Arab Museum of Modern Art yesterday revealed details of the three exhibitions it will hold when it opens to the public on December 30. Historic works of Arab modernism and a multitude of new works commissioned by Mathaf will be on view at two sites in Doha. The new museum will open its 5,500sq m (59,000sq ft) building with Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art. This will be the first in an ongoing series of exhibitions that will survey Mathaf’s collection of more than 6,000 works representing major trends and sites of production of modern Arab art, spanning the 1840s to the present. Sajjil, an Arabic word meaning the act of recording, will feature paintings and sculptures by more than 100 artists, representing pivotal moments in the development of Arab modernism throughout the 20th century. Sajjil is organised by guest curator and consultant Dr Nada Shabout (associate professor of Art History and director of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Institute, University of North Texas), Wassan al-Khudhairi (Mathaf’s chief curator and acting director), and Deena Chalabi (Mathaf’s head of strategy). “The creation of Mathaf has been the result of many years of interactions with living Arab artists,” Mathaf founder and Qatar Museums Authority vice-chairperson Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali al-Thani said. At a new QMA exhibition space located on the grounds of the Museum of Islamic Art, Mathaf will also present the exhibitions Interventions and Told / Untold / Retold, which will be on view from December 30, 2010 to May 28, 2011. Interventions: a dialogue between the modern and the contemporary, curated by Nada Shabout, will profile five major artists whose careers have spanned the years from modern to contemporary art. They are Dia Azzawi, Farid Belkahia, Ahmed Nawar, Ibrahim el-Salahi and Hassan Sharif. A new work commissioned by Mathaf from each of these artists will be shown in the context of existing works by the artists from the Mathaf collection. Told / Untold / Retold: 23 stories of journeys through time and place will present new works commissioned by Mathaf from 23 contemporary artists with roots in the Arab world. The most ambitious museum exhibition of contemporary art ever presented in the Arab world, Told / Untold / Retold will include painting, sculpture, photography, video, multimedia installations and interactive digital art. The participating artists are Adel Abidin, Sadik Kwaish Alfraji, Buthayna Ali, Ahmed Alsoudani, Ghada Amer, Kader Attia, Lara Baladi, Wafaa Bilal, Abdelkader Benchamma, Mounir Fatmi, Lamia Joreige, Amal Kenawy, Jeffar Khaldi, Hassan Khan, Youssef Nabil, Walid Raad, Khalil Rabah, Younès Rahmoun, Steve Sabella, Marwan Sahmarani, Zineb Sedira, Khaled Takreti, and Akram Zaatari. Told / Untold / Retold is curated by Sam Bardouil and Till Fellrath, the co-founders of Art Reoriented, a curatorial platform focusing on contemporary art from the Middle East. http://gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=397757&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16

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