Tag: Sultan Gallery

06
Apr

Abdullah Al-Mutairi. Byproducts of Development

Focusing on the impact industrial expansion has had on the bodies and identities of youth in the region, “Byproducts of Development” utilizes found materials, both digital and physical, to portray a theory of cultural transformation. The show aims to draw attention to the physiological repercussions of rapid urbanization; linking the effects of oil industry to noticeable changes in the body. Additionally, digital connectivity is scrutinized as a locus of change, prompting shifts in self-image and methods of self-actualization that mirror the drastic changes in local landscapes. Male fragility is positioned as a reaction to, as well as a consequence of, rapid development, with youth caught between a changing ecology and digital influences.

This is Abdullah Al-Mutairi’s first solo show.

Abdullah Al-Mutairi was born in Kuwait in 1990. He lives between Kuwait and the United States. He is studying liminal identities and the intersection of gender, religion, and technology in the Gulf. He is working on a commissioned work for Global Art Forum 7 at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and Art Dubai.

Abdullah Al-Mutairi. Byproducts of Development
11th April – 27th April, 2017

Sultan Gallery
South Subhan, Block 8, Street 105, Building #168 besides Sadeer.
Madinat al-Kuwait

30
Gen

KRM. Four hands

L’Esprit Du Mur (the spirit of the wall) is a concept and style of painting created by KRM, the French-German artist duo Chérif Zerdoumi and Geza Jager.
Their concept and style ESPRIT DU MUR is a rebel, urban art, based on human tragedy and the complexity of existence.
Their works reveal a portrait of city-life and freely express interior contradiction, suffering and joy. Their work is revolutionary, based on overlapping images, words and impulsive gests. Working with four hands on the same piece defines the duo’s working process and makes their confrontation authentic. The final result is an assembly of colour, emotions and different techniques. The work witnesses a contemporary actuality and treats social-political subjects and questions.
KRM and a running dog figure on each picture is their signum.

Sultan Gallery
South Subhan, Block 8, Street 105, Building #168 besides Sadeer.
Madinat al-Kuwait

25th January – 16th February; 10am – 4pm
(Closed on Fridays, Saturdays and Public Holidays)

Image: Fish, mixed media on wood, 122 x 125cm

report by amaliadilanno

01
Dic

George Awde. Still Departures

Sultan Gallery, Kuwait | 6th December, 2016 – 5th January, 2017

George Awde’s first solo exhibition in Kuwait, chronicles the transitory existence of a group of young men and boys – many of them migrant laborers, emigrants from Syria and Syrian Kurdistan living in the context of Beirut from 2007-2016. This exhibition considers the embodiment of becoming men, while also appreciating issues of mobility and nationality as we each etch out our place in this world.

Awde’s photographs question the relationship between citizenship, masculinity, and the sense of belonging to a place – as well as to one’s own body. The work explores the scars of the flesh with those of the soil. As these men grow and change, the photographs capture physical marks – in the form of tattoos and cuts – giving hints of struggle and survival. The shape, role, and uses of the body change as these boys age – filling out – becoming men. Parallel to changing borders of manhood are those of physical mobility which widen, contract, and close in terrains of the changing geopolitical climate.  The landscape allows us to consider our states of belonging, not just as a metonym, but a portrait of Beirut’s physical terrain in which these processes occur on/through/in the bodies of individuals.

Awde’s practice of using a large format camera, and the slow process it requires, contributes to the intimacy and guides the aesthetics of his photographs. This process mirrors the gradual approach he has of building trust and familiarity through a collaborative process of photography over a number of years.  Awde has a compulsion of returning; revisiting the same spaces, people, and obsessions time and again. From this emerges a passage, which creates a broken continuity – a process unfolding like that of aging, moving, or staying.

George Awde is currently an Assistant Professor of photography at Virginia Commonwealth University in Doha, Qatar and co-director of marra.tein, a residency and research initiative in Beirut. His awards include the Aaron Siskind Foundation’s Individual Photographer’s Fellowship (2012), Philadelphia Museum of Art’s photography Portfolio Competition (2012), Fulbright US Scholar Grant to Egypt (2012-2013), Alice Kimball English Travel Fellowship (2009), and The Richard Benson Scholarship for Excellence in Photography (2008). In 2015 Awde was an artist in residence at Light Work in Syracuse, New York.  Awde’s work has been exhibited internationally, including cities such as Los Angeles, Istanbul, Beirut, Paris, Doha, Dubai, Lahore, Cairo, London, and New York.

Exhibition Dates:
Opening:  Tuesday, 6th December, 2016; 7 – 9pm
7th December – 5th January, 2017 ; 10am – 4pm
(Closed on Fridays, Saturdays and Public Holidays)

For press enquiries, please contact:
+965 24714325 Ext. 111 | +965 60790001 | sultangallery1969@gmail.com

Sultan Gallery
South Subhan, Block 8, Street 105, Building #168 besides Sadeer.
Madinat al-Kuwait

Image: untitled, Beirut, 2014