The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM) organized an informative lecture by a curