Discovering the Soul of West Asia: The Collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah
Installation view of Kawkaba: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation at Christie’s, London, July 20 - August 23, 2023. Photo by Amir Hazim.
Are you curious about discovering art from different parts of the world? One of the beauties of digitalization is that you can travel in space and time without setting a foot in front of your door. Thanks to Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, you might choose to explore the diverse world of West Asia by getting lost in the foundation’s constantly growing online art collection. In case you are secretly scratching your head now, trying to figure out which countries belong to West Asia: the geographical region West Asia overlaps to a large extent with the region more commonly referred to as the Middle East, or Near East. But Sultan prefers to use the term West Asia: “The term Middle East originated during British imperial rule. It is an ambiguous title that takes the European continent as its point of departure. West Asia is an alternative term that relies on geographic indicators in referring to the region.”
The roots of the diverse collection extend back to Sultan’s student days: “I began being interested in art during my undergraduate studies at the American University of Paris in the 1990s. This is when I began exploring museums, galleries, and cultural spaces across the city. Upon completing my degree in 1998, and returning to the United Arab Emirates, my interest in Arab art began to develop and grow, eventually leading me to build a collection of Modern and Contemporary Arab art that would later become open to the public with the establishment of the Barjeel Art Foundation in 2010.”
Sultan has built one of the most rounded collections of modern and contemporary Arab art, showcasing various communities and minorities residing in the Arab world, including Amazigh, Kurdish, Armenian, Persian, Turkish, Jewish and Circassian artists, among others. It is also one of the most gender-balanced collections of Arab art, as it made the research and acquisition of art by women artists a priority several years ago: “My vision for the collection is to showcase the breadth of art from the Arab world with all its minorities, its women artists, and its different influences. I would like for this art to be available for view and for scholarly investigation by art historians, placing it in an equal position to art from other parts of the world in the writing of global art historical narratives.”
Making the collection available to as many people as possible is an important part of Sultan’s vision: “The collection can be viewed digitally on the Barjeel Art Foundation website and its social media channels. Artworks from the collection can also be viewed in various exhibitions locally and internationally, such as Kawkaba that took place between 20 July – 23 August 2023 at Christie’s, London, or our long-term display at the Sharjah Art Museum. Parts of the collection are also constantly travelling as loans to various institutions in different countries. Since its inception in 2010, the Foundation has loaned works to over 130 venues globally. In addition to that, our storage facility is open to academic researchers and graduate students working on modern and contemporary art from the Arab world. Most of the collection is available online, but it is constantly growing. We are continuously working on photographing our new acquisitions and uploading images on our website.”
There are over 1200 images you can browse, but to get you started, TWoA editor Lina Ezrahi asked Sultan about some favourite pieces shown at Christie’s this summer:
Mounirah Mosly (1943, Mecca – 2019, Jeddah), The Land of Solidities, 1970
Mounirah Mosly (1943, Mecca, Saudi Arabia - 2019, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), The Land of Solidities, 1970. Oil on wood, 110 x 80 cm . Image courtesy of Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah
Mounirah Mosly is one of Saudi Arabia’s most important female artists. Mosly was born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in 1943 and held her first exhibition in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in 1968. She graduated from Cairo’s College of Fine Arts in 1974 and earned a degree in graphic design in the United States in 1979. As an artist, she was particularly interested in exploring the lives of women in Saudi Arabia.
TWoA: I love how the woman is bigger than the man in this painting. Maybe this is a response to ancient Egyptian sculptures of couples, where the man is usually represented as a large figure next to a tiny woman. But what do you think is going on in the background?
Sultan: I think this semi-abstract work by Mounirah Mosly is open to interpretation. The background appears to be an aerial view of land near the coast of an ocean or a sea, akin to a geographical map showing the earth’s surface. In this composition, the solid nature of land against the flowing nature of water seems to indicate a juxtaposition between rigidity and adaptability.
