Christie's Kawkaba exhibition: A captivating insight into the creative soul of the Arab world

A plethora of rare modern Arab artworks has lit up the headquarters of Christie’s auction house in London. 

Titled Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, the exhibition comprises two distinct sections: Kawkaba: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation and Emirati Art Reimagined: Hassan Sharif and the Contemporary Voices.

The Kawkaba — constellations in Arabic — exhibition is a captivating window into the artistic soul of the Arab world and a unique platform for the Middle East and North Africa’s finest artists and works.

More than 100 masterpieces that have never been displayed in Europe before are on loan from the Barjeel Art Foundation — which was created in 2010 by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi to present some of the region’s finest pieces and artists — and are now proudly adorning the walls of the four-century-old building. 

"Kawkaba may be unprecedented in its presentation of Middle East creatives and their impressive work to the world, but the lessons and echoes from this display could perhaps be as important as the exhibition itself in years to come"

Magnifying the vibrant tapestry of modern Arab art while shedding light on regionally celebrated and underrepresented artists, Kawkaba will take you on a truly unique immersive journey through the transformative ages as well as the powerful voices that have shaped the modern Arab art landscape.

The show also delicately unwraps 80 years of MENA art and its various mediums, with a vast majority of the pieces in the exhibition having never been seen in the UK before.

Curated by Dr Ridha Moumni and propelled by the ever-present patron of Arab art, Sultan Al-Qassemi, the show is on display free for the public from July 20 to August 23, giving enthusiasts an unmissable visual summer treat.

“This exhibition includes 105 works from the Barjeel Art Foundation collection, which is ten times as big, so what you are seeing in London has already been filtered,” Sultan Al-Qassemi tells The New Arab. 

When asked which pieces had a special meaning for him, Sultan Al-Qassemi says he is spoilt for choice: “I would say that my personal favourites are the usual works by Syria's Marwan Kassab, Iraq's Kadhym Haidar, Tunisia's Safia Farhat, Egypt's Inji Aflatoun among others.

“However, this exhibition has also allowed me to be exposed to some of the recent works that we have acquired, such as Hamed Abdalla's King's Hotel (1950) and Mouazaz Rawda's Untitled white marble sculpture, which have both immediately been catapulted into my favourite works."

With an equal gender split among the pieces, the Barjeel Art Foundation is sending out a powerful message for equality in art, something that still hampers parts of the Middle East today.

“We at Barjeel had taken a decision in 2019 to showcase an equal number of male and female artists in all our internal exhibitions," Sultan explains.

"The impetus was a personal challenge that I took upon myself in consultation with the curator of the foundation Suheyla Takesh. We believed that the disproportionate and male-biased displays in global museums need a radical solution and so we came up with this affirmative action type of idea. We were initially told that we would find it challenging to find so many works by women because they were not offered the same number of opportunities for instance.”

Given the intense media coverage the exhibition has received, the concept of equal opportunity and overall gender equality in the Arab art world has been a topic of significance for Sultan himself.

“We were happy to learn that women, despite being disadvantaged in the number of scholarships they received compared to their male counterparts, were more creative in creating art using different mediums such as henna, sand, tar, glass, ceramic, tapestry, batik, and other materials that men were not as associated with. For me this also allows us to tell a more complete story of art from our part of the world.” 

While Kawkaba is the first display of its type to really hone in on Middle Eastern Art, there are hopes that the traction received will open up more opportunities in the future, especially in the region. 

“I think what we need in the Arab world is more opportunities for people to view art on a longer-term basis rather than on the short-term exhibition basis that is so common," Sultan continues.

"People need the opportunity to develop a relationship with these artworks, and sometimes this requires them to be on display for years if not decades.”

More emphasis on Arab art and the allowance for it to grow in the region itself is a necessity, Sultan exclaimed: “At present, there are only a few places where you can see modern Arab art in a more permanent and long-term setting, like at the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art in Cairo and the Sharjah Art Museum."

Although there have been a number of improvements in bringing Arab art and culture to the forefront, Sultan still believes more art criticism and scholarships are needed. 

"It is also important that people in the Arab world are exposed to this rich history," he adds, "Perhaps even more important than it being shown in the West.” 

As we view the distinctive creativity of artists such as Ibrahim El-Salahi, Etel Adnan, Marwan Kassab-Bachi, Safia Farhat, Jewad Selim, Inji Efflatoun, and Mohamed Melehi on the walls of Christie’s, one cannot help but see this as a celebration of the many myriads of voices and hands who have carried MENA art for decades and served a crucial role in forging identities post-colonialism.

Kawkaba may be unprecedented in its presentation of Middle East creatives and their impressive work to the world, but the lessons and echoes from this display could perhaps be as important as the exhibition itself in years to come.

Danny Makki is an analyst covering the internal dynamics of the conflict in Syria, he specialises in Syria’s relations with Russia and Iran

Follow him on Twitter: @danny_makki