Curated by Cristiana de Marchi and Muhannad Ali
21 February - 7 April, 2017
Predicated on curious desire to locate the spirit of experimentation that was present in the genesis of UAE avant-garde contemporary art practice, Is Old Gold? indirectly questions if, how and why this narrative has been aborted, lost or evolved and if it can or should be recovered in the current context. In a comparative experiment that takes the form of a fictional narrative, two artists from the contemporary 'younger' generation of Emirati artists were assigned to work separately on a 'character' from the '5 UAE'. The experimental, productive structure of the exhibition reflects on the atelier atmosphere of innovative exchange initiated by Hassan Sharif and transmuted and sustained by four of his students - Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, Mohammed Kazem, Abdullah Al Saadi and Hussain Sharif.
