Vis Roboris

Seven artists by the nonprofit insitution THE FLYING HOUSE Dubai showcase an overview of contemporary art from the Emirate Dubai for the first time in Europe. The curators Mohammed Kazem and Cristiana de Marchi chose more than 50 works of the comprehensive works by the following artists:

• Hassan SHARIF
• Hussain SHARIF
• Mohammed Ahmed IBRAHIM
• Abdul RAHMAN AL MA’AINI
• Layala JUMA
• Mohammed KAZEM
• Moza AL SUWAIDI 

The artists deal differently with the development modernity in the UAE and especially in Dubai. The chosen works on canvas, the photographies and installations partially reflect the contradictions of today`s life, awareness, consciousness - nevertheless the works are also concerned with social and cultural experiences. The exhibition „VIS ROBORIS“ at AB GALLERY Lucerne shows how Emirati artists translate these elements in an artistical context.

"[...] Languages are usually based on a stronghold of rationality, especially dead or "unspoken" ones [...]. "Vis"" is an interesting Latin word, which has not all its forms and must borrow some of them from his synonymous "Robur, roboris". Both meaning "strength", with all the possible variations implied in this concept (ranging from moral to factual acceptation, and from the positive to the negative one), they complete each other; they support the other's failure to express and thus to be authentically meaningful.

Strength can be a declination of coherence, and vice versa. Indeed, the relation between these two behaviours is quite tight and draws one's attention on their analogies and their differences.

[...] The present exhibition shows a selection of contemporary works of art from a group of UAE artists whose experiences are highly connected and whose productions - regardless of their formal differences - are linkable on multiple layers of proximities." (Vis Roboris, Catalogue of the exhibition, 11).

The main concept guiding the present show is related with the idea of "strength" as it comes out through the title. And the title in its etymological root brings the idea of the multiplicity of strength: there is not one way of being strong, there are several. Both these ideas of strength and multiplicity (sometimes duplicity) are very well represented by the works selected and on show.

Layla Juma's "Form & Space" is a work based on an oppositional concept, where opposite elements justify their reciprocal existence. In addition, this work does illustrate a relevant segment of Layla's artistic poetics, spotlighting the way she positions herself as an artist.

The series "Man and Mountain" has been regarded as a critical group of paintings in Hassan Sharif's recent production. These six paintings are inextricably related to one another and they do reflect the way this internationally acclaimed artist works, how he does stick to an idea or a concept, how he explores it and develops it to its extreme possibilities. "Man and Mountain" is again questioning the duality of reality and it investigates the relationship between these two elements as magnetic poles, a balance of forces where the boundaries between confrontation and assimilation are thin, a space for encountering and meeting.

Besides this body of work is intrinsically linked to Hussain Sharif's "Cars" and, once exhibited together, these two works can exemplify and illustrate another concept the curators aim at highlighting, that is the multi-layered "interdependence" of these artists, who have grounded the contemporary art scene in the UAE. Analogously the works selected by the other artists on show (Abdul-Rahman Al Ma'aini, Moza Al Suwaidi, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim and Mohammed Kazem) enter these lines and while escaping "framings", they reflect a certain way of making art which still requires a load of strength.

Christiana de Marchi
Co-curator

• Abdul Rahman Al Ma’aini
• Hassan Sharif
• Hussein Sharif
• Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim
• Mohammed Kazem
• Layla Juma
• Moza Al Suwaidi
  

• Invitation
  
• Katalog Vis Roboris