Nabil Anani (Exhibition)

Jerusalem: 51 Years of Occupation

/ Fouad Agbaria (Exhibition), Hosni Radwan (Exhibition), Nabil Anani (Exhibition), Osama Said (Exhibition), Sliman Mansour (Exhibition) / Exhibition, Fouad Agbaria, Hosni Radwan, Jerusalem: 51 Years of Occupation, Nabil Anani, Sliman Mansour /

Jerusalem: 51 Years of Occupation Jerusalem Exhibition : 51 Years of Occupation

Hosni Radwan, Jerusalem at Night (2021), charcoal and gold leaf on canvas, 129 × 102 cm

JERUSALEM: 51 YEARS OF OCCUPATION
COLLECTIVE EXHIBITION

21 APRIL - 14 JUNE 2018

The overwhelming significance of the physicality of Jerusalem as a national symbol permeates many of the artworks. The iconic representation of the Dome of the Rock comes to the fore as some artists celebrate the city via exceptionally colorful works, especially those by Fouad Agbaria, Ibrahim Nobani, Osama Said, Dina Mattar, the late Issam Bader, and to an extent Ahed Izhiman. Conversely, a strong sense of melancholy and grief overshadows the charcoal works of Nabil Anani, Hosni Radwan, and the photorealism painting of Adam Shehada, where the cities lose its color. Similarly, Sliman Mansour calls in his artwork upon the ghosts of the past to haunt the city’s present time. Khaled Hourani presents a man struggling to hang up a sign of Jerusalem written in Arabic. The Wall in Tayseer Barakat and Mohammad Joulani’s artworks is a prominent feature, while Fayez Sirsawi presents a diary of students’ daily life under occupation.

The exhibition also showcases contemporary artists’ perspectives on the socio-political issues surrounding the city’s ongoing occupation. The racial discrimination practices towards Palestinians by the Israeli regime are the subject of Yazan Khalili’s artwork, while Benji Boyadgian’s work is a journey in time in the midst of the complex and fragmented Palestinian landscape of the 21st century “Mega Jerusalem.” Rana Samara’s work focuses on the sights of demolished homes highlighting Israel’s illegal policy of house demolitions and ethnic cleansing. Rehab Nazzal’s photography work focuses on demonstrations against the Israeli regime’s policies in the city through an ironic scene that reveals from a distance a masked demonstrator taking a rest amid a cloud of intensive smoke. Michael Hallaq, on the other hand, explores touristic objects that can be found abundantly at souvenir shops around the city, capturing a different layer of “the holy” city that remains popular with tourists even though it is detached from reality. Rawan Khaliliyeh’s artwork is an exploration of the aesthetics of old wooden slabs that are used in building sites, which are scarce in the eastern part of the city due to building restrictions. Varvara Razak attempts to combine traditional symbols presented in the transformation of a Knafeh triangular piece into a traditionally embroidered cushion sold in souvenir shops.

: Sliman Mansour, A Family Without A Shadow (2018), charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 115 x 140 cm

: Osama Said, Jerusalem (2018), oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm

: Nabil Anani, Faces of Jerusalem (2018), charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

: Hosni Radwan, Jerusalem at Night (2021), charcoal and gold leaf on canvas, 129 × 102 cm

Winter Collective

/ Fouad Agbaria (Exhibition), Karim Abu Shakra (Exhibition), Nabil Anani (Exhibition), Nasser Soumi (Exhibition), Sliman Mansour (Exhibition) / Exhibition, Fouad Agbaria, Karim Abu Shakra, Nabil Anani, Nasser Soumi, Sliman Mansour, Winter Collective /

Palestinian Art Collective
Winter Collective

WINTER COLLECTIVE
PALESTINIAN ART COLLECTIVE

12 DECEMBER 2016 - 10 JANUARY 2017

Winter Collective features work by Palestinian artists Foaud Agbaria, Karim Abu Shakra, Nabil Anani, Sana Farah Bishara, Sliman Mansour, Ibrahim Nubani, Samir Salameh, Nasser Soumi, and Hani Zurob.

The exhibition captures bold and diverse works of a broad cross-section of both young and established Palestinian artists from Palestine and the diaspora. These works are the personal aesthetic elucidations of individual artists whose lives are intertwined by their collective memory and experiences as Palestinian artists enduring similar fates relating to disenfranchisement and loss.

