Abu Dhabi Art
November 21st - 23rd, 2019
Booth A17 and A18
Manarat Al Saadiyat, Saadiyat Cultural District
OPENING TIMES
Monday, 18 November
- Press Conference: 9:30 – 13:00
- Ladies Preview: 16:00 – 19:00
Tuesday, 19 November
- VIP Opening Reception: 14:00 – 20:00
Wednesday, 20 November
- VIP Preview: 14:00 – 18:00
- Public Opening Reception: 18:00 – 21:00
Thursday, 21 November: 14:00 – 21:00
Friday, 22 November: 14:00 – 21:00
Saturday, 23 November: 14:00 – 21:00
Leila Heller Gallery is pleased to announce it will be participating in the eleventh iteration of Abu Dhabi Art 2019, at booths A17 and A18. Presenting an international selection of emerging, established and pioneering artists, the works exhibited embark on a dialogue on the legacy of modernity and abstraction, and its redaptation across spatial, temporal, and material contexts. Encompassing assemblage, painting, ceramic and sculpture, participating artists include Reza Derakshani, Ran Hwang, Melis Buyruk, Ayad Alkadhi, Marcos Grigorian, Johan Creten, Massoud Arabshahi, and Shahzad Hassan Ghazi.
Finding a space for figural representation in abstract aesthetics, Reza Derakshani recalls Iran’s cultural heritage through a rich iconography of medieval Persian poetry, ornamentation, classical literature, miniature painting, and sacred architectural sites. Currently based between Austin and Dubai, Derakshani was born in 1952 in northeast Iran, graduating from University of Tehran and the Pasadena School of Art. He taught at the University of Tehran, and left the country in 1986. Derakshani’s work is featured in multiple public collections, including The British Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.
New York-based Korean artist Ran Hwang manifests Buddhist principles of repetition and meditation, as she transforms mass-produced paper buttons into intricate depictions of natural beauty. Her work has shown at Hermes Foundation Singapore, The Brooklyn Museum New York, and The Seoul Arts Center Museum. Hwang’s work is also a part of numerous public collections, including The Dubai Opera, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the UNESCOParis Headquarters, and New York University.
Iranian-Armenian artist Marcos Grigorian, born in 1925, was a pioneer of Iranian modern art. His work ranges from figurative expressionist paintings to performative photographs, often incorporating straw, mud, and food. Grigorian organized the first Tehran Biennial in 1958, and represented Iran in the 1956 Venice Biennale. After studying at the Accademia di Bella Arti in Rome, he opened Galerie Esthétique in Iran in 1954, and taught at the Fine Arts Academy. In the 1960s, he moved to the United States. Grigorian’s work is featured across international museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and The National Gallery of Armenia.
Born in Sint-Truiden in 1963 in Belgium, Johan Creten is an early advocate of the use of clay in the contemporary era. Currently based in Paris, Creten is considered a fundamental figure in the revival of modern ceramics. He has exhibited at the Louvre Museum, Musée Nationale Eugène Delacroix, The Bass Museum of Art, the Istanbul Biennale, the MAMCO Geneva and the Middelheimmuseum in Antwerp.
Melis Buyruk is a Turkish artist born in Gölcük in 1984. Her large-scale floral ceramic sculptures depart from contained, categorical forms of pottery, and celebrates the traditionally feminized discipline. Buyruk graduated from the Ceramic Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Selçuk University in 2007, and has exhibited across Turkey.
Recently passing away in September 2019, Massoud Arabshahi was one of Iran’s foremost modernist painters. A prominent member of the Saqqakhaneh movement, Arabshahi’s rarely seen work fuses ancient Mesopotamian and Assyrian symbols with geometric configurations. Arabshahi was the recipient of a retrospective at The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and his work has been across the US, France, Switzerland, and Iran.
Ayad Alkadhi is an Iraqi artist currently based in New York, after receiving his MFA from New York University. Using calligraphy to form politically and emotionally charged symbols, the decorated gas pump is a recurring motif alluding to oil as a pervasive agent of socioeconomic transformation. Alkadhi’s work can be found in the permanent collection of a The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, and The Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.
Shahzad Hassan Ghazi is a Pakistani artist based in Dubai. Trained in traditional miniature painting at Naqsh School of Arts, Ghazi revives the dying art through applying its principles in abstraction. Through linear spatial compositions that utilize layers of mark making, Ghazi’s meditations on the interplay between the sun and sea mimic the ripples of the ocean. In September 2019, Ghazi debuted in the UAE, with his first solo show at Leila HellerGallery.
Born in 1937 in Tehran, Charles Hossein Zenderoudi is the founder of the Saqqakhaneh movement and the incorporation of national, folkloric and religious visual elements at a time where traditional and modernist styles dominated Iranian art. After his preliminary studies in the mid 1950s, Zenderoudi entered the Fine Art College of Tehran University to study painting, with an interest in Iranian-Islamic traditions and gestural calligraphy. Zenderoudi has received many accolades and international awards, starting at the biennales of Venice in 1960 and São Paolo in 1961 in his early 20s. Zenderoudi has resided in Paris since 1961, and his work has featured in New York’s Museum of Modern Art since 1963. His work is also featured in London’s British Museum, Paris’s Centre Pompidou and Copenhagen’s Statens Museum, among others.
Y.Z. Kami is a New York-based Iranian artist mostly known for his painting, although his work also encompasses photography, installation, and sculpture. Kami’s practice draws from mystical Sufi teachings, where spiraling patterns echo the repetitive nature of prayer. Kami studied philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, continuing his studies at Sorbonne University and the Conservatoire Libre du Cinema in Paris. His work has been extensively collected and exhibited by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Smithsonian Institution, and The British Museum. He has been featured in a series of solo institutional exhibitions, including at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cornell University, the 52nd Biennale di Venezia, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, The Smithsonian Institution, and The National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens.
ABOUT THE GALLERY
Since its establishment over three decades ago in New York, Leila Heller Gallery has gained worldwide recognition as a pioneer in promoting a creative dialogue and exchange between Western artists and Middle Eastern, Central and Southeast Asian artists. It has garnered a reputation for identifying and cultivating the careers of artists leaving a lasting impact on contemporary art and culture. Currently representing a diverse roster of Western and Middle Eastern artists, the gallery is also active in the American, European and Middle Eastern secondary art markets. In November 2015, Leila Heller Gallery opened its first international location in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue. At 14,000 square feet, the state of the art gallery features three exhibition spaces, making it the largest gallery in the UAE. Showcasing leading regional and international artists, many of whom will be presenting their work in the Middle East for the first time, the gallery is dedicated to supporting the evolving practice of established artists.
Press Inquiries: For more information, images and prices, please contact clemence@leilahellergallery.com