Hamed Abdallah (1917, Cairo – 1985, Cairo), Hôtel des Rois (Hotel of Kings), ca. 1950
Hamed Abdalla (1917, Cairo, Egypt - 1985, Cairo, Egypt), Hôtel des Rois (Hotel of the Kings), c. 1950’s. Oil on canvas, 197 x 251 cm. Image courtesy of Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah
Hamed Abdallah was born into a family of peasants (fellahin) outside of Cairo. He discovered his love for drawing while learning the art of calligraphy in Qur’anic school. His father enrolled him at an art school, but Hamed soon left the school because his fiery temperament got him in trouble and because he did not want to paint in the strictly realistic style the school demanded. Instead, he went to paint in local coffee shops and taught himself philosophy, art history and anthropology. He spent the last thirty years of his life between Copenhagen and Paris.
TWoA: I love this painting! It looks like a patchwork house. Can you tell us more about it?
Sultan: In creating this artwork, the artist, Hamed Abdallah, recalled his visit to Nubia in Upper Egypt, where he was greeted and welcomed by the local community so warmly, that for him, the family home he stayed in felt like a hotel fit for kings.
Joyce Mansour (1928, Bowden – 1986, Paris), Untitled 1, 2 and 3, ca. 1965-1969
Joyce Mansour (1928, Bowden, England - 1986, Paris, France. Untitled 1, 2 and 3, c.1965-69. Metal and polystyrene elements, 14 cm diameter. Exhibited at Kawkaba: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation at Christie’s, London, July 20 - August 23, 2023. Photo by Lina Ezrahi.
Joyce Mansour (née Joyce Patricia Adès) was born to Jewish Egyptian parents and raised in Cairo, Egypt. As a young woman, she lost her mother and then her first husband to cancer. In 1949, she remarried. Around that time, she got to know the surrealist Egyptian poet and author Georges Henein. The writers and artists associated with surrealism were looking “beyond reality” to revolutionise the way we look at art and the world. They were fascinated by dreams, the unconscious, the scary and the unusual. Henein encouraged Mansour to publish her poetry. Mansour moved to the capital of surrealism, Paris, and joined the surrealist movement. The movement’s intellectual leader, French writer and poet André Breton, considered her one of the most important French-language surrealist poets after the war. Her sculptures are as strange and poetic as her poetry.
TWoA: These sculptures are really interesting. The one on the right reminds me of the shape of the coronavirus. What do you think this sculpture is about?
Sultan: Created in the late 1960s, these unusual works reflect Joyce Mansour’s experimental and avant-garde approach to creativity. Peculiar, threatening, and lyrical at once, they oscillate between imaginations of biological forms, and futuristic, technological configurations. In her writing, researcher Nadine Nour el Din recalls their interpretation as “aggressive flowers.”
Asim Abu Shakra (1961, Umm Al-Fahm – 1990, Umm Al-Fahm), Cactus, 1989
Asim Abu Shakra (1961, Umm al-Fahm, Palestine - 1990, Umm al-Fahm, Palestine), Cactus, 1989. Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 120 x 80 cm. Image courtesy of Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah
Even though Asim Abu Shakra passed away from cancer when he was only 28, he is one of the few Palestinian artists Israelis consider part of their artistic canon. When Abu Shakra was twenty, he moved to Tel Aviv to study painting, experiencing all the emotional and practical challenges of living as a Palestinian in Tel Aviv. For almost two years, he slept in a sleeping bag in the turpentine-smelling paint studio of his art school. The cactus became a central theme in his work. The cactus is very typical for the region, it has deep roots and great strength that help it survive in the most difficult circumstances. One day, Abu Shakra saw a potted cactus on a windowsill. But this cactus had been cut out of the soil, stuck into a pot, and taken to a windowsill in a large, alien city. The young artist felt that he and the cactus were going through the same experience.
TWoA: I love the idea behind this painting, it is really beautiful. Why do you think he painted the whole painting in shades of black, white and grey, but then added these tiny spots of brown and red just where the windowsill is?
Sultan: The cactus plant, which is indigenous to the Palestinian countryside, is central to Asim Abu Shakra’s artistic oeuvre. This work shows a cactus that has been separated from its cluster in the wilderness and placed in a small pot on a windowsill in an urban setting—estranged and alienated from its natural habitat. Perhaps the odd spots of colour behind the plant recall the vibrant colours of its original environment, referencing the hues of flowers and rocks that used to surround it, and accentuating feelings of longing for a lost motherland.
Looking for an artsy way to relax? Check out this Barjeel Art Foundation online colouring book!
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