Seventy years after its irruption in the mid 1940’s, the mysteries around the birth of abstraction in Arab art remain a challenge. A mutation has happened in different cities simultaneously within a time frame of remarkable brevity: Saloua Raouda Choucair started experimenting her modular paintings in Beirut in 1946, paralleled with published articles about her theories of abstraction in 1951. Hamed Abdallah executed his first “papier froissé” abstract compositions in the same year 1946 in Cairo, while Ramses Younan was testing abstract drawings in watercolors as early as 1947. Iraqi artist Madiha Omar published a thesis on the abstract dimensions of Arabic calligraphy in Washington D.C., at the Corcoran Institute in 1949, while her compatriot Jamil Hammoudi was painting his curvilinear compositions in Paris in 1949. For the first time, Arab artists were producing art within which the references to the visible world disappeared. So far, there were no precedents in the Middle East, although abstract art in the West goes back to 1910. And while technological progress and scientific knowledge can elucidate the mysteries of birth of Western abstraction, it is clear that on the Arab front, the adoption of this artistic revolutionary movement was more of an identitarian issue and a statement of modernity and progressiveness. In addition to those 4 artists, the exhibition will illustrate and honor the works of many Arab artists during that  generation.

Curated  by  Saleh  Barakat,  in  collaboration  with  CAP,  “Tajreed Part I: A Selection of Arab Abstract Art”  is an opportunity to explore the endless creativity and spectacular achievement of 20th century Arab artists that changed the Middle East art scene.