ATHR Gallery in Jeddah is currently showcasing an exhibition of works that explore techniques that were popularized by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the early 20th century and their influences on contemporary forms of art.
Exhibiting artists are Diedrick Kraaijeveld, Atef Ahmed, Nasser Al Salim, Kholoud Sharafi, Balquis Al Rashed, Mohammed Al Ghamdi, Abdul Rahman Katanani, Abdul Rahim Salim, Alex De Fluvia, Khaled Hafez and Omar Al Rashid.
The exhibited works all share a common running theme of breaking and breaching limitations imposed by working materials and their application in ways that enhance the conceptual value of the final products.
For instance, Diedrick Kraaijeveld’s works, entitled “Oil Canister" and "Aston Martin,” were assembled using pieces of originally colored wood, salvaged from various sources and places around the world. The wood pieces are never repainted in the effort to retain the original history and uniqueness of each piece.
Saudi artist Nasser Al Salim, who is trademarked for his calligraphy-inspired art pieces, has made an overt transition in the “City Nomads" series exhibited at "Collage/Assemblage."
Salim’s grandfather and father, who emigrated from Qassim province to Makkah in the early 70s to set up shop in tent production, were eventually forced to shut down the family business due to the industry’s transition to plastic tent constructions.
Inspired by his family’s business history, he produced the four-piece installation consisting of hanging tent entrance flaps that are a witness to the changes that have occurred in the housing identification of the desert nomads. Each tent entrance marked with an official identification indicates the bureaucratic stage the abode has entered. The work could be explained as a social commentary on the rapidly changing identity the urban space has adopted in the past three decades.
Mohammed Al Ghamdi’s art installation plays with an interesting mix of recycled internal hardware of power gadgets mounted on a wooden board that he uses as his primary medium.
The set of three untitled installations span a space juxtaposed with remnants of salvaged and assembled hardware from computers, plastic mobile phone panels, battery-operated clocks and vintage wood-carved window panels. The entire installation is a possible transmission of the “recycled” idea of disconnect existing in an age of fast-changing mechanics and technology.
A four-piece cardboard installation by Kholoud Sharafi is a visual dedication to the immortality of Umm Kholtoum’s musical legacy through camera, filmstrip and projector that raised her to unprecedented acclaim. The use of fragmented lyrics from her musical piece “Inta Omri” (You Are My Life) with New Age visuals lend it an almost trance-like and hypnotic feature.
Balquis Al Rashed, a native Saudi who was raised in Beirut, explores through a digital collage print the “City of Desires,” “City of Amnesia,” “City of Order” and “City of Obsessions” in the series “Imagined Cities.”
The dizzying collage of digital prints is a revisit to the memory of Beirut through the period of pre-war, civil war, post-war and today, spanning almost 60 years of reminiscence. It explores the space of memory and recall through the depiction of prominent landmarks, political organizations, power symbols, cryptic visuals, social upheavals, political ousters and modern-age fast culture.
Abdul Rahman Katanani’s piece, “A man holding a masbaha,” is a deeply nostalgic mixed media art installation assembled using corrugated tin roof sheets, cardboard and rags. It is a moving depiction of a man wearing “keffiyeh”– once an adopted symbol of the growing Palestinian resistance movement – holding a subha (rosary) made of barbed aluminum wires.
Born and raised in the Sabra refugee camp in Beirut, Katanani has exemplified the message of endurance, suffering, faith, struggle and patience in this religious-political art satire using salvaged materials identifiable with refugee camp life.
“We are in an era where any sort of accessible media can be used. There’s no limitation, with the result that we’re going to see arts that we haven’t seen before,” said Hamza Serafi, co-owner of ATHR Gallery.
The exhibition is an interesting and oddly stacked display of works that play with the observer’s sense of history, time and emotions.
“Collage/Assemblage” opened on Dec. 6 and will be running until Jan. 5 in Serafi Mega Mall, Jeddah. The exhibition can be visited from Saturday to Monday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
