Sheikha Moza attends Mathaf exhibitions celebrating Indian art

Doha: Two major exhibitions celebrating Indian art opened yesterday at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art marking the launch of the museum’s new spring programme.

H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), attended the opening of the exhibitions.

H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums, was also present at the event.

In what is considered the first large-scale exhibition of M.F. Husain’s works, M. F. Husain: Horses of the Sun is a showcase of over 100 works spanning more than six decades of the life of the renowned artist and contributor to modern Indian culture and the history of art in the 20th Century.

The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, textile works, and films, drawn from QF and Qatar Museums collections, as well as from private collections from the Gulf region and around the world.
Acclaimed Mumbai-based poet, art critic, and cultural theorist, Ranjit Hoskote, who curates the show said the exhibition comprises three important sections.

“First: the idea of home, as a habitat remembered from childhood, shaped in the present, or to be discovered through exploration. Second: the human adventure of creativity across societies, periods, and disciplines. And third: a pluralist approach to the divine and cosmic aspects of being, articulated through the symbolism of the world’s religions and philosophies,” explained Hoskote.

M. F. Husain was a foundational figure in the history of Indian modernism, as a member of the vanguard formation known as the Progressive Artists Group. His chosen media ranged from oil painting and watercolour, through lithography and serigraphy, to sculpture, architecture, and installation. He was also a film-maker, poet, and memoirist, writing in Urdu, Hindi, and English.

The second exhibition titled Still More World by Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective, which is organised as part of the Qatar India 2019 Year of Culture, displays 13 multi-object and video installations, two of which were created especially for the show. It draws on the energy of Doha’s urban landscape of light, which symbolises a global city in continuous movement with its networks of people, and raw materials.

The works in this exhibition re-examine human progress and natural resources, considering historical and contemporary movements of people and the way terrains change. The installations made between 2011 and 2019 include two new productions, Dohas for Doha and To People.

“Raqs Media Collective are leading contemporary artists working at an international level, whose work challenges understandings of the world in playful and poetic ways,” said Mathaf’s Curator Laura Barlow.

On the sidelines of the exhibition, the artists will present a talk titled ‘Tomorrows Ripen Today’.

The two exhibitions will run until July 31.

By Raynald C Rivera | The Peninsula

شهدت صاحبة السمو الشيخة موزا بنت ناصر رئيس مجلس إدارة مؤسسة قطر للتربية والعلوم وتنمية المجتمع، أمس، افتتاح معرضين يسلطان الضوء على أعمال فنية هندية بارزة في المتحف العربي للفن الحديث بالمدينة التعليمية، والذي يقام ضمن احتفالية العام الثقافي قطرـ الهند 2019. حضر الافتتاح سعادة الشيخة المياسة بنت حمد آل ثاني رئيس مجلس أمناء متاحف قطر.

ويحتفي المعرض الأول، الذي يحمل عنوان «مقبول فدا حسين: عاديات الشمس»، بأعمال الفنان الراحل مقبول حسين، أحد أبرز الأعلام التي أثْرَت الثقافة الهندية المعاصرة وتاريخ الفنون في القرن العشرين، حيث يشمل المعرض أكثر من 100 عمل للفنان الراحل، وتتنوع هذه الأعمال بين اللوحات الفنية والرسومات وأعمال النسيج والأفلام.

أما المعرض الثاني، فيقام تحت عنوان «مجموعة رقص ميديا: تبقى عوالم أخرى»، وهو من تقديم «مجموعة رقص ميديا» الهندية، ويتضمن 13 عملاً فنياً متنوعاً من بينهم عملان صمما خصيصاً لهذا المعرض.

ويستمر المعرضان حتى 31 يوليو المقبل. وعلى هامشه، يشارك الفنانون في حوار بعنوان «ثمار الغد نقطفها اليوم»، وهي عبارة مقتبسة من أعمال صممت خصيصاً لهذا المعرض.