In February 2024, The King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) launched Etel Adnan, Between East and West, the first major exhibition in Saudi Arabia dedicated to internationally famous Lebanese-American artist Etel Adnan (1925−2021). Curated by Dr. Sébastien Delot (former Director of the Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art), the show will run through 30 June 2024.
The exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of Adnan’s versatile art practice, highlighting her deep connection with Arab culture and language. On view are 41 of her creations on loan from esteemed institutions such as the Sharjah Art Foundation, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, and Sursock Museum, along with pieces from private collections and Ithra’s collection. Spanning from the late 1950s to 2021, these art pieces showcase Adnan’s ability to combine Eastern and Western cultural influences in her work.
Upon entering the exhibition, one encounters a massive (25 sqm) ceramic mural. It is followed by a screening of Motion (a montage of Super 8 films Adnan shot in Yosemite, New York, and San Francisco during the 80s). On display are also the artist’s distinctive hand-woven wool tapestries. Inspired by the Persian rugs of her childhood, they reflect her mastery of colour as a form of language.
The exhibit allows visitors to admire Adnan’s multiple abstract artworks of various sizes: landscape paintings devoid of human figures that demonstrate her love for nature and its symbiosis with human existence. Whether through bold oil paintings or delicate watercolours, the artist’s work traverses borders and cultures with her unique visual language.
In addition, the show features Adnan’s leporellos, Japanese accordion-folded artist books that blend visual and verbal observation and reveal a close connection between the artist’s Western and Arab influences. Adnan filled these books with illustrations and transcriptions of poems by notable Arab writers like Mahmoud Darwish and Yusuf al-Khal. She also employed this format to present visual interpretations of her writing.
About the artist
Etel Adnan, an artist, poet, writer, and philosopher, was born in Beirut. She moved to Paris in 1950 to study philosophy at the Sorbonne and later pursued postgraduate studies in philosophy at the University of California (Berkeley) and Harvard University. From 1958 to 1972, Adnan taught philosophy of art at the Dominican University of California (San Rafael). Returning to Lebanon, she worked as a journalist and cultural editor for two daily newspapers.
The artist grew up speaking and later publishing work written in French rather than Arabic. However, she addressed this abstraction of her Arab identity by turning to visual art in the early 60s. The onset of the Algerian War also influenced her decision to cease writing in French and instead “paint in Arabic.”
After the Lebanese Civil War broke out, the artist moved to Paris. There, she wrote the award-winning novel Sitt Marie Rose (1977). In 1979, Adnan returned to California and settled in the city of Sausalito, where she became captivated by Mount Tamalpais, a recurring subject in her art.
Adnan was the subject of numerous solo exhibitions worldwide: Colour as Language (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2022); Etel Adnan: Light’s New Measure (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2021); and an exhibition at Institut de Monde Arabe (Paris, 2016), to name a few. Her art pieces were part of a plethora of international group shows: 58th Carnegie International: Is it morning for you yet? (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 2022); the Sharjah Biennial (2015); and Documenta 13 (Kassel, Germany, 2013), among others. Adnan received many honours for her cultural contributions, including the Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2014), the California Book Award for Poetry (2013), and the Amitié Franco-Arab Prize (Association de Solidarité Franco-Arabe, France, 1977).
To get more information about Etel Adnan, Between East and West, please visit the exhibition’s official web page.
Additionally, you might be interested in visiting Laal Collection Volume II Fereydoun Ave Collection at Total Arts.
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