Together the works of Samir Salameh, Hani Zurob, Ibrahim Nubani, and Nasser Soumi combine different expressive styles projecting both harmony and discord, with each exploring the historical legacies and traditions that continue to be threatened by the socio-political realities that stifle the very existence of the indigenous community in Palestine. Fouad Agbaria’s pieces capture the contradictions of the modern Palestinian landscape. Delicate and near-abstract plains are juxtaposed with troubling images of modern machinery that has indelibly desecrated the Holy Land. An extension of this is Abu Shakra’s State of Reality cubist work depicting the chaotic and ever-changing predicaments of the self.

Conversely, Nabil Anani and Sliman Mansour’s innate and iconic figures remind us, once again, of the importance of steadfastness at a time of continued threats to the very fabric of Palestinian society. On the face of it, Sana Bishara’s contemplative sculptures evoke personal dispositions, yet, her pieces are underpinned by a strong sense of melancholy. Like other works, it is these contradictions that best reflect – in equal measure – the horror and hope, joy and sadness that permeates the works and lives of this group of artists.

The breadth of artistic styles and talents exhibited by this collective is a testimony to the ever-increasing pool of creative talents producing breathtaking modern and contemporary art that is a match to any artistic work being produced today. It is also an apt reflection – and a reminder – of their bittersweet existence in Palestine and beyond.

: Nasser Soumi, Visages de Jerusalem (2014), acrylic on paper, 54 x 74 cm

: Nasser Soumi, Visages de Jerusalem (2014), acrylic on paper, 54 x 74 cm

: Samir Salameh, Untitled (2017), acrylic on cardboard, 57 x 77 cm

: Samir Salameh, Untitled (2017), acrylic on canvas, 78 x 78 cm

: Sliman Mansour, Jericho (2003), oil on canvas, 111 x 87.5 cm

: Sliman Mansour, Jericho II (2016), acrylic on canvas, 111 x 87.5 cm

: Fouad Agbaria, Movement of Land III (2016), oil on canvas, 100 x 140 cm

: Fouad Agbaria, Movement of Land IV (2016), oil on canvas, 120 x 160 cm

Rendezvous

/ Nabil Anani (Exhibition), Sliman Mansour (Exhibition), Tayseer Barakat (Exhibition) / Exhibition, Nabil Anani, Rendezvous, Sliman Mansour, Tayseer Barakat /

Rendezvous Rendezvous Rendezvous

Nabil Anani, End of Innocence , 2016, acrylic on canvas, 200 x 250 cm

RENDEZVOUS

23 APRIL - 21 MAY 2016

The exhibition Rendezvous marks a coming together of the three artists, Sliman Mansour, Nabil Anani, and Tayseer Barakat, who for many years have worked in close dialogue with each other. There is an important sense of comradeship and partnership between these artists that arises from years of shared daily experiences and shared lives. Such relationships and dialogues between artists, the daily habits, and anecdotes they share provide us with a unique window into the world of art making.

The paintings on show in the exhibition mark the continued journey in each of the artist’s own particular oeuvre of work and reflect their own individual pre-occupations in which they explore themes from the prism of today and reflect upon the experience of the contemporary condition. Perhaps what they all share in common is a sense of melancholia and foreboding, whether it is the isolated figures in Barakat’s work, the empty vacated landscapes of Mansour, or the gestures and poses in Anani’s work- a strong sense of loss pervades all the works.

Many of Nabil Anani’s paintings are populated with figures and communities. However, they often seem to be haunted by sadness that appears in the gestures and poses, it is as though there is something incomplete, awkward, or not as it should be. The village, for example, in the paintings ‘Motifs’, appears haunted as though only a few inhabitants remain, as the village has simply become a motif in our lives as many of us have very little connection with village life today. The ‘End of Innocence’ seemingly gestures to the dawn of a new time however, while this young group undulates with movements like the wave of a sea, we are drawn to the fact that all the figures are silenced as though part of their agency has been erased from them with the exception of the fragment of one single female figure.

