Two interesting art events, which have been part of Alserkal Art Week and will finish soon, are two shows at Leila Heller Gallery: Darvish Fakhr with his exhibition “Travelling Light” and “Robert Wilson: Video portraits”.
The art of Darvish Fakhr is inspired by the practice and image of the whirling dervish. Speaking about his art as if it was a movement he calls it “gentle civic disruptions”. Fakhr is a half-Iranian, half-American artist who currently lives and works in Brighton, UK. He uses and overlays different aspects of his Iranian heritage and his Western upbringing. Very often he incorporates Persian poetry into his oil paintings, sometimes he writes or paints over his old pictures. His work ranges from painting to movement art. In his performance work he challenges our preconceptions of culture and “it strikes viewers with its surrealism, humor, and optimism.”
“I look for various ways of straddling extremes as a test case for tolerance and creativity, by celebrating our inherent contradictions. One moment I am carefully rendering the turn of a cheek bone in space, the next I am vandalizing it. One moment I am paying homage to purity of Sufi mysticism from the East, the next I am coveting cash from the West. One moment my body is a temple, the next I am riding dirt bikes over the pews. Dance and Painting is how I am best able to split the moment and climb through to something outside of myself,”, says Darvish about his art and life.
To get more information about the exhibition, please visit its official web page.
Another current exhibition at Leila Heller Gallery is “Robert Wilson: Video portraits”.
Wilson is one of the world’s foremost and acclaimed theatre and visual artists. In his theatre productions Wilson “unconventionally integrates a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged…”, states his bio on the gallery site.
In his Video Portraits Wilson uses the same method incorporating a multitude of creative elements like gesture, text, voice, lighting, costume, make up and choreography in one video artwork.
“Robert Wilson is a towering figure in the world of experimental theater and an explorer in the uses of time and space on stage.” — The New York Times
More information about the artist and his exhibition one can find on the gallery’s website and the artist’s website.
You might also like the exhibition An Ocean in Every Drop at Jameel Arts Centre.
