Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah has acquired more than 30 artworks to its collection, a few of which have been added to the ongoing exhibition at the Sharjah Art Museum. A selection of works have been added to the current exhibition titled Memory Sews Together Events That Hadn’t Previously Met, which looks at the sociopolitical events of the 20th century through the eyes and artworks of Arab artists. The foundation calls it a “gender-balanced” exhibition, which continues Al Qassemi’s pledge to build a collection that was equally representative of male and female artists.
The acquisition includes an untitled work by Algerian artist Djamila Bent Mohamed. The work, created in 1970s, depicts four female subjects with painted faces – blue eyelids and rouge lips – seemingly in discussion. The work is currently being restored at the foundation.
Bent Mohamed had a revolutionary past. Born in 1933, she fought in the Algerian War of Independence, which began in the mid-1950s, and was imprisoned and tortured by the colonial French army. She went on to study art in Paris after the revolution, before returning to teach in Oran.
Also new to the Barjeel collection is Hakim Al Akel’s The Symbolic History of Arab Joy (Arabia Felix), a work from 1994. It is not the first work by Al Akel obtained by the foundation, which has displayed his works alongside fellow Yemeni artists Fouad Al Futaih and Amna Al-Nasiri previously.
Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi told about the importance of the latest acquisition, which was Al Akel’s university graduation project from the Surikov Art Institute in Moscow, where he specialised in murals and completed his studies in 1997.
In the case of Beirut-born Nadia Saikali’s painting, for example, Al Qassemi decided on acquiring her work after a visit to her artist’s studio in Paris. “In the fall of 2020, I visited Lebanese artist Nadia Saikali in her beautiful studio in Montmartre, Paris, where I was struck by her work,” he recalled.
“Nadia, who practised ballet as a young woman, told me ‘Abstraction is like dancing on the canvas.’ We then went on to acquire two of her works from auction, as well as one from a gallery in France,” he explained. Currently, the foundation has dedicated a room at the Sharjah Art Museum for Saikali’s work.
The show includes more than 130 works by artists from the Arab world, as well as countries in North Africa and West Asia. It will run at the Sharjah Art Museum until 2023, with new displays introduced regularly.