5 March, 2012 - 15 March 2012 Mohammed Abou El Naga Mohammed Abou El Naga is a multidisciplinary visual artist, art professor, curator and developer. Throughout his colorful career, he has created award winning art projects, fulfilled his responsibility towards his community and brought up new generation of young artists with his teaching, workshop and his multitude of practices.
19 March- 29 March, 2012 Ali Omar Ermes Born in Libya in 1945 Ali Omar Ermes was educated both in Libya and England. He skillfully fuses Arabic Script and contemporary Art, in doing so he has created new aesthetics. The Arabic letter is his source of inspiration, he also paints inscriptions from Arabic Poetry. He describes the poems as the medium between the visible movement of his painting and the cultural space, where these lines were created. With many publications and over 70 solo and group exhibitions worldwide his works have been acquired by both public and private collectors in the Middle East, Europe, USA and the Far East.
Dar al Funoon Al-Watiah, Behbehani Compound, House No. 28 For further information call +965 2243 3138
Contemporary Art Platform Kuwait
14 March, 2012 “Let There Be Night” This 15-minute documentary will narrate the development in Kuwait’s architecture following the discovery of oil, as well as the subsequent construction boom during the 1940’s-1970’s. “Let There be Night” has been the vision of architect Abdullah Qabazard for many years, in regards to his experience in the world of architecture and design. Footage from Qabazard’s late father will also be displayed within the documentary. The screening at CAP is part of an ongoing program showcasing Jafar Islah and his peers.
A 15-minute documentary which narrates the change in Kuwaiti architecture following the discovery of oil and the consequential construction boom of the 1940’s-1970’s. The documentary also tackles the issue of “architectural eyesores”, which the country has been witnessing from the 90’s to date. Tours of this exhibition will take place before and after the “Let There be Night” showing.
Contemporary Art Center Industrial Shuwaikh Block 2, St. 28 Life Center, Mezzanine Email: info@capkuwait.com Website: http://capkuwait.com
Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah
Every year, DAI organizes a series of public lectures and seminars given by internationally renowned scholars, as well as art courses, archelological field trips, musical concerts and audio - visual programs to enhance public awareness and the appreciation of Islamic art history. These activities are held at Maidan Cultural Centre and commence at 7.00 pm.
March 2012 March 5 (Monday) - David Mellor Lecture March 6 (Tuesday) - Caring for your Collection Workshop March 7 (Wednesday) - North African Music Concert March 11 (Sunday) - International Theatre Workshop 2 March 13 (Tuesday) - Theatre Seminar 2 Visiting Artist / Book Club From Rags to Riches March 14 (Wednesday) - Music of the Baroque Era Concert March 19 (Monday) - Layla Diba Lecture March 20 (Tuesday) - Film Night Amreeka March 21 (Wednesday) - Messilah Chamber Ensemble Concert March 26 (Monday) - Parviz Tanavoli Lecture March 27 (Tuesday) - Caring for your Collection Workshop March 28 (Wednesday) - Emerald Rock Dust Concert
For further information telephone 2240 0992.
Sultan Gallery 13 March- 29 March, 2012 Take me to this place: I want to do the memories. Artists : Atfal Ahdath - Vartan Avakian, Hatem Imam and Raed Yassin
A multimedia installation by Beirut-based collective AtfalAhdath, comprised of Vartan Avakian, Hatem Imam, and Raed Yassin. The work lays out a constellation of forms and reproduction procedures around photographic studio practices in the digital age. Take me to this place… explores and manipulates the techniques that have fashioned a culture of reproducibility and standardization and accelerated the Arab world’s fascination with fame. Through the use of instruments indispensable to the contemporary popularized studio practice, such as photomontage, the artists explore the potentialities of body doubles and image copies. The installation revolves around a set of digitally manipulated images, broken down and reassembled to include the artists’ faces in the most remote of places. Portraiture becomes an art of disembodied faces and uprooted sceneries, infinitely reproducible and ultimately unconvincing.
