15 Mar 2011

Green Cardamom at Art Dubai 2011

The portrait, as a way of exploring and capturing human subjectivity, and the landscape, as a means to denote place, have been staples of art history across time and continents. So much so that �portrait’ and �landscape’ are also the two formats in which most visual information is presented to us in print and digital media: they are the settings on our printers; and the orientation options in our word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programmes. Portraits and landscapes shape our visual world.
 
Green Cardamom presents an ambitious project developing this notion for Art Dubai 2011 through two exhibitions — Portrait//Subject (16-17 March) and Landscape//Place (18-19 March). The two exhibitions feature the work of 18 artists over the duration of Art Dubai.  
 
 
Portrait//Subject  16-17 March
 
Hamra Abbas | Bani Abidi | Iftikhar Dadi & Elizabeth Dadi | Ayaz Jokhio | Ali Kazim | Ahmed Ali Manganhar | Nusra Latif Qureshi | Mohammad Ali Talpur | Hajra Waheed | Muhammad Zeeshan
 
Landscape//Place  18-19 March
 
Hamra Abbas | Bani Abidi | Zahoor ul Akhlaq | Nazgol Ansarinia | Muhanned Cader | Noor Ali Chagani | Iftikhar Dadi & Elizabeth Dadi | Sophie Ernst | Ahmed Ali Manganhar | Rehana Mangi | Anwar Jalal Shemza | Hadi Tabatabai  
 
 
Selected highlights:
 
Hamra Abbas has completed a new sculptural work Cityscapes-2, inspired by her time in New York, especially for Portrait//Subject. Her Cityscapes-1 project, inspired by Istanbul, will be presented in Landscape//Place.
 
Abbas is one of the winners of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2011). She was a winner of the Jury Prize at the Sharjah Biennial (2009); finalist of the inaugural Jameel Prize (2009), and nominated by Art Asia Pacific annual almanac as their �One Artist for 2009.’
 
Bani Abidi’s new video, The Distance from Here, co-produced by Green Cardamom and the Burger Collection, will be presented in the Middle East for the first time in the Landscape//Place exhibition. Her seminal Ghost of Muhammad bin Qasim will form part of Portrait//Subject.
 
Abidi is one of three recipients of the Sharjah Art Foundation Production Grant (2011) and the prestigious DAAD Artist in Berlin residency (2011) – alongside Jalal Toufic and Martha Rosler.   
 
Nazgol Ansarinia’s new series – Non-flammable, Non-stain, Non-stick – inspired by the plastic tablecloths or sofreh sold in her native Tehran, will be part of Landscape//Place.
 
Ansarinia was one of the inaugural winners of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2009). She was also one of three finalists of the Rolex Mentor Protégé Arts Initiative (2008/9).  

Muhanned Cader’s new composite drawing (24 pieces), All Elephants Go to Heaven, is a meditation on the politics of land in his native Sri Lanka, produced for Landscape//Place.
 
Cader is one of the artists participating in Meissen Art Campus (2011) alongside Rokni and Ramin Haerizadeh.   
 
Iftikhar Dadi & Elizabeth Dadi’s new work on traces of everyday Karachi life, Aasaar II, will be presented in Landscape//Place. Their seminal They Made History, shown at the Liverpool Biennial and the Asia Pacific Triennial, will be shown in Portrait//Subject.
 
The Dadis were included among the 100 most significant emerging artists in Fresh Cream (Phaidon). Iftikhar Dadi chairs the Art Department at Cornell University.  
 
Hajra Waheed’s Anouchian Portraits is a major new drawing project comprising 99 portraits of men and women from studio portraits sourced from the Arab Image Foundation.
 
This is the Montreal-based Waheed’s first exhibition of work in the Middle East.
 
 
We will also be exhibiting important works from the Estates of two influential modernist artists from South Asia – Zahoor ul Akhlaq and Anwar Jalal Shemza.
Akhlaq was a formative influence on a generation of artists from Pakistan including Rashid Rana and
Shahzia Sikander. Shemza was an influential figure in the development of calligraphic abstraction.
 
Images / further information:
Anita Dawood or Sophie Persson:
Anita@greencardamom.net (m: +44 7808581333)
Sophie@greencardamom.net (m: +44 7725038911)
T: +44 20 7402 7125
 
Green Cardamom  
5a Porchester Place, London, W2 2BS
T: +44 20 7402 7125 / info@greencardamom.net  / www.greencardamom.net
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday, 12pm to 6pm
 
Green Cardamom is an arts organisation that develops and runs visual arts projects in collaboration with public museums and galleries. The organisation works on a not-for-profit basis and is supported by the Rangoonwala Foundation. Green Cardamom runs a regular gallery programme in its London space, where it also develops new curatorial projects. The organisation's primary focus is international contemporary art viewed from an Indian Ocean perspective. Green Cardamom's programme is informed by artistic practice in Pakistan, South and Central Asia and the Middle East.