ColourEast. Itineraries in contemporary Middle Eastern art

The exhibition ColourEast. Itineraries in Contemporary Middle Eastern Art will open its doors to the public on May 18th and is going to be the first initiative of its kind in Italy, being the first group show entirely dedicated to contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa.

The exhibition, being held from 18 May to 2 June at Vulcano Studios in via Adige 3 in Brescia, will be followed by an auction whose catalogue will be featured on the most important international platforms.
With this initiative, Baias srl, a company that has specialised for many years in the study and market of Islamic and Indian art and antiques, aims to introduce the general public to the varied world of contemporary Middle Eastern art, through a captivating selection of artworks from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, and Egypt, with unexpected incursions into the interesting work of Italian artists whose production is inspired by the fascinating Middle Eastern tradition.

The exhibition will count around sixty works, including sculptures and paintings, duly described in the catalogue edited by Roberta Marin, a decennial fellow of the prestigious Khalili Collection in London as well as a lecturer on the subject for leading institutions, including the SOAS in London.

With this project, Baias arte, a well-established company for many years now, points to expand its position as a specialist in the field by introducing a new chapter dedicated to the lively world of the recent artistic production in the territories lined up by the Muslim religion. This is a vast territorial and cultural area that geopolitics identifies with the vague, conventional and controversial neologism of "Greater Middle East", to name a variegated and multipolar interzone, extending from North Africa to the proper Middle East, including large nations peripheral to it, but of predominantly Islamic culture such as Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the whole constellation of Central Asian countries, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Iran will be represented by many artists, headed by two famous directors lent to figurative art: Abbas Kiarostami and Mania Akbari. The monograph of Saeed Kouros, another of the artists in the exhibition, has recently been published by Skira, while the work of Sadegh Tabrizi will be the 'oldest' in the exhibition, most likely to be placed in the master's production of the 1970s.
The Mesopotamian heritage will appear, among others, in the production of Ali Al Jabiri, Iraqi by birth and Italian by adoption.
Lebanon was the birthplace of David Daoud, a talented expressionist artist now living in France.... read the rest of the article»