Dancing on canvas
An exhibition celebrates Beirut as a regional artistic hub
“Abstraction is like dancing on the canvas,” Lebanese artist Nadia Saikali, who practised ballet in her youth, told Barjeel Art Foundation founder Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi on his visit to her Paris studio in the autumn of 2020. Her dance was anything but a solo act, as the show Nadia Saikali and Her Contemporaries, at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah until August 2, demonstrates.
Born in Beirut in 1936, Saikali was a trailblazer in the realm of abstract art, experimenting with materials and colour, while also infusing it with her interests in spirituality, astrology, geology, and the natural world. Her childhood was set against the backdrop of the French Mandate in Lebanon, and as a teenager she witnessed Beirut’s contemporary art scene flourish with pivotal figures in Arab art like Helen Khal, Chafic Abboud, and Aref El Rayess.
“The mid-twentieth century was a moment of great change in the Arab world, marked by decolonisation, shifting political structures, and cultural renewal,” say curators Suheyla Takesh and Rémi Homs, who, in the exhibition, retrace the exchanges between the Arab region and the rest of the world. “Saikali’s work reflects this synthesis, reinterpreting international modernism through a unique lens.”
Drawing from the Barjeel collection, the exhibition foregrounds the work of Saikali but celebrates the broader context of abstract art in Beirut, positioning it as a regional hub for artistic exchange and innovation in the 1960s and 70s. The show, featuring exclusively women artists, also acknowledges their significant role in the evolution of non-figurative art in the Arab world. Saikali’s work is situated in conversation with a number of her Lebanese contemporaries, including Saloua Raouda Choucair, Huguette Caland, and Etel Adnan, but the exhibition includes artists from the larger Arab world such as Kuwait’s Munira Al-Kazi, Iraq’s Madiha Umar, Mona Saudi from Jordan, Syria’s Asma Fayoumi, and Maliheh Afnan from Palestine. —Naima Morelli
Mandala Bleu Nuit (1982) by Nadia Saikali. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Barjeel Art Foundation.
