Hassan Sharif

Hassan Sharif (1 January 1951 – 18 September 2016) was an Emirati artist and prolific writer. He lived and worked in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He is widely regarded as a central figure in contemporary and conceptual art in the region, often known as the father of conceptual art in the Gulf. He founded Al Marijah Art Atelier, and through his extensive work and writings, he inspired the next generation of artists in the United Arab Emirates. His work is represented in major public collections, such as the Guggenheim New York, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Centre Pompidou, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and Sharjah Art Foundation.

Early work

Sharif's early 'caricatures' were printed in the UAE's nascent newspapers and magazines from 1973 to 1979, and reflected on the political climate of the Middle East in the 1970s as well as the UAE's rapid urbanisation and commercial globalisation since its formation. By the time Sharif left the UAE in 1979 to pursue a formal art education, he had actively rejected calligraphic abstraction and Arab Nationalism, both of which were the dominant discourse in the region at that time, as well as the 'negative irony' of his early cartoons. "I had had some experience from creating the Caricatures but when I went to Britain I wanted to clean that away; to forget or ignore what I had been doing before. [...] I just wanted to be around new ideas and whatever new was happening."

Career

After a foundation year studying in Leamington Spa, Sharif enrolled at the Byam Shaw School of Art (today part of Central Saint Martins) in 1980 and came under the influence of artist Tam Giles, head of the Abstract and Experimental Department. This led to an interest in British Constructionism and particularly Kenneth Martin's notion of 'chance and order', which Sharif developed into his own 'Semi-system' way of working – based around arbitrary or over-elaborate systems that are then followed to create works, often on a grid, from 'Body and Squares' (1983) to meticulously recording sentences read in a newspaper at points along a journey to Sharjah, to long sequences of black lines showing transformations of a line within a square. "I think of these markings as more of an engagement than an arrangement […] The important thing is the process."

Art as absurdist, process-based activity also fed Sharif's early performances enacted in London and on return trips to the UAE during summer holidays – jumping in the desert, tying rope between rocks, and discussing art in the toilets of Byam Shaw School of Art with a member of the faculty. "For instance, I speak while my mouth is full of bread. I take a sip of water. I eat more bread, speak, drink some more water, and so on, recording all the sounds. All the while I'm talking about serious things like politics and art, but it's an ironic delivery, imitating politicians and lecturers."

In addition to his own practice, Sharif founded the Art Atelier in the Youth Theater and Arts, Dubai. He supported several generations of artists in the Emirates, authored books, and wrote over fifty essays on art.

Sharif's works are held in notable institutional collections including M+, Hong Kong; Guggenheim New York; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; and the Sharjah Art Foundation. Sharif died on 18 September 2016 in Dubai. He was 65.

The Flying House In 2007, Abdulraheem Sharif—who has been documenting and storing the artworks of Hussein and Hassan Sharif, as well as other artists since early 90s—decided to turn his former house into a non-profit space to showcase the artworks he was warehousing, and the ones that were with the Emirati artists. Hassan Sharif encouraged his brother's idea, and by January 2008, the space was ready. Mohamed Kazem curated it, and Jose Clevers gave it the name, The Flying House. Hassan lived in The Flying House from 2008 to 2013, where he also set up his studio there during that period. The Flying House space closed down in 2013.

'Weaving'

From the early '80s, Sharif began creating assemblages from cheap, mass-produced materials or items sourced from the UAE's markets. With these heaps – often large in scale – Sharif was handing back as artwork the surplus of a recently and rapidly-industrialised UAE. Similarly, "as illustrations of meaningless [sic], taking Duchampian philosophy to heart, they were crafted from commonplace materials, cut, bound or tied together with rope or wire, and thus stripped of their original function." His subsequent assemblages have incorporated coir, rope, copper wire, readymade domestic products, a crutch, newspapers dipped in glue and papier-mache.

The process of bundling these objects together – 'weaving', as Sharif calls it – has had extraordinary influence on his broader practice, both in the repetitive gesture of tying to the rudimentary handmade nature of the process. "It's important for me that art is easy, and technically anyone can do it. In that sense, my work is skill-less. I mean, you don't need special skills to make work that becomes art. I don't want the sculptures to appear to result from virtuosity. I'm not trying to make magic of some kind that would impress an audience as to how the work is created. There are no secrets."

In 2006, Sharif released an essay titled 'Weaving', which detailed the ideas that first initiated these objects, responding to what he calls a "vulgar market mentality that flooded shops with consumer goods".

"Despite the fact that my works are based on a sequential, industrial mode of creativity, they also demolish the sequential autonomy of an industrial product. I inject my works with a realism that exposes this socio-political economic monster, allowing people a chance to recognise the danger of over indulgence in this form of negative consumption."

Sharif continued to create objects throughout his career, but challenged the form throughout, at various times incorporating paintings, works on paper into the assemblage and using the form to create more figurative works. In 2014, Sharif began working with mass-produced images – bundling together printouts, glossy magazines and pages from books, as well as illustrations from a dictionary recreated at an exaggerated scale in iron and 'woven' together as assemblage.

