“Aside from contesting its provenance, abstraction here is viewed neither as an end in itself, nor merely through the lens of simplification or reduction. Instead, it is a way of tapping into unrealized potential, of discovering new expressive possibilities within the familiar. Abstraction, in other words, may be seen as a journey of intellectual inquiry, a means of arriving at distilled lessons.”

Exhibition: “Distilled Lessons: Abstraction in Arab Modernism” group exhibition (featuring artists such as Ahmed Cherkaoui, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Farid Belkahia, Hashim Samarchi, Ibrahim el-Salahi, Madiha Umar, Mohamed Melehi, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Omar el-Nagdi, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Thuraya al-Baqsami, and Yousef Ahmad), Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, October 2023– March 2024.

Keywords: contemporary, exhibition, curatorial practice, modern, modernism, art, paintings, photography, sculpture, drawings, installations, artists, Abd el-Wahab Morsi, Abdelkebir Rabi, Adam Henein, Ahmed Al Bahrani, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Ahmed Fouad Selim, Ali Haffaz, Ali Hassan, Anwar Abdel Kareem al-Qamary, Bahman Mohasses, Chant Avedissian, Charles Hossein-Zenderoudi, Dia Azzawi, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Faramarz Pilaram, Farghali Abd el-Hafiz, Farhad Moshiri, Farid Belkahia, Farouk Shehata, Gebran Tarazi, Haleem al-Mahdi, Hamdy Khamis, Hamed Abdalla, Hanaa Malallah, Hashim Samarchi, Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani, Hussein Madi, Ibrahim el-Salahi, Issam el-Said, Jamil Hamoudi, Jassim al-Zaini, Kamal Boullata, Laila Shawa, Lalla Essaydi, Latifa Toujani, Madiha Umar, Manal AlDowayan, Manar al-Muftah, Miloud Labied, Mohamed Melehi, Mohammad Ehsai, Mohammed Chebaa, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Mounir Canaan, Nja Mahdaoui, Omar el-Nagdi, Pouran Jinchi, Rachid Koraichi, Rasheed Abd al-Rahaman, Reza Mafi, Sadegh Tabrizi, Said El-Adawi, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Samia Halaby, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Suad al-Attar, Thuraya al-Baqsami, Wadha Al Sulaiti, Wafa al-Hamad, Wafaa Al Sabbagh, Princess Wijdan Ali, Yassine Belferd, Yousef Ahmad, Yusuf Chen Jinhu, experiments, Tajreed, Tajrid, abstraction, abstract, purification, simplification, clarifying, Arab, Arabic, Turkish, Iranian, South Asian, Chinese, artists, Arabic, language, script, letter, figurative, pictorial, realistic, representations, depictions, syntax, visual, Islam, Islamic, Muslim, heritage, aesthetics, traditions, history, past, memory, geometric, patterns, ornamentation, shared, common, cultural, linguistic, historical, provenance, potential, expressive, possibilities, inquiry, intellectual, alternative, West Asia, North Africa, Southwest Asia (”Middle East”), Gulf, Doha, Qatar

Image: Qatar Museums