São Paulo – Since late last year, tourists visiting Doha, the capital of Qatar, may visit the largest Arab modern art collection in the world. With over 6,000 paintings and sculptures, Mathaf – Arab Museum of Modern Art (the word mathaf means museum in Arabic), houses works by artists from all Arab countries from the second half of the 19th century to date.
Among the works exhibited is picture "Le Shadoufs", by Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said, who started painting professionally at age 50 and has become one of the most important painters in the Arab world. The work was acquired in an auction in Dubai, in early 2010, for the value of US$ 2.4 million.
Other artists who also have their works exhibited at the museum are the Syrian Fateh al-Moudarres, the Lebanese Shafiq Abboud and the Iraqi Dia Azzawi and Jawad Salim. Due to the large number of works in the collection, the museum will organize regular themed exhibitions. Currently, there are three different exhibitions at Mathaf.
One of them, "Sajjil", which means "act of recording", brings 200 works and may be seen up to October 1st. Among the themes in which it is divided, "Sajjil" shows works that cover family, history and myth, form and abstraction, society, among others. Exhibition "Interventions", in turn, includes five Arab artists, with new work commissioned for the exhibition, which is included in the Mathaf collection. In "Told, Untold, Retold", visitors may view 23 works by 23 different artists, all produced specially for the museum. Both will be open up to May 28th.
The building which houses Mathaf has already been a school and is located close to the Doha City of Education. The construction was redesigned by French architect Jean-François Bodin to house works of art, a library, shop, café and space for workshops. Almost all the articles shown by the museum are part of the personal collection of Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani, from the royal family of Qatar.
Apart from being a space for exhibition of works of art, Mathaf, which was opened last year, already promotes art workshops and should house meetings with artists, university nights and forums, like the Global Art Forum, which takes place on March 14th. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday and admittance is free.
*With information from Asharq Alwasat. Translated by Mark Ament