Tayseer Barakat’s work appears as a palimpsest, as though carved into layers of stone with encrusted contrasting surfaces. It is as though we have secretly discovered them in an ancient cave, where people have recorded new mythologies and traces of our time. Barakat has a long trajectory in his work of a relationship to ancient civilizations and traditions of representation drawn from this region, and this continues to echo throughout his work. It is though he creates an image to be discovered in the future of our contemporary time, such as in the works ‘Distant Love’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘The Silent Crowd.’

In this exhibition, Sliman Mansour revisits a recurring theme in his work, the landscape and the grooves of olive trees. In his more recent exploration of this motif, one finds that the paintings have a sense of melancholy to them, as the landscapes are empty, unpopulated, and only inhabited by carefully distributed rows of lone olive trees which have born witness to years of occupation of the land. There are no large vistas or horizons in the work, but rather intimate views of fragments of the landscape, as though reflecting on the increasingly shrinking landscape of Palestine and the homeland. Similarly, his olive pickers appear as ghost-like figures, all colors washed away, becoming shadows of their former selves.

Mansour’s detailed, affectionate rendering of the olive tree seems to offer a prism of hope- a gesture of continued steadfastness which reveals itself through the various nuances of the paintings of these three artists, whether it is a gesture of a dream of freedom, an individual olive tree or the rhythms of stoic figures.

: Sliman Mansour, Olive Field (2015), oil on canvas, 102 x 85 cm

: Sliman Mansour, My Grandparent's House, (2016), oil on canvas, 113 x 120 cm

: Sliman Mansour, A Fire in a Field (2012), oil on canvas, 112 x 112 cm

: Nabil Anani, Motifs II, (2013), acrylic on canvas, 100 x 115 cm

: Nabil Anani, Demonstration (2016), acrylic on canvas, 200 x 250 cm

: Tayseer Barakat, The Flute Player (2015), acrylic on canvas, 150 x 118 cm

: Tayseer Barakat, Scattered (2014), acrylic on canvas, 100 x 90 cm

: Tayseer Barakat, Untitled (2015), acrylic on canvas, 160 x 120 cm

Narratives Palestinian Art Collective

/ Asad Azi (Exhibition), Mohammad Khalil (Exhibition), Nabil Anani (Exhibition), Sliman Mansour (Exhibition), Tayseer Barakat (Exhibition) / Asad Azi, Exhibition, Mohammad Khalil, Nabil Anani, Narratives, Sliman Mansour, Tayseer Barakat /

Narratives Palestinian Art Collective Narratives Palestinian Art Collective

NARRATIVES
PALESTINIAN ART COLLECTIVE

14 - 28 JUNE 2015

In the modern media-saturated, globalized world, it is part of the human experience to have an image bank in our minds and memories, both private and personal, as well as public and collectively shared. Without such images and the means to interpret them, we would be in a state of continuous amnesia, a condition in which we would struggle to find meaning and purpose.

All societies and ethnic and culturally-connected groups share image banks of histories, stories, and symbols – their narratives. Palestine is no exception. Indeed, its image bank is richer and fuller than many and is shared and familiar across generations and the scattered and broken geography; the collective credit in this bank is rich and equitably distributed. Few explanations are needed as the collective suffering and awareness in examples of such images are mutually understood.

Artists have mined this rich source of images in their personal and idiosyncratic visual languages and continue to do so as they extend the boundaries and possibilities of media and meaning. The land and physical body may be subject to restrictions, but the imagination can be a place and space of freedom and possibility.

Visual artists, in whatever medium they choose to use as a vehicle for their ideas, are uniquely placed in this regard. The images in the paintings, drawings, and sculptures in this exhibition explore the historical legacies and traditions which are being slowly erased, the pleasures but also some of the horrors of Palestinian life, the contradiction of experiencing pain and hope in the same measure, the divisions and separations. Dancing can be a form of uplifting freedom for the body, but there is also a macabre dance that takes place between the occupier and the occupied, the oppressor and the oppressed. Iconic images of the voices of Palestine’s soul and its conscience, such as the poet Mahmoud Darwish (in Mohammed Saleh’s paintings), are instantly recognized. A shared visual library of images echoes through many of these works: the women in traditional dress, the fruits of labor on the land, the old village houses, mothers protecting their children, and birds in flight. But ghostly presences also seem to haunt many of these works. The images that spoke of steadfastness, defiance, and freedom, as well as the natural riches of the land, have been encroached upon by others: a blinkered carthorse pulling a heavy load (Sliman Mansour) and images of walls and checkpoints (Nabil Anani) which are now also iconic and similarly recognized by everyone. A collective bank of images and voices across time and distance, reflecting Palestinian life and its unique narrative in all its forms.

: Sana Bishara, Untitled (2009), bronze cast, 31 x 34 x 16 cm

: Sliman Mansour, Jerusalem Shadows (2012), oil on canvas, 95 x 100 cm

: Nabil Anani, Sisters (2015), acrylic on canvas, 133 x 100 cm

: Mohamed Khalil, Mahmoud Darwish (2015), acrylic on cardboard, 70 x 50 cm

: Sliman Mansour, Frozen Memories (2014), charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 100 x 133 cm

: Asad Azi, Narkis (2014), mixed media on canvas, 98 x 158 cm

: Asad Azi, Crying Boy (2008), mixed media on canvas, 98 x 136 cm

: Nabil Anani, Qalandia (2015), acrylic on canvas, 115 x 140 cm

Art of Memory: Life Before 1948 by Nabil Anani

/ Nabil Anani (Exhibition) / Art of Memory, Exhibition, Life Before 1948, Nabil Anani /

Art of Memory: Life before 1948

ART OF MEMORY – LIFE BEFORE 1948
NABIL ANANI

6 - 31 DECEMBER 2014

RAMALLAH

“These intimate mementos of a past irrevocably lost circulate among us, like genealogies and fables of a wandering singer of tales. Photographs, dresses, objects severed from their original locale…Much reproduced, enlarged, thematized, embroidered, and passed around, they are strands in the web of affiliations we Palestinians use to tie ourselves to our identity and each other.”

Edward Said

Nabil Anani’s new series of works explore life before 1948 by returning to the mementos of family albums. His paintings are inspired by a selection of photographs of different family portraits taken in the first half of the century in Palestine. Photographic portraiture was an important form of cultural identity for the Palestinian community, recording the formations of lifestyles, family life, and educational, economic, and political institutions. It is through the lens of the photographers and the narratives of those who lived through decades prior to 1948 that we have a window onto the world of former Palestine and its community.

The family album holds a unique place in the collective history and memory of Palestinians, in the absence of national archives, the multitude of personal albums and photographs embroiders the national narrative and becomes a precious totem in recalling how life was. Out of the photograph unfolds a multitude of stories, anecdotes, and memories- recalled and recited, handed down to the next generation through oral traditions so as not to be lost or forgotten. The photograph plays a key role in both the preservation and narration of memory, a fragile –temporal object that triggers memories of the past and from which spins the tales of our histories. “The silence of the photograph, its promise of visual intimacy at the expense of other senses, makes the eruption of that narrative, the telling of its story, all the more poignant. The narration of the photograph will itself become an object of nostalgia. Without marking, all ancestors become abstractions.”

Many artists have used photographs as a source of inspiration for their work and often engage in creating a mimetic representation of the image, focusing on likeness, or attempting to rival the photographer’s craft through painting. However, Nabil Anani is less concerned with likeness but rather with capturing intimacy, family poses, and stature, imparting through the various paintings a sense of wholeness and completeness- taking us back in time with his hues and textures to an era before loss and longing, and with that imparting a deep sense of nostalgia. His paintings act as a form of imaginary reunification with our past communities through which he attempts to create a palette of remembrance and plentitude set against the background of the experience of dispersal and fragmentation of Palestinian families.

The artist makes it impossible for us to forget, through revisiting these photographs through his artworks, that these people, who pose in the paintings, looking at us with their vacant gazes, are forever lost to us, departed in death or transformed now with age, The works serve to freeze time while reminding us that: “Photography is the mirror, more faithful than any actual mirror, in which we witness at every age, our own aging. The actual mirror accompanies us through time, thoughtfully and treacherously; it changes with us so that we appear not to change.”

Art of Memory life before 1948 Nabil Anani Palestinian Art Nabil Anani Palestinian Art Art of Memory life before 1948