10 April- 26 April, 2012 Reinaldo Sanguino: New Works -New York City - Kuwait City Artist : Reinaldo Sanguino ( in collaboration with Dean Project gallery, New York) The exhibition will highlight the role ceramics played in the past as gift exchanges to form relationships. Sanguino creates groups of ceramic works that range from utilitarian shapes—pitchers, bowls, plates, cups, containers, etc.—to decorative forms such as vessels, sculptures, and figurines.The ceramics are simple shapes and have little to no recognizable painted-glaze imagery; instead the surfaces are abstract and graffiti-like with elements of collage and assemblage.Organized into groups based on type-style, the ceramics will be displayed on wooden shipping crates at different levels to resemble the unloading of shipping cargo. As a whole, the collection represents the many and diverse relationships he formed throughout the past twenty years and the objects, therefore, are the material manifestation of the meanings of these relationships. The objects are some of his most prized possessions, making them an ideal source of inspiration for this body of work.
May 22- May 30, 2012 Nadia Al Foudery (Kuwaiti Artist) Sultan Gallery: South Sabhan, Kuwait Tel: + 965 24714325 sultangallery1969@gmail.com www.sultangallery.com
M Gallery
Solo Exhibition on 5 March, 2012 It’s a Man’s World – Society Men by Shurooq Amin Shurooq’s 2011/2012 series It’s a Man’s World takes over where Society Girls left off, hence exploring the other side of Middle Eastern society: men. The title’s irony is not lost in the images, most of which depict a hedonistic, taboo world of men. The images portray the dichotomy of the Arab man: religious preacher versus weekend alcoholic; political activist versus weekend party-goer; conservative father versus playboy; environmentalist versus smoker. Our society, by the very nature of its sharia-run politics, cannot exist without double standards, hypocrisy, and secret private lives. This hypocrisy, of course, as explored in the previous series Society Girls, is not the sole possession of men in the Middle East. After all, we are, by the very nature of our traumatized culture, a society that cannot exist without this hypocrisy. “Do as I say, not as I do” seems to be the norm. The series does not judge or presume what is right or wrong; it merely serves as a mirror reflecting society.
For further information telephone +965 22996447 or email info@al-m-gallery.com
Gallery Tilal
25 March to 5 April, 2012 Name of Exhibition: Aram Chaled “Light is the secret, the secret of life,” says Khalid al-Riz, otherwise known as Aram. It is also the secret of colour, of passion, of darkness, as it is also his own secret, whereby he “disappears entirely in light.” Aram aspires to create a visual text that possesses the quality of being able to touch or affect the viewer from the aesthetic point of view, or from a feeling to be garnered through observation which they can either choose to accept or reject. “I want to have a relationship of love and understanding [between myself and the viewer],” al-Riz says, and the bridge that links the two is that visual text, the painting. Out of this love that drives his work, painting is like a purifying or cleansing process, a purge where al-Riz emerges a purer, more beautiful person capable of loving himself, loving those around him, and loving the Creator.
Aram attributes all of this to his epiphany at the age of forty when he started to paint, after which everything in existence took on an aspect on beauty that never ceased to strike him, be it seen, felt, or heard, opening up a realm of beauty. Up until then, Aram says, his life was simply leading up to the moment, a life of preparation and continuous absorption of learning and new knowledge; at forty, however, Aram promptly forgot, abandoned, or unlearned all that he had known, and began to paint. That essence, that spark that finds itself in his paintings, or his texts, are attempts to words things better; he sees everything on the plane of symbols, symbols that resemble him and everyone else despite their varied cultural references and guises.
It seems that at this point of his life, artist Khalid al-Riz stands before us after he has passed the age of forty, to say that he loves us, knowing that we may very well not love him back.
4 March to 15 March, 2012 Taghreed Al Bagshi Exhibition Taghreed has always maintained her own vision about the role of Saudi women in society, and the stereotypes that have been portrayed of them. Through her paintings, she conjures a style of expressionism in the area of life and painting, aiding her to make sure the role of Saudi women and the status of progress and advancement has not limited the scope of reason. She has effectively tried to change the traditional image perceived of these of these women through her artwork. Taghreed has established many personal exhibitions and participated in international forums displaying her works in the area of Monetary Plastic.
