Doha, October 25 (QNA) - Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art will open on Thursday four captivating exhibitions, showcasing the breadth of contemporary art across the Arab world.

A retrospective survey of the work of a distinguished confirmed Iraqi artist, a trailblazing exploration of abstraction as seen through the museum's renowned collection, a long-range thematic collaboration carried out by artists from 20 countries, and an experimental research-based project blending ancient craftsmanship with modern technology will fill Mathaf's galleries through 5 March 2024, giving local audiences and Qatar's visitors from around the world exciting insights into today's Arab art.

Zeina Arida, Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, said:"This fall, Mathaf will present a bounty of inspiring artworks in exhibitions that underscore the remarkable creative capacity of artists across our region. These shows represent four different ways to delve into the ever-present themes of heritage and identity while continuing to reimagine what modern and contemporary Arab art can be." Mehdi Moutashar: Introspection as Resistance presents a constellation of new and existing works in a wide variety of media by the distinguished Iraqi artist, in his first solo exhibition in Qatar and his first in the region in nearly 50 years. Organized by guest curator Amin Alsaden, Introspection as Resistance features artworks inspired by the endless potential of Arabic calligraphy and ornamental patterns, challenging preconceived, Western-based categorizations of Moutashar's work as Abstraction, Minimalism, or Op-Art. More than 25 artworks created over five decades express the artist's profound understanding of the region's aesthetic traditions and celebrate the endless potential of its geometry.

Distilled Lessons: Abstraction in Arab Modernism examines the meanings and methods that differentiate the way Arab artists have used abstraction from the approaches of their fellow artists around the globe. Drawn entirely from Mathaf's unsurpassed collection, the exhibition, curated by Amin Alsaden , demonstrates how regional artists have drawn ideas, visual elements, and techniques from the rich and diverse heritage of the Arab-Muslim world, particularly calligraphy and ornamentation. Among the artists represented in the exhibition are Wafa al-Hamad, Thuraya Hassan al-Baqsami, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Samia Halaby, Omar el-Nagdi, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Madiha Umar, Ibrahim el-Salahi, and Charles Hossein Zenderoudi.

Cities Under Quarantine: The Mailbox Project, conceived and curated by Lebanese multidisciplinary artist Abed Al Kadiri of Dongola Limited Editions in Beirut, presents a personal and creative archive of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. A project born out of the pandemic's enforced isolation, the initiative explores the polarities that defined this moment in history: life and death, certainty and uncertainty, safety and exposure, loneliness and friendship. Inspired by a quotation from artist John Baldessari about the difficulties of mailing a painting, Al Kadiri mailed books to artists in 22 cities around the world to solicit their creative expressions. On view are 59 handmade, hand-stitched books with bespoke covers designed by Reza Abedini, created in-house at Dongola. Artists Raed Yassin, Mahmoud Obaidi, Mona Saudi, Mohammad Kazem, Taysir Batniji, Faisal Samra, Ziad Dalloul, Dia Al-Azzawi, Hani Zurob, and Nadia Kaabi-Linke have used collage, photography, painting, drawing and other media to transform the books. In 2021, the project was given its debut at Villa Romana in Florence, Italy.

De/Constructed Meanings, a collaboration between Mathaf and VCUarts Qatar faculty and staff, is an installation by Giovanni Innella, Hala Amer, Saga Elkabash, and Levi Hammett, presenting a device that uses a programmed coding system to write on sand. Inspired by the theories of the French thinker Jacques Derrida, the lines and shapes created impersonally by the device suggest the impermanence of Arabic script and the evolving variations in its interpretation throughout history. Co-curated by Noora Abdulmajeed and Rim Albahrani, De/Constructed Meaning is an experimental interrogation of the shifting postcolonial culture that is produced, consumed, and exported by people in the Arab region. (QNA)