirty different countries. Inspired by this he produced miniature replicas of domes that exist in places from which his personal DNA is made up. This series recreates his story through the use of architecturally significant sites constructed as symbols of power and wealth.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Mounir Fatmi, Zak Ové and Farhad Ahrarnia will each present wall-based works. Kaabi-Linke is known for her canvases of rubbings taken from the reliefs of old walls - eroded by time and marked by history. For Art Dubai she will present a work on canvas from her “Kula” series.
Other works on the booth include a wall sculpture by Mounir Fatmi and a ‘doily’ by Zak Ové. Produced from white coaxial cable and encased in glass boxes, Fatmi’s cables have been intricately manipulated into repeating circles, creating a sense of addition and subtraction – of time moving. They also tell the story of a fast moving industrial and technological world - these cables once popular in all households are now obsolete.
In the case of Ové “Star liner” his first solo exhibition in Dubai takes place simultaneously at the gallery space in Alserkal Avenue. At the booth we present his colourful ‘doily’ paintings - wonderfully patterned abstract compositions of lace doilies. These are playful reinterpretations of the colours and patterns of the Trinidadian carnival. Complex historical, social, cultural and political contexts gave birth to this national celebration, an event that dates back to the 1800’s.
Continuing the theme of dance and pattern, Ahrarnia’s pictorial works are more subdued but convey images of dancers from the 1920s and 30s embroidered with patterns referencing the textile designs of Sonia Delauney. Ahrarnia explores the aesthetic outcome of Western and Eastern sensibilities, where high modernism converges and entangles with the ancient, mythical and the exotic.