The exhibition Memory Sews Together Events that Hadn’t Previously Met is open to the visitors until May 30th, 2023, at the Sharjah Art Museum.
The artworks shown in the exhibition have been selected from the collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation. The different ways in which the artists of the Arab world reacted to the socio-political events and living conditions of people in the twentieth century are displayed in the paintings.
The paintings presented offer an exploration of the heterogeneity of regional art and its different histories, offering a broader understanding of modernism. A poem from Etel Adnan’s, Night, has given the name of the exhibition.
Memory sews together events that hadn’t previously met.
It reshuffles the past and makes us aware that it is doing so.
Many art schools, movements and personalities, whose histories may or may not have tangibly intersected over the course of a century, are brought together in this exhibition. The exhibition presents the diversity of opinions and practices that emerged in the region and its diasporas, and offers visitors a new understanding of past events and provides an opportunity to explore the practice of contemporary art in the Arab world.

The Sharjah Art Museum was founded in 1995. The museum moved to a new building in 1997 and there are 111 thousand square meters of exhibition space on two floors, as well as a rooftop terrace. In total, the museum has 68 exhibition halls. The interior of the museum can be considered an object of art in itself.
The main purpose of the exhibition space is to showcase permanent exhibitions, although it also hosts temporary exhibitions by local and international artists. Today, this museum is one of the largest art galleries in the Middle East.
This exhibition is part of Barjeel Art Foundation’s long-term collaboration with the Sharjah Art Museum.
You may be also interested in visiting the Contemporary Arab Art exhibition.