Dubai gallery Lawrie Shabibi reports work acquisitions by USA museums

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Lawrie Shabibi, the art gallery located in Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, has announced that the works of two of the artists it represents, namely, Asad Faulwell and Mehdi Moutashar, have been acquired by important international museums. Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, USA, has obtained Protector (2021) by Faulwell, with funds provided by Simon K. Chiu. Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio, USA, has bought Variations on Seven Letters of the Arabic Alphabet (1996) by Moutashar. It has been added to the collection of the Museum through the Alice Bimel Endowment for Asian Art.

Deux carrés et un angle droit, Arles (1979) by Moutashar was acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to be part of its Modern and Contemporary collections. VMFA’s collection in this section includes European art after 1900, American art after 1950, and a global collection of 21st-century art. In all, it houses a permanent collection of nearly 50,000 works of art and features extensive collections of Asian, African, and Oceanic art. Faulwell was born in Caldwell, Idaho, in 1982, and graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2005, and Claremont Graduate University in 2008. While at Claremont, he was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant.

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His practice sits on the cusp of post-colonial modernity, exploring forgotten histories through a dense pattern language of painterly compositions. It raises questions pertaining to themes of memory, absence and power within dominant narratives. His mixed-media paintings reference several visual traditions of religious iconography and cultural ornamentation, incorporating decorative motifs based on Islamic textile, varied architectures, mosaics, illuminated manuscripts, and art history. French-Iraqi Moutashar’s art lies at the confluence of two artistic traditions, the western heritage of geometric abstraction and the Islamic aesthetic tradition of geometrical order and lines. His art is a radical, geometrical abstraction with figures that are never enclosed inside the limits of a contour but are open, fragmentary and constantly shifting.

The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States. Founded in 1885, it holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating from the Gold Rush to the present, European paintings and master drawings, one of the largest international ceramics collections in the U.S., and collections of Asian, African, and Oceanic art. Edwin B. Crocker (1818–1875), a wealthy California lawyer and judge, and his wife, Margaret Crocker (1822–1901), began to assemble a significant collection of paintings and drawings during an extended trip to Europe, from 1869 to 1871. Upon their return to Sacramento, they set about creating an art gallery in part of their grand home. In 1978, the Crocker Art Gallery was renamed the Crocker Art Museum.

 Protector by Asad Faulwell.

The Cincinnati Art Museum was founded in 1881 and was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, in the eastern United States. It is one of the oldest museums in the United States. Its collection of over 67,000 works spanning 6,000 years of human history, makes it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Midwest. Its department of South Asian Art, Islamic Art and Antiquities manages a collection of over 5,000 artworks, starting with Neolithic objects from the ancient Middle East and spanning centuries of artistic heritage. Recently, it has expanded to include contemporary works by artists from greater South Asia, the Middle East, and the diaspora in the US and Europe.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) is located in Richmond, Virginia, United States, and opened in 1936. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used by it for the support of specific programmes and all acquisition of artwork, as well as additional general support. Considered among the largest art museums in North America for area of exhibition space, the VMFA’s comprehensive art collection includes African art, American art, British sporting art, Fabergé, and Himalayan art.

Lawrie Shabibi was founded in 2010 and opened its doors in early 2011 in Alserkal Avenue, located within the light industrial warehouse district of Al Quoz, Dubai. Following the relocation of several renowned galleries, the zone quickly became the hub of contemporary art in the region. The gallery’s initial focus was on the practices of emerging contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa (the Global South), and it has introduced artists from other regions and generations, with the same focus on the underrepresented.

A major concern is the support of artists from the diaspora who create work in all media to explore issues such as identity, memory, history and socio-political issues specific to the diasporic experience. Another part of the programme is to organise art historical exhibitions, working with an older generation of artists. Of note are the historic shows presented for the Moroccan pioneer Mohamed Melehi (1936-2020), Mehdi Moutashar (b.1943) and Mona Saudi (1945-2022) at fairs that include Frieze Masters in London, Abu Dhabi Art and Artissima in Turin, showing works from the 1950s – 1980s. The gallery also works closely with museums and have successfully placed works with The Guggenheim, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, The British Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, LACMA and the Cincinnati Art Museum.  By integrating older (and less discovered) artists with younger artists, it strives to create a context and depth to the programme it considers important when working with underrepresented regions. Lawrie Shabibi has been a forerunner in the development of the contemporary art scene.