Events and Activities
Mathaf New Cafe
Curating in Context: On Ecologies and Economies of Production
Mathaf Curatorial Forum 2019 & Public Panel Discussion
Curatorial Forum: 9 am – 2.30 pm, 7 & 8 July 2019*
Public Panel discussion: 6 – 8 pm, 8 July 2019
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Education City, Qatar Foundation
*For applicants accepted in advance through open call
Annette and Caroline Kierulf, The Drop, Norway, 2015
The fourth Mathaf Curatorial Forum, Curating in Context: On Ecologies and Economies of Production takes place on 7 & 8 July 2019 in Doha. This annual program led by Mathaf Curators and invited speakers opens debates on curatorial thinking and practices, introducing ideas and methodologies on the discourse of art and the histories and networks of curating.
Curators, creative professionals, students, and scholars interested in developing critical discourse on curatorial practice are selected through an open call to participate in an intensive two-day program of lectures, discussions, and workshops. This year’s program is led by Anne Szefer Karlsen, Professor in the MA Curatorial Practice program at Bergen Academy of Art and Design, Norway, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Raqs Media Collective, India.
The Forum engages with questions around society’s relationship to ecological and economic resources in context and how these intersect with creative production and curatorial practice. Szefer Karlsen and Sengupta present their projects that touch on lived experience and creative practices in energy economies, elaborating on the practical and theoretical research methods employed in their practice. The projects they will share are offer new readings on the role of art and curating within an expanding discourse on the ecological climate crisis, and frame open discussions and workshops led by Szefer Karlsen and Sengupta that connect to the local creative community and ecological context of Qatar.
The program takes place from 9 am – 2.30 pm, Sunday 7 July and Monday 8 July 2019 in the Library, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha. The Forum concludes at 6 pm on Monday 8 July with a panel discussion at Mathaf with invited speakers Anne Szefer Karlsen, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, and Mathaf Director Abdellah Karroum, moderated by Mathaf Curator Laura Barlow, that brings ideas and debates from the Forum to a public discussion. This event is programmed as part of the series Mathaf Talks.
Biographies
Anne Szefer Karlsen is a curator, writer, editor and educator. She has conceived of several exhibitions, publications, seminars and lecture series, and her interests are in artistic and curatorial collaborations as well as developing the language that surrounds art productions of today, linguistically, spatially and structurally. She is currently Professor in the MA Curatorial Practice program at Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Norway. Prior to this she was the Director of Hordaland Art Centre, Bergen, Norway from 2008 to 2014. She has curated several exhibitions including The Norwegian Sculpture Biennale, Art Belongs to Those Who See It (2015) and Lofoten International Art Festival, Just what is it that makes today so familiar, so uneasy? (2013). Szefer Karlsen was also Associate Curator for Research and Encounters for Biennale Bénin, Inventer le monde: l’artiste citoyen (2012).
Her writings have appeared in Afterall, Billedkunst, and kunstkritikk.no, and in anthologies such as 'Condition Report' (2013), and 'Making Biennials in Contemporary Times' (2015). Szefer Karlsen is series editor for Dublett, a book series featuring artists’ works through anthologies and artists’ books (2012–2016). She was also co-editor of 'Self-Organised' (2013) and 'Localisert/Localised' (2009).
Shuddha Sengupta is an artist and writer based in Delhi, India. In 2015 Sengupta was recipient of the Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism, at The Center for Curatorial Studies and the Human Rights Project at Bard College. He is a co-founding member of Raqs Media Collective, with Monica Narula and Jeebesh Bagchi. Founded in 1992, Raqs Media Collective's practice spans the making of multi-medium installations, films, events and publications, in addition to collaborations across architecture, literature, science, and theatre, broadening insights into the world around us.
Raqs Media Collective frequently exhibits their work internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Still More World, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (2019); Not Yet At Ease, Firstsite, Colchester (2018); Everything Else is Ordinary, K21 Ständehaus, Düsseldorf (2018); and Twilight Language, The Whitworth, University of Manchester (2017). They have participated in group exhibitions and biennials including the Venice Biennial, Venice (2003, 2005 & 2015); Biennale Bénin (2012); and documenta 11, Kassel (2002), among others. Raqs Media Collective are Artistic Directors of the 2020 Yokohama Triennale and were curators of the 11th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (2012). In 2001 Raqs Media Collective co-founded Sarai, a program of interdisciplinary research and practice, at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.
