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2006 |
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| Echo
From Cairo |
| June 18- July 22, 2008 |
A
life-long resident of Cairo, 33 year old Hani Rashed
trained at fellow Egyptian artist Mohamed Abla’s
atelier for a decade before venturing off on his own
creative path in 2004.
Rashed brings an Egyptian sensibility
to the traditionally American domain of pop culture.
His innocent-looking style captures as disoriented
contemporary universe - a place where faceless human
figures repeat the movements of the everyday - offering
keen yet candid observations of the social issues that
confront modern Egyptians. These mixed-media works
juxtapose magazine cut-outs and painted planes on long
wooden panels and roughly cut cardboard shapes. They
record the cross-cultural exchange and urban rhythm of
one of the world's largest cities.
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| Wish
You Were Here |
May
13- June 12, 2008 |
The
work of Palestinian artist Jeffar Khaldi is both confronting
and compassionate, presenting a striking blend of personal
mythology, craftsmanship and intuition. His colossal paintings
whisk the viewer into a fantasy world of dominating and
dispropor-tionate landscapes, blending dream and reality.
Within this chaos, each element is in fact set carefully
into a master plan of spatial composition and historical
context, whether it be a glistening industrial machine,
mutated man, insidious robot, or aban-doned deer. ‘Wish
You Were Here’ reflects sentiments of psychological
isolation and rebelliousness, a fascinating play on the
contradictions and absurdities of our world. |
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Rewind
Ya Zaman |
April
14 - May 8, 2008 |
Following
the success of her previous exhibition at B21 in 2007,
Lebanese photographer Nadine Kanso continues to explore
her identity as a modern Arab woman in ‘Rewind, Ya
Zaman’. Kanso’s photo-assemblages, created
from carefully collected images and documents, celebrate
the cultural and political icons from the Arab nationalist
movements of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
Against this background, modern Arab passers-by are flanked
by an array of over-sized luxury goods and arresting road
signs. The electrifying contrast of her images attends
to the importance of that cultural legacy for a contemporary
Arab society besotted by consumerism and spectacle. |
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March
15 - March 31, 2008 |
Nadine
Kanso - ‘Fi al Qalb’ (In the Heart), Installation
Arnaud Rivieren - Special project
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March
18 - March 22, 2008
www.artdubai.ae |
Lara
Baladi
Bita Fayyazi
Ramin Haerizadeh
Rokni Haerizadeh
Khosrow Hassanzadeh
Jeffar Khaldi
Arnaud Rivieren
Ghass Rouzkhosh
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The
Donkey, the Pagan, the Bride, and Others |
March
17 - April 10, 2008 |
Rokni
Haerizadeh paints with an extraordinary ability to immerse
himself in the past – in myth and memory, literature
and lore, whilst remaining firmly rooted in the popular
culture and urban rhythm of the present. His new body of
work demonstrates the diver-sity of his artistic endeavours
and the universality of his appeal; several paintings are
inspired from the fables of Shahnameh, the Persian Book
of Kings, and the tales of the celebrated poet Rumi; others
labour over the vibrant, unsettling scenes of modern urban
life; a few works find their origins in the artist’s
personal reflections on life, art and identity, and are
decidedly abstract in composition. All are playful yet
carefully com-posed canvases in which Haerizadeh constructs
a refined review of Iranian mores and practices, often
mischievously suggestive and always challenging to the
status quo. |
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Surface
of Time |
February
19 - March 13, 2008 |
B21 is proud to present Lebanese-Egyptian
artist Lara Baladi, in her first solo exhibition in Dubai.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at various
spaces around the Middle-east, the U.S., Japan and Europe.
In addition to participating in the Sharjah biennal in
2007, her installation ‘Roba Vecchia, The Wheel
of Fortune’ was featured at the DIFC during the
first Gulf Art Fair. ‘Surface of Time’ features
four works (Oum El Dounia; Roba Vecchia; Surface of Time;
Diary of the Future) that demonstrates the wide range
of media and conceptual approaches Baladi employs to
astonishing effect as she explores the autonomous and
pervasive nature of Time. Questioning the past, observing
the present and projecting the future are brought forth
in Baladi’s work as necessary, simultaneous and
oftentimes contradictory actions. Their interplay is
the principal force behind the exhibition.
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Rumi
in my Chalice |
January
22 - February 14, 2008 |
Through
Shahriar Ahmadi’s radiant, multicolour palette, which
he deploys upon monochromic background, he explores emotional
and psychological territories of thought inspired by the
poems of legendary Sufi mystic Rumi. In ‘Rumi in
my Chalice’, Ahmadi has drawn on the 13th century
poet’s themes of love and philosophical contemplation,
using his canvas as a metaphor for a chalice. Upon these
massive surfaces a range of emotions -- from anxiety to
playful abandon -- are explored through abstract compositions. |
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