Artist : Reinaldo Sanguino (in collaboration with Dean Project gallery, New York)
Exhibition Dates: April 17 - May 10. 2012
Description: Based on the practice of using Meissen Porcelain as diplomatic exchange gifts by European Courts during the eighteenth century, this body of work is a contemporary and personalized reexamination of the diplomatic gift exchange tradition as form of relationship building. The exhibition highlights the role ceramics played in gift exchanges to form relationships, and Sanguino creates groups of ceramic works that range from utilitarian shapes-pitchers, bowls, plates, cups, containers, 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.
In order to commemorate the relationships that inspired the body of work, every piece from the exhibition will be digitally catalogued and posted on a web page or blog where basic personal information about the maker/giver and acquirer/recipient will be recorded.
Artist:Audrey Cudel
Exhibition Dates:May 1- May 7, 2012
Description: Underwater Photography Exhibition
Artist: Nadia Al-Foudery
Exhibition Dates: May 22- May 31, 2012
Description: Savage Donkey: A powerful new exhibition by Kuwaiti artist Nadia Al-Foudery will open at the Sultan Gallery. Entitled “Savage Donkey,” the exhibition features black and white photography combined with embroidery.
“This exhibition presents my world view in black, white, and sometimes a little pink,” say Al-Foudery of her latest work. “Beginning - end. Man - woman. Life - death. Love - hate. Mother - child. Attraction - repulsion. Health - sickness. Poverty - wealth. Youth - old age. Intimacy - distance. Passion - apathy. Fertility - sterility. Harmony - chaos. War - peace. And so on ...Dual forces can be symbolized by the black and white of the zebra. This duality defines life.”
Al-Foudery’s “Savage Donkey” exhibition follows two dynamic prior showings at the Sultan Gallery. Her first exhibition in Kuwait, “Yazd: A Thread of Light Through the Bazaar,” showcased abstract photo-embroideries from the bazaar in the mud brick town of Yazd in Iran, and her second “A Requiem for Old Kuwait,” highlighted the heritage buildings that have been knocked down in the last fifty years to make way for new commercial developments. Al-Foudery’s work has also been widely exhibited outside of Kuwait, including at the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art in Greece.
Sultan Gallery
Telephone : +965 24714325
Website: www.sultangallery.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.
May 2012
May 1 (Tuesday) - Theatre Seminar 4 Visiting Artist / Calligraphy Workshop
May 2 (Wednesday) - Music for Violin and Piano Concert
May 8 (Tuesday) - Book Club Genesis
May 9 (Wednesday) - Samy Ibrahim and More Friends Concert
May 14 (Monday) - Tamer el Leithy Lecture
May 15 (Tuesday) - Calligraphy Workshop
May 16 (Wednesday) - Kuwait’s Young Talent Concert
May 20 (Sunday) - International Theatre Workshop 5
May 22 (Tuesday) - Theatre Seminar 5 Visiting Artist / Calligraphy Workshop
May 23 (Wednesday) - The Music of Iraq Concert
May 28 (Monday) - Valerio Cappozzo Lecture
May 29 (Tuesday) - Exhibition of Workshop Artwork Through 7 June
May 30 (Wednesday) - A Celebration of Kuwaiti Music
Artist: A collective exhibition of Iranian contemporary art from:
Sabzi
Maryam Iranpanah
Sasan Gharedaghlou
Harwar Amini
Exhibition Dates: April 25 - May 10, 2012
Description: Iranian Contemporary Art
The artist, Sabzi, whose work was described by Abbas Daneshvari PhD, (Professor of Art History and Chair of the Department of Art at California State University, Los Angeles) thus: “His art represents that humanized perspective wherein memory persists across cultural zones, even when and where it has no relevance. So many of his works speak of conditions where values and perspectives seep through the chinks of any culture’s shield of protection. They are about the kind of interconnectedness that can no longer be undone; they are about the end of purity and the end of searching for origins and essence”, will be present at the opening.
Artist:Olivia de Saint-Luc
Exhibition Dates: May 14- May 31, 2012
Description:
The Process: Over the years, graphic art has taught me to appreciate the balance between forms, words, texts and pictures on a page. But this page has limits. Yet it is open to new dimensions. Metal exerts its dimensions by its very being. Hidden within this hard and stiff exterior is a supple, flexible, powerful force. Unlimited possibilities exist. Initially working with metal can feel rigid, almost stark. Working seriously with this material, however, brings joy and immense satisfaction. With this medium, still new to me, the quest goes on to explore the balance of forms, the point at which full meets empty, where rough metal is juxtaposed to bits of colouring or is associated with stone or other material. Metal then becomes light, supple or stretched, bare. Sketching out an encounter, suggesting the path to imagination. Refining forms so as to put forth only the essential, in order for the spectator’s eye to discover and build its own image. Exploring one’s own ideas in the hope that greater number of viewers will understand Olivia de Saint-Luc.
Dar al Funoon
Telephone: +965 2243 3138
Website: www.daralfunoon-kw.com
Contemporary Art Platform Kuwait (CAP)
Artist: Rawiya Photography Exhibition
Exhibition Dates: May 16- May 30, 2012
Description:
A photography collective founded by female photographers from across the Middle East.
Rawiya, meaning ‘she who tells a story’, brings together the experiences and photographic styles of Myriam Abdelaziz, Tamara Abdul Hadi, Laura Boushnak,Tanya Habjouqa, Dalia Khamissy and Newsha Tavakolian.
Rawiya presents an insider’s view of a region in flux balancing its contradictions while reflecting on social and political issues and stereotypes.
As a collective, Rawiya’s photographers respect the human dignity of the stories they tell, pooling resources and vision to produce in-depth photo-essays and long-term projects.
Contemporary Art Center
Telephone: +965 24925637
Website: http://capkuwait.com
Museum of Manufactured Response to Absence Collection
Museum collection project curated by Ala Younis, produced by MinRASY Projects
Premiere exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Kuwait
Under the patronage of National Council for Art, Culture and Letters, Kuwait
May 22 - June 11, 2012
The Museum of Manufactured Response to Absence (MoMRtA), in response to the absence of a minority group of Palestinians that were in Kuwait from before 1948 until 1990, 28 works have been commissioned to be “manufactured” to fill a void. These objects do not exist, they are manufactured imagining the what if element. This imagined museum installation is an intervention in the Museum of Modern Art, in Kuwait. In the absence of documentation, memory has become the document. Memory is fragile, accumulated, dismantled, reassembled, and sometimes lost work. None of the objects exist as is, some are disfunctional, all of them were made from scratch, from conception to execution.
“Unplified”
Sound installation by Tarek Atoui, 2012
In collaboration with MinRASY Projects, Kuwait
First installation between Basra and Kuwait, May 19, 2012
Premiere exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Kuwait
Under the patronage of National Council for Art, Culture and Letters, Kuwait
May 22 - June 11, 2012
Tarek Atoui recreates the sounds from the novella, Men in the Sun, by Ghassan Kanafani, of three men and their desperate attempt to be smuggled into Kuwait via Basra in the summer of 1958 in an empty water tanker. Atoui challenges the desert by recreating the sounds drowned by the echo-less vastness of the desert. The debut will be in the desert somewhere between Basra and Kuwait. This will be recorded and reproduced to create an installation in two sound proof rooms of a portacabin, with a monitor on loop of the visuals of Atoui’s challenge. The intensity of the sound, and heat in the installation rooms remind the viewer who is the ultimate winner in the challenge of man vs. desert
First Published in Men's Passion Issue #40 May 2012