Abdellah Karroum, a curator and author, is Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha since 2013. Karroum is the founder and artistic director of a number of independent initiatives, including L’appartement 22 in Rabat, and has curated numerous exhibitions, most recently, Revolution Generations (2018), Shakir Hassan Al Said: The Wall (2017), Wael Shawky: Crusades and Other Stories (2015), Farid Belkahia: Aube(s) (2015), and Shirin Neshat: Afterwards (2014), all at Mathaf.
He was artistic director of Inventing the World: The Artist as Citizen for the Biennale Benin (2012), curator of Sous nos yeux [Before Our Eyes] at La Kunsthalle de Mulhouse (2013) and at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2014), and associate curator of Intense Proximity for La Triennale, Paris (2012). Other curatorial and research projects include the Sentences on the Banks and other activities at Darat Al-Funun, Amman (2010); A Proposal for Articulating Works and Places for the 3rd Biennale of Marrakech (2009); the R22 art experimental web radio station established in 2007; and Le Bout Du Monde art expeditions (ongoing since 2000).
Laura Barlow is Curator at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar since 2014. Recent curated exhibitions at Mathaf include Raqs Media Collective: Still More World (2019); Mounira Al Solh: I strongly believe in our right to be frivolous (with Hendrik Folkerts) (2018); Hana Al Saadi: Proposal for a Public Sculpture (2018); Mohammed Melehi: 1959–1971 (2017); Basim Magdy: It All Started With a Map and a Picture of Scattered Little Houses (2017); Hassan Sharif: Objects and Files (2016); and Saloua Raouda Choucair: The Meaning of One, The Meaning of the Multiple (2015); and Younès Rahmoun, Little Worlds, Complex Structures at VCUQ Gallery (2018). Previously at e-flux, New York (2010-2014) Barlow curated exhibitions of Mariana Silva and Pedro Neves Marques, Khalil Rabah, Rossella Biscotti, and Hito Steyerl, and was managing editor of Art Agenda reviews from 2010–2012. Barlow writes for international publications, most recently, Art Review, Tribe Magazine and Aroop. She is a PhD candidate at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar Institute of History and Theory of Architecture, Weimar, Germany.
Mathaf Screening of Raqs Media Collective
06 July 2019 (Saturday)
6:30pm
Cinema room, Doha Fire Station, Doha
Still image from Strikes at Time, 2011, video diptych , 18 min, 32 sec. Courtesy of Raqs Media Collective
How do we understand our place in the world and the wider cosmic universe? In this ambiguous moment in which questions of time, resources, economies, the movement of people, and reliance on digital technologies filter into daily life, how to position this contemporary experience in relation to our past and future selves?
The screening of two works by Raqs Media Collective reflect on these questions. The Blood of Stars (2017) poetically tells a tale of how all life exists with iron, making a connection between humanity and outer space, to suggest we are all formed from stars.
The protagonist in Strikes at Time (2011) escapes his exhaustion, isolation, and sense of lost time by listing the mundane activities of his labouring day. The video narrates the uncanny rhythm of a working day, drawn from found diaries, read by Raqs Media Collective alongside Jacques Ranciere’s La Nuit des Proletaires (The Night of Labour), from 1981.
This event takes place as part of the exhibition Raqs Media Collective: Still More World, on view at Mathaf until July 31st. The screening will be followed by a conversation with artist Shuddhabrata Sengupta and exhibition curators Laura Barlow and Lina Ramadan, and an open Q&A.
Mathaf Curatorial Forum 2019
Curating in context: On ecologies and economies of production
7 & 8 July 2019
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Education City, Qatar Foundation
Applications are now open to participate in the fourth Mathaf Curatorial Forum taking place on 7 & 8 July 2019. This annual program led by Mathaf Curators and invited speakers, opens debates on curatorial thinking and practices, introducing ideas and methodologies around the discourse of art and the histories and networks of curatorial practice.
