Art from the Arab Mediterranean

This autumn, Sharjah Art Museum presents key pieces from the permanent collection of the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.

Originally published in Hadara Magazine, issue 11

The horseshoe-shaped, dynamic brushstrokes of I Am You by Jordanian painter and art historian Wijdan are at once abstract and spiritual. The 2008 work is an ode to the Sufi interpretation of Islam and pays tribute to the beauty of Arabic calligraphy as an art form.

Princess Wijdan bint Fawaz Al Hashemi was born in Baghdad in 1939. In the art world she goes only by her first name and has made that name synonymous with the hurufiyya movement that describes artists who took Islamic calligraphy beyond the confines of meaning, allowing the flowing aesthetic of shape and form to flourish. The piece is one of the finest in the permanent collection of the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. This season, it joins 85 others from the collection in a showcase at Sharjah Art Museum. Curated by Dr. Khalid Khreis, the gallery’s director, with co-curator Bana Fanous, its artistic director, the exhibition focuses on the evolution of art from the Arab Mediterranean.

“The Arab world is rich with stories and the selection of work in this show is a compelling display of this,” says Dr. Khreis. “The exhibition delves into folk tales, daily life and even politics.”

Wijdan’s work will be shown alongside other pioneering female artists. The Impossible Dream, by Palestinian artist Laila Shawa, depicts a group of women holding ice-cream cones in front of their veiled faces. The painting is part of the series Women and the Veil, a sociopolitical critique Shawa embarked upon when she moved to London in 1987 at the onset of the First Intifada. Celebrated for her revolutionary feminist art, Shawa passed away in 2022.

I Am You (2008), by Jordanian painter Wijdan, is an ode to the Sufi interpretation of Islam and pays tribute to the beauty of Arabic calligraphy. Wijdan / Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.

There is also a painting by Fahrelnissa Zeid who, originally from Turkey, settled in Amman in 1975 and engaged with prominent artists from the region. The piece on display in Sharjah, Feast in the Desert (1957), is a rarely exhibited work from her large oeuvre. There will also be an untitled sculpture crafted from paleo-crystal and bird bones made during the 1990s after Zeid left Jordan for London.

The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts is one of the region’s major art museums. Its collection comprises over 3,000 works including drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, video art, installation, graphic arts and photography. “Our collection features numerous pioneering artists, and our commitment to acquisition ensures that we continue to expand and diversify our holdings,” says Dr. Khreis.

While many of the region’s masters are featured—delicate silk screens by Mona Saudi will hang alongside important sculptures from Adam Henein and Hussein Madi—there are also works by less familiar names, such as Egyptian Awad El Shimy whose contemporary monochrome etchings that reference the Mamluk dynasty are fascinating additions to the show.

Roots and Modernity: Contemporary Mediterranean Arab Art, Sharjah Art Museum, September 18 to November 24.