Salsali Private Museum announces final Dubai exhibition

Ramin Salsali shows guests one of the many presentations hosted at Salsali Private Museum in Alserkal Avenue since it opened in 2011. Courtesy Alserkal Avenue.

The Salsali Private Museum (SPM) in Alserkal Avenue has announced that its next exhibition will be its final one, before it relocates the museum to Berlin. Founded by Ramin Salsali in 2011 as a space to exhibit works from his growing collection of Middle Eastern and international artists, as well as a place for collectors to meet and to encourage the next generation of collecting, SPM has shown 18 exhibitions to date. SPM’s final exhibition, opening on March 9, 2019, will be a solo show of paintings by Austrian painter Philip Mueller, titled TIBE NOW: Free Drinks, Boots and Tickets to the Apocalypse.

SPM opened its doors in Alserkal Avenue in November 2011, as the first private museum in the region dedicated to contemporary Middle Eastern and international art. The first exhibition was Show Off!, a group show of works by artists including Reza Derakshani, Max Scheler, Jonathan Meese, Amir Hossein Zanjani, which featured a commissioned work by Mueller, A Door to Heaven and Hell. SPM continued to put on regular group exhibitions and solo shows by artists such as Imran Qureshi, Bryan Ferry, Pantea Rahmani, and Hazem Harb.

“I am humbled and proud to have contributed to the evolution of the cultural landscape in the Middle East by opening SPM in Dubai” says Salsali. “I was accompanied by many dear friends, artists, and other collectors on this journey, and I’d particularly like to thank Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal and Vilma Jurkute for their support.”

“While SPM was the first private museum to open in the region, I am delighted to see the growth of other similar initiatives, such as Jean-Paul Najar Foundation, Jameel Arts Centre, and Ishara Art Foundation,” says Salsali. “SPM will continue its activities in Berlin with a focus on showcasing contemporary Middle Eastern art, serving as a cultural bridge between the art scenes in the Middle East and Europe.”

“As the first private collection space to open to the public in 2011, SPM’s contribution has been invaluable for our artistic community, ecosystem, and the city of Dubai, through supporting both galleries and an emerging generation of artists, as well as offering the public a chance to engage with works in private collections,” says Vilma Jurkute, Director of Alserkal Avenue.

SPM’s final exhibition, Mueller’s TIBE NOW: Free Drinks, Boots and Tickets to the Apocalypse, includes works from its collection, alongside new and site-specific works. Salsali has been collecting works from Mueller, who is represented by Alserkal Avenue-based gallery Carbon 12, for 10 years, and his works feature prominently in Salsali’s private collection.

The exhibition follows the journey of the artist’s practice by tracing the evolution of series including Black Flamingo Sad Boys (BFSB), Der Berg and Mütters, through to the new commissions. Less a survey of Mueller’s exploration of excess and recontextualised historical symbolism, it’s a culmination of existential crisis-laden narratives that form a purer whole.

The museum will close at the end of May. SPM will host a book launch for Mueller on 15 May 2019.