PROGRAM
Curators, creative professionals, students, and scholars interested in developing critical discourse on curatorial practice are invited to apply to participate in an intensive two-day program of lectures, discussions, and workshops. This year’s program is led by Anne Szefer Karlsen, Professor in the MA Curatorial Practice program at Bergen Academy of Art and Design in Norway, and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Artist, Raqs Media Collective, India and local speakers in the field of sciences, under the title “Curating in context: on ecologies and economies of production”. The program collectively engages with questions around society’s relationship with resources in their context, and their intersection with creative production and curatorial practice. Speakers will present case studies of their work that are shaping new perspectives on the connection and role of art and curating in the expanding discourse around the climate crisis and its pending impact on the future of humanity.
The program is scheduled from 9 am – 2.30 pm on Sunday 7 July and Monday 8 July, 2019 at the Library, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. The Forum concludes at 6 pm on Monday 8 July with a public panel discussion takes place at Mathaf with invited speakers Anne Szefer Karlsen, Shuddhabrata Sengupta, and Mathaf Director Abdellah Karroum, moderated by Mathaf Curator Laura Barlow. Selected participants must commit to attending at all sessions during the two-day program.
HOW TO APPLY
Please send a one page letter of interest noting curatorial experience and specialized interest in the Forum theme, and CV to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Application deadline: 24 June 2019.
DFI Public Talk
Project Space 13: Doha Art Map
18th June 2019
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Education City, Qatar Foundation
Majid Al-Remaihi / Short Narrative / Qatar / 2017 / 13 min / Colour
Doha Art Map exhibition project is conceived as a platform for research around art production and debate taking place within Mathaf Project Space’s 13th edition. The Museum invites artists, curators, aspiring curators and creative community to continue discussions around the contemporary art scene in Doha. Bringing together filmmakers and artists, the open forum will survey film and performance art practices in Doha and discuss their role in shaping society.
Mathaf invites three Qatari directors—Jassim Al Romaihi, Majid Al-Remaihi, Khalifa Al-Marri --from Doha Film Institute to participate in Project Space 13: Doha Art Map, introduced by Curator Laura Barlow and moderated by Curator Hessa Al Romaihi. The topic will touch base on how film can portray art through a lens, how each of the young Qatari directors managed to paint their own imaginations and place them on a screen. The conversation will present the directors perspectives on the medium of film and its role to develop creative and critical thinking?
Directors: Jassim Al Romaihi, Majid Al-Remaihi, Khalifa Al-Marri
Project Space 13: Doha Art Map
Installation view of Project Space: Doha Art Map, 2014, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Project Space 13 builds on the existing and ongoing Doha Art Map, a project initiated by Mathaf in 2014 to explore spaces of art and creativity in the city of Doha. In 2019 the third iteration of the project continues this route of inquiry while actively engaging with public and private spaces of collecting, to debate the responsibility of collections, their preservation and presentation. As an experimental research platform, the Doha Art Map invites the Museum’s diverse audience and creative community to collectively survey the contemporary art scene in Doha, asking questions around the places of art production, collecting and display, to identify where original ways of working are taking place, and addressing how various public and private practices contribute to the shaping of the art ecosystem in Doha today.
Title: Mathaf Talk with Jameela Al Shraim
Date: 15 May 2019
Time: 9:00PM
Location: Project Space, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Education City, Doha
The history of culture that emerged in Doha during the 1970’s and 1980’s has shaped Qatar’s art practices today. Artists have been the agents that have written narratives of the untold histories of art and society. Today, the institutional role of archive in the museum context in Doha is emerging, positioning itself as a pivotal source of documentation, research, and storytelling.
Artist Jameela Al Shraim, in conversation with Curator Lina Ramadan, will trace the history of exhibitions, art education and criticism, production spaces and the development of modern art, looking at the artist’s archives and personal stories.
The talk will be held at Mathaf’s Project Space in Arabic, in conjunction with Project Space 13: Doha Art Map (13 March – 13 July 2019).
