Forever Now: Five Anecdotes from the Permanent Collection

Forever Now: Five Anecdotes from the Permanent Collection proposes new readings based on the works of five artists from Mathaf’s permanent collection. These readings are at once, based on the factual art historical context in which the work of these artists evolved as well as the empirical interpretation and experience of the collector who assembled their works. This exhibition unpacks new narratives that posit a new understanding of five diverse artists: Fahrelnissa Zeid, Jewad Selim, Saliba Doueihy, Salem Al-Dabbagh and Ahmed Cherkaoui. It examines the artists’ interactions with their immediate environments, histories and cultures in search of new vocabularies to express their changed realities in response to cycles of rupture and continuity. The result is a nuanced dialogue between experience and history, fact and interpretation that sheds a new light on the selected works and the respective artists.

Forever Now is part of Mathaf’s and its founder’s ongoing mission to instigate possibilities for new narratives and to understand the history of modern art as developed in the Arab world. The exhibition’s premise is twofold. The first is to announce a series of very focused and analytical exhibitions that explore specific aspects of various artists represented in the permanent collection. The second is to investigate the collector’s understanding of the works within their larger contexts. The exhibition was advised by Nada Shabout.

Exhibition Design was by AgeNCe and the fit-out was implemented by Interspace. I liaised between the different departments within the museum to assist in producing the exhibition. I assisted on the publication of the exhibition catalog. In addition, I supervised the fit-out team and ensured a timely deliver in accordance with design.