For an optimal view of our website, please rotate your tablet horizontally.
28 October 2022 - 12 March 2023
Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany
Hall of Contemporary Art
Address, contacts
Organizers:
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg and Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE
Curator: Dr Omar Kholeif
Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation
Exhibition Designer and Architectural Consultant: Todd Reisz
Photo tour ►
122 installation views and photos of works on 42 image pages
Drawing from the international collection of Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, In the Heart of Another Country showcases the work of more than 60 artists through over 140 artworks in all media, many of which have rarely, if ever, been seen outside of their original context. In the Heart of Another Country explores the concept of home—of longing, belonging, and rootedness— tracing a travelogue through multiple underrepresented sites, histories, and geographies within the art historical canon. The artists featured in the exhibition have traversed migratory routes from South and West Asia, through Africa, and the Caribbean.
Recently restored installations are presented alongside contemporary acquisitions, which narrate a communal story of kinship amongst artists—one often developed against a backdrop of political turmoil and social unrest. In the Heart of Another Country embodies Sharjah Art Foundation’s critical role in advancing East-East and South-South understanding of art making, forging a meeting point— a connective tissue that nurtures a polyphonous and inclusive art history.
In an age of constant mobility, In the Heart of Another Country explores human experience through the creative output of three generations of artists who hail from multiple geographies, sites, and histories. Their journeys converge at a single meeting point: Sharjah, a port city in the UAE that extends across from the Arabian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. Over the last 30 years, the Sharjah Biennial and since 2009, the Sharjah Art Foundation have functioned as a platform for artists who live or work in a geography commonly referred to as ‘the Global South’. The Foundation has accumulated an archive of contemporary thought and form generated by artists through commissions and exhibitions, performances and conversation, and its public collection of modern and contemporary art. These works endure an inter-textual record—a document of varied and collective histories, as well as propositions for the future.
Drawing inspiration from the late artist and author Etel Adnan’s landmark memoir, In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2004), the exhibition charts sentiments of longing, memorial, homecoming and separation though a constellation of artworks that unfold across multitudinous borders, both real and imagined. The politics of place and placeless-ness is explored through myriad art forms—from tessellating architectural structures conceived by Saloua Raouda Choucair to the sensuous abstraction found in the paintings of Huguette Caland, and the architectonic sculpture of Simone Fattal. These artworks are put into dialogue with contemporary plans by the likes of Marwan Rechmaoui, who conceives a restorative urban sphere for his native Lebanon, a country too often found in the grip of conflict and ensuing dilapidation. The earth works of the enigmatic figure, Marcos Grigorian—a multi-hyphenate whose biography is as multifaceted as his art, sit alongside Adam Henein’s delicate drawings on papyrus. In-between these visual journeys are extensive presentations of the reconfigured body, as seen in self-portraits by Rasheed Araeen and Amal Kenawy—their evocative images reveal the possibilities of distinguishing the self and the other.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Snoek Verlag, edited by Omar Kholeif. 312 pages, clothbound, 240 x 210 mm, 160 coloured illustrations, text (German/English) by Bani Abidi, Nawar Al Qassimi, Skye Arundhati Thomas, Stephanie Bailey, Anne Barlow, Lubaina Himid, Omar Kholeif, Zeina Al Kattan, Chris McCormack, Sarah Perks, Reem Sawan and Sofia Victorino, introduction/forword by Dirk Luckow and Hoor Al Qasimi.
more information, buy online
Deichtorhallen Hamburg
Hall of Contemporary Art
Deichtorstr. 1-2
20095 Hamburg, Germany
Location on map
Opening hours, access:
Tue – Sun 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Every first Thursday of the month 11 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Open on all holidays except Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve
Website of the exhibition:
intheheartofanothercountry.com
Press information, contacts:
Press releases and images are available at www.deichtorhallen.de/presse
Deichtorhallen:
presse(at)deichtorhallen.de
Angelika Leu-Barthel, phone +49(0)40-32 103 250
Caroline Huzel, phone +49(0)40-32 103 262
Sharjah Art Foundation:
alyazeyah(at)sharjahart.org
Alyazeyah Al Marri, phone +971(0)65444113
From Press information.
© Photos: Haupt & Binder, Universes in Universe