About the artist: art critic and visual artist Jameela Al Shraim was born in Rumaillah, Qatar in 1965. Her practice spans mediums such as painting, graphic art and sculpture. Al Shraim was one of the first female artists to join Doha’s Al Marsam Al Hurr (the Liberal Art Studio) in 1983. She received her BA in Fine Arts and Education from the Education Department, Qatar University in 1988. Since then, Al Shraim has worked in different fields relating to art education, art criticism and journalism such as in Al Sharq newspaper. She plays an important role in documenting the participation of Qatari female artists in the development of the local modern art scene.
The façade of Al-Marsam Al Hurr (the Liberal Art Studio), ca. 1982
Join us for our Mathaf Voices guided tour in our exhibitions, every day from 3pm to7pm for, from May 2019 to June 2019
Tours are conducted in Arabic, English.
Curator Tour - M. F. Husain: Horses of the Sun and Raqs Media Collective: Still More World
Date: 21 March
Time: 4pm
Location: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Join curators Ranjit Hoskote and Laura Barlow for a tour of Mathaf Spring exhibitions: M. F. Husain: Horses of the Sun and Raqs Media Collective: Still More World. The Raqs Media Collective artists (Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta) will be present.
The tour is open to all and free to attend.
Mathaf Talk: Tomorrows Ripen Today
Date: 21 March 2019
Time: 6pm
Location: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art
In conjunction with their exhibition Raqs Media Collective: Still More World, the artists will present a talk - ‘Tomorrows Ripen Today’*, which foregrounds the conceptual framing of the exhibition and presents the way in which Raqs works with time. The talk also presents Raqs’ way of thinking about how cities like Doha and Delhi, with layered pasts and polyglot futures, anticipate tomorrow and trace the routes straddling stories, histories, trade routes and ocean currents that connect people between South Asia and the Gulf region.
Raqs Media Collective was founded in 1992 by Jeebesh Bagchi, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta. They live and work in Delhi, India
This talk will be introduced by the curator of the exhibition, Laura Barlow.
*Tomorrows Ripen Today is a phrase taken from Dohas for Doha, one of the works especially produced by Raqs for this exhibition.
M. F. Husain: Horses of the Sun
MATHAF: ARAB MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, DOHA
ATRIUM AND GALLERIES 4, 5 and 6
21 March - 31 July 2019
Maqbool Fida Husain (1913-2011) was a legendary figure in the history of Indian modernism. A founding member of the Progressive Artists Group, formed in Bombay in 1947, Husain played a leading role in revolutionising art in India by parting ways with the dominant genres of academic painting and miniaturist nostalgia.
Raqs Media Collective: Still More World
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Atrium and Galleries 1, 2 and 3
21 March 2019 - 31 July 2019
Raqs Media Collective’s artistic practice examines questions of the everyday, alongside philosophical and historical inquiries of the universe. Unravelling structures of economies, time, and language, their work examines the shifting state of contemporary life and boundaries of visibility. This exploration of transformation, is embedded in the process and subject of their work, and in the collective’s name – ‘raqs’ – a term for movement and whirling, in Urdu/Hindustani, Arabic, and Persian.
Save the Date!
6th annual Mathaf Student Art Show Harmony
Wednesday, 24 April 2019
Join us as we celebrate the creativity of aspiring young artists from different schools in Qatar.
Art Lessons at Mathaf with Ismael Azzam
Every Sunday and Wednesday 4pm-7pm
Manara – Education Space at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art
Join artist Ismael Azzam for a new season of Art Lessons at Mathaf and learn techniques in portraiture drawing using pencil and charcoal and paint.
• Lessons are offered to people with basic to intermediate sketching and drawing skills
• Each participant must bring their own sketchbook
• Participants may also be asked to sit in as a model to have their portraits done
• Admission is free
• Seats are limited
• To register, click here
Are you interested to have your portrait done by artist Ismael Azzam?
We are looking for volunteers to sit in as a model for the Art Lessons at Mathaf led by artist Ismael Azzam. If you are available between 4pm-7pm every Sunday and Wednesday, and can commit to the time slot, please to confirm by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.