Exhibitions

Sharif's first public exhibition was at Dubai's Central Public Library in 1976, showing his early 'Caricature' cartoons. Subsequently he participated in group shows at, amongst other venues, Whitechapel Gallery, London, New Museum, New York, and Centre Pompidou, Paris. A monograph of his career, Hassan Sharif Experiments & Objects 1979-2011, was curated by Catherine David and Mohammed Kazem at Qasr Al Hosn, Abu Dhabi, in 2011. Sharif exhibited in the Giardini della Biennale (Venice) at the 57th Venice Biennale, VIVA ARTE VIVA, Italy (2017), curated by Christine Macel. The first Emirati to show in the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (2010). He also exhibited in the UAE's national pavilion at the Venice Biennale on two occasions, the first being the pavilion's debut in 2009 (curated by Tirdad Zolghadr) and the second in 2015, this time curated by Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi.

Solo exhibitions 2021 Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist, MAMC+, Saint-Étienne Métropole, France 2020 Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden 2020 Hassan Sharif, From Daily Experiences To Collective Stories, gb agency Gallery 2019, Blue, IVDE Gallery 2019 Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany 2018 Hassan Sharif, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, U.S.A 2017 Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist, Sharjah Art Foundation, Curated by Shiekha Hoor Al Qasimi, Sharjah, U.A.E 2017 Hassan Sharif, gb Agency, Paris, France 2017 Experimentations, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, La Patinoire Royale, Brussels, Belgium 2016 Hassan Sharif, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, U.S.A 2016 Hassan Sharif: Objects and Files, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar 2015 Images, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai 2015 Hassan Sharif: The Physical Is Universal, gbAgency, Paris, France 2014 Hassan Sharif, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, U.S.A 2013 Approaching Entropy, Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eydne, Dubai 2012 Hassan Sharif, Level One, Paris 2012 Hassan Sharif Works 1980-2012, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut 2012 Hassan Sharif, Alexander Gray Associates, New York 2011 Hassan Sharif Experiments & Objects 1979-2011, Qasr Al Hosn, Cultural Quarter Hall, Abu Dhabi 2009 Press Conference, 1x1 Contemporary, Dubai 1986 Emirates Fine Art Society, Sharjah 1985 Emirates Fine Art Society, Sharjah 1976 Caricature, Central Public Library, Dubai

Selected group exhibitions 2021 Concept and The Divine Abstract, The Farjam Foundation 2020 Out of Place, IVDE Gallery 2019 Artists and the Cultural Foundation: The Early Years, Curated by Maya Allison and Alia Zaal Lootah, Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi 2018 The Monochrome Revisited, Jean-Paul Najar Foundation, Dubai 2018 Cashiers écrits, dessinés, inimprimés, Foundation Bordmer, Geneva 2018 The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9), Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane Crude, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai 2018 Ways of Seeing, New York University Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi 2018 We Began By Measuring Distance, Museé d'art moderne et contemporain (mamco), Geneva 2018 A Century in Flux: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah 2017 The Restless Earth, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan 2017 Good Printing: Group Show, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai, U.A.E 2017 La Biennale di Venezia - 57th International Art Exhibition, Giardini, Venice, Italy 2017 La Triennale di Milano, Palazzo della Triennale, Milan, Italy 2017 The Creative Act: Performance - Process - Presence, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, U.A.E 2017 But We Cannot See Them: Tracing a UAE Art Community 1988-2008, NYUAD, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E 2017 Is Old Gold?, DUCTAC, Dubai, U.A.E 2016 "Hassan Sharif: Objects and Files", Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, curated by Laura Barlow 2016 Yinchuan Biennale, Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, Yinchuan, China 2016 Noah's Arch, Emirates Fine Art Society, Sharjah, U.A.E 2016 White Cube, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai, U.A.E 2016 Book of Asia, Asia Culture Center Theater, Gwangju, Korea 2016 Paper Stories, Level One, Paris, France 2015 Adventures of the Black Square: Abstraction in Art and Society 1915-2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London 2015 Sharjah Biennial: The past, the present, the possible, curated by Eungie Joo, Sharjah Art Foundation 2014 Here and Elsewhere, New Museum, New York 2012 18th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney 2012 Paper, Museé d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Nice, France 2010 Interventions, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar 2010 "Dropping lines" Salwa Zeidan Gallery Abu Dhabi, 27 Oct -10 Nov 2009 ADACH Platform for Visual Arts, La Biennale di Venezia, 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice 2009 It's Not You, It's Me, UAE National Pavilion, La Biennale di Venezia, 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice, curated by Catherine David. 2009 Across the Gulf, ARC Biennial 2009 Contemporary Emirati artists at Salwa Zeidan Gallery Abu Dhabi 11 Jan till 12 Feb 2003 Sharjah International Arts Biennial, Sharjah 2002 5 UAE, Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen, Germany 2001 Sharjah International Arts Biennial, Sharjah 2000 The 7th Havana Biennial, Havana 1995 Sharjah International Arts Biennial, Sharjah 1993 1st Sharjah International Art Biennial, Sharjah 1985 Central Market, Sharjah 1984 One Day Exhibition, Almarijah Art Atelier, Sharjah 1983 -/+ (minus/plus), Al Ahli Club, Dubai

Notes and references