Featuring drawings, prints, installations, UV-light, and performance, LINE explores how artists from different generations deploy the line in both two-dimensional and three dimensional space. The selection of works show the different trajectories taken by artists to create image, meaning, or emotion through their non-linear repetition of lines.

Using their individual ways of working, the participating artists show the endless possibilities that the simple line offers as both a visual and conceptual tool, whether that is to expose an aesthetic relationship, consists of a site-specific participatory installation or performative act, or is used as a socio-political instrument.

In the Main Building we present Wijdan’s mixed media installation on various types of handmade paper: mulberry, rice and cotton. Wijdan takes her inspiration from the flags put around Sufi shrines to commemorate holy men, covering her “Banners of Faith, Banners of Love” with calligraphy and Sufi idioms, linking the past to the present.

In memory of Nabila Hilmi, we show a retrospective of her work, presenting a selection of her early drawings, watercolours, and abstractions.

On display from The Khalid Shoman Collection are furthermore a series of silk screen prints by Mona Saudi from her artist’s book “The Petra Tablets” inspired by the poetry of Adonis, etchings by Ahmad Nawash, calligraphic ink drawings on Japanese rice paper by Himat Ali, etchings by Marwan showing faces based on a line of poetry by Ibn Arabi, and a sculptural chair by Nedim Kufi.

In the Blue House, works by three emerging artists conclude these trajectories with a series of abstract drawings by Munjed Qasim, a site-specific installation made of pencils by Haya Abdul Hameed, and a performance by Dana Kaoukji.

Participating artists
Main Building: Wijdan, Nabila Hilmi, Mona Saudi, Ahmad Nawash, Marwan, Himat Ali, and Nedim Kufi.
Blue House: Munjed Qasim, Haya Abdul Hameed, and Dana Kaoukji.

Image: Wijdan. Banners of Faith, Banners of Love, 2006. Installation of mixed media on Japanese mulberry paper, Chinese rice paper, and Indian cotton paper of various sizes.