Dubai Art Week to Host Cultural Crossroads by Tahar Ben Jelloun.
One of France’s most celebrated writers will exhibit in the Middle East for the first time, during Dubai Art Week 2018.
The exhibition, entitled, ‘Cultural Crossroads’, represents Tahar Ben Jelloun’s first show in the Middle East and will run from 19 March – 15 September, at Alserkal Avenue.
The Moroccan-born poet and novelist Ben Jelloun is known for his novels The Sand Child and of his suite The Sacred Night, which was awarded the French Goncourt prize in 1987. Other novels include The Happy Marriage, Leaving Tangier, and L’Ablation.
His journey into “visual self-expression” started in 2010 by coloring a friend’s enlarged drawings. In 2013 he painted his first blank canvas and embraced painting like he embraced writing. Since then, he has been exhibited in Rome, Turin, Palermo, Marrakech, Tangier and in 2017 at the Arab World Institute in Paris.
The Dubai show will feature more than 20 works on canvas. Ben Jelloun comments, “Poetry has been my major aspiration for a long time. As I persuaded myself that art – and particularly poetry – would save the world, I was convinced I needed to further my childhood scribbles. I have drawn and even painted before starting to write, however I never dared to consider these signs I was laying down on paper seriously. Today, I am lucky to be welcomed by La Galerie Nationale for my first exhibition in the Middle East. Although I have treated my painting work more professionally, I nevertheless claim the right not to take it seriously. What was taken from my instinct, I find it in painting, in my ‘advanced scribbles’ laid across bigger spaces and now hanging on walls.”
Guillaume Cuiry, Gallery Director comments: “It is with great pleasure that the team and I bring Tahar Ben Jelloun to the region, in what we anticipate will be a stand-out show in the 2018 Art Week calendar. As Dubai gains the confidence of the international collector, we wanted to produce a show that moves us beyond cliché and deeply explores the relationship and interconnections at play in Arab culture. We hope that Ben Jelloun’s work will appeal to serious investors and art enthusiasts alike.”
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