{"id":5144,"date":"2020-02-23T13:01:51","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T09:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/?p=5144"},"modified":"2020-02-23T14:07:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T10:07:15","slug":"honoring-the-late-artist-kamal-boullata-at-meem-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/honoring-the-late-artist-kamal-boullata-at-meem-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring The Late Artist Kamal Boullata at Meem Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kamal Boullata’s work lives on like a poem. Less than a year after he passed away at the age of 77, Dubai’s Meem Gallery is honoring his memory in an exhibition, “Qasida,” or poem in Arabic. At the opening night on February 17, friends and art lovers gathered to remember the Jerusalem-born artist, a pioneer of Arab abstract art\u00a0who lived most of his life in exile.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meem had been representing Boullata in Dubai. His last solo exhibition at Meem was in 2016\u00a0and a third one had been planned to be organized when the artist passed away in Berlin, where he had been living since 2012.\u00a0\u201cWe thought it would be nice to show his work and honor his memory, so we have silkscreen prints of his that were made between 1983 and 2018,\u201d says\u00a0Meagan Kelly\u00a0Horseman, Meem Gallery Business Developer. \u201cThe most recent silkscreen, made in 2018, is Qasida, and so we decided to call this exhibition Qasida.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boullata was mostly known for his silkscreen print artworks, using Arab\u00a0Kufic\u00a0calligraphy and abstract designs with a Palestinian touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jules\u00a0Mcdevitt, the Head of Research at\u00a0Meem\u00a0Gallery,\u00a0commented on why they displayed only silkscreen prints. \u201cThe artist was a prolific printmaker, and because of his untimely passing, we had to come up with a thematic body of work that sort of was retrospective,\u201d\u00a0Mcdevitt\u00a0said. \u201cThere are works here that were made in the past 40 years, so it was about showing what\u2019s available but also celebrating his career as a printmaker amongst his other paintings, methods, and mediums he used.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Patrick Kane reads a book that was written by the late Kamal Boullata, reminiscing on the time where he had read his article about Arab modern art for the first time. Feb 17, 2020, Meem Gallery, Dubai, UAE, Raseel Amr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Boullata was not just an artist, but one of the finest connoisseurs of Palestinian modern art who published two books on the topic. He was a man larger than life, and art historian Patrick Kane says his encounter with the artist during one of his talks in Seattle, U.S.A, in the 1980s, has changed his life forever.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s an artist, philosopher, and wanted you to know what art could give you as a way of reflecting the world, beyond politics,\u201d Patrick Kane, author of The Politics of Art in Modern Egypt, said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Different pieces of art that were made by Kamal Boullata. Feb 17, 2020, Meem Gallery, Dubai, UAE, Raseel Amr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Suheyla\u00a0Takesh, a curator at\u00a0Barjeel\u00a0Art Foundation in Sharjah, worked with\u00a0Boullata\u00a0on a couple of art shows.\u00a0\u201cHe was a great teacher, and because he was so critical, you would be able to pick up things much faster from him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople love his work. He was one of the most popular artists in our exhibitions. His art is visually attractive as well, even if you can\u2019t read the Arabic words in his patterns, you are somehow attracted to it,\u201d\u00a0Takesh\u00a0said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boullata’s artworks will be showcased at Meem Gallery until March 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by: Farah Mohamed <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kamal Boullata’s work lives on like a poem. Less than a year after he passed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5148,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5144\/revisions\/5148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbrsc.aud.edu\/MBRSCPost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}