Masters of Modern Art Exhibit Set for Abu Dhabi Festival 2010, 3/20-4/7
The Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) today announced details of the visual arts exhibition at the Abu Dhabi Festival 2010. Throughout the whole festival, The Middle East Modern Masters exhibition will be held at the Emirates Palace. The exhibition will feature a joint collection of works by two of the greatest living masters of Middle Eastern art - sculptors Parviz Tanavoli and Adam Henein. The Abu Dhabi Festival takes place from 20 March to 7 April.
HE Hoda I. Al Khamis-Kanoo, Founder of the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation, commented: "The Abu Dhabi Festival is committed to the visual arts. Messages and ideas embodied in this exhibition promise to provoke widespread debate and intrigue as these two masters come together for the first time in Abu Dhabi"."As in previous years the visual arts play an important part in the Abu Dhabi Festival and ADMAF is honored to be able to welcome two of the most prominent Middle Eastern artists, Parviz Tanavoli and Adam Henein. These two esteemed artists will come together with a striking joint collection, which will be a highlight of this year's Festival. It is of great significance that such an important collection of modern Middle Eastern art will be shown here in Abu Dhabi, a place which is fast becoming the regional capital for the arts and culture," she pointed out.About the Artists:Adam HeneinAdam Henein's (b. 1929, Cairo) calling as a sculptor was revealed to him at the age of eight when, with his schoolmates, he visited the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. After completing his studies at the Fine Arts Academy, he spent time in Luxor and Aswan, immersing himself in the mineral landscapes, where it is not always easy to distinguish what was shaped by nature from that which was transformed by human hands.
Although he derives much inspiration from the arts of ancient Egypt, he is nonetheless modern in his approach to creating works and selects a range of themes for his art, which combine ‘noble' subjects with more familiar ones, often treated with humour. However, his work also makes strong references to the past-beneath the intentional simplicity of the lines, one discovers ancient Egypt.
In 1971, he travelled to Paris to take part in an exhibition of contemporary Egyptian art at the Galliera Museum. He planned to stay a year in the French capital before heading on to Mexico, where he wanted to study pre-Columbian art, whose force and simplicity attracted him through its resonances with those of ancient Egyptian art and with his own artistic inclinations. However, he ended up spending twenty-five years in Paris, from 1971 to 1996. There he visited the museums, met artists, worked feverishly - though in cramped conditions - in his fifteenth arrondissement studio, near Porte de Sèvres. His exhibitions met with great success. He also travelled to Italy frequently, both for pleasure and for research, particularly to Petrasanta, where he became friends with the caster Mariani.
By the time Henein returned to his homeland, he was regarded as an artist of international renown and stature. His knowledge of ore and carving techniques impressed those around him. Farouk Hosny, Egyptian Minister of Culture, put him in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Great Sphinx at Giza. It was there that he was finally able to sculpt the monumental works that he had long dreamed of and to give form to his famous, nineteen metre-long, granite and bronze vessel. He did not, however, forget the Upper Egypt of which he was so fond; and in Aswan, he founded the International Sculpture Symposium, of which he is the curator. Each year, since the Symposium's foundation, he has invited sculptors from all around the world, providing them with the possibility to carve the pink or grey granite taken from the millennia-old yet still active quarries.
Henein is also a painter. As such, he has developed a pictorial technique close to his heart: painting on papyrus, using natural pigments, bound with gum Arabic. It is not difficult to see the extent to which his painterly work - marked by the mineral makeup of the pigment - is influenced by his sculpture: the overlapping constructions of rectangular surfaces; the indication of volumes and depths; and the broad colour fields reinforcing a sense of spatiality.
Representative as he is of Egyptian art and its traditions, this prolific artist can by no means be circumscribed by Egypt alone. His work has for many years marked the artistic scene in the Arabic world as a whole.
Parviz Tanavoli was born in Tehran in 1937 and is one of Iran's foremost artists; considered as the country's first significant modern sculptor. A central figure in the formation of the Saqqakhaneh School (a neo-traditional style of art that derives inspiration from Iranian folk art and culture), Tanavoli has created works in bronze, ceramic, fibreglass and scrap metal. His oeuvre displays a deep engagement with Persian folkloric traditions, poetry and literature, all expressed in a recurring series of subjects, including the calligraphic figure of Heech (Nothingness), Farhad the Mountain Carver, Lock, Poet, Prophet, Lovers, Walls, Hand, Lion and Bird. Additionally, Tanavoli is a painter and a prolific writer. He has authored numerous books and articles on the artistic culture of Iran, featuring in publications such as Hali, Tavoos and Oriental Rug Review.
He has held solo exhibitions in Iran, Europe, USA and Canada and participated in numerous biennales and group exhibitions including, Contemporary Art from the Islamic World, Barbican Centre, London (1989); Picturing Iran: Art, Society and Revolution, Grey Art Gallery, New York (2002); and Word into Art, British Museum, London (2006). His works are housed in international private and public collections, including the British Museum, London; Grey Art Gallery, New York University Collection; Esfahan City Centre; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Vienna; Dubai International Financial Centre, UAE; and Royal Society of Fine Arts, Amman.
Tanavoli graduated from the Fine Arts School in Tehran in 1956, after which he travelled to Italy, where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara. Returning to Iran two years later, Tanavoli exhibited his work at Farhang Hall, marking the first sculpture exhibition in Iran and gaining him critical acclaim. In 1959, after receiving a highly coveted scholarship, he returned to Italy to study at the Brera Academy in Milan, graduating with honours.
Upon his return to Tehran in 1960, Tanavoli helped establish the curriculum for the newly established College of Decorative Arts, where he also taught sculpture. A year later, after meeting the American art collector Abby Grey at a group exhibition in Saderat Bank, Tanavoli travelled to Minnesota as an artist-in-residence at the Minneapolis College of Art, later accepting a teaching post there. In 1964, he returned to Iran, to teach sculpture in the Fine Arts Faculty of Tehran University.
In 1979, Tanavoli retired as head of the sculpture department at Tehran University and left Iran with his family to settle in Vancouver. During this time, he published extensively on the crafts traditions of Iran, travelling to the country regularly for research and continuing to exhibit his works and collections internationally.
In 2003, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art held a retrospective exhibition devoted to the art of Parviz Tanavoli. A momentous occasion, this exhibition displayed his work from the early years of his career to date. More recently, his sculpture ‘Wall (Oh Persepolis)' sold at Christie's in April 2008, setting a world auction record for a work of art by a Middle Eastern artist.
Notes to the Editor:About The Abu Dhabi FestivalHeld under the patronage of H.H. General Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, The Abu Dhabi Festival is the UAE's premiere classical arts event, attracting high caliber regional and International Artists to the capital every year. Through comprehensive educational and community programs, the festival brings together artists, students, community groups and cultural organizations from across the UAE.About ADMAFThe Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation seeks to nurture the arts, education, culture and creativity for the benefit of society and the advancement of Abu Dhabi's cultural vision. Established in 1996, the Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation under the patronage and Presidency of His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, ADMAF Patron and President.
ADMAF's broad programme of initiatives and events - including the Abu Dhabi Festival and the International Comic Strip & Cartoon Art Festival among many others - brings together audiences of all ages and nationalities. Through its educational and community programs, it nurtures the creative talent of the UAE and beyond, in partnership with leading national and international institutions. Visit: www.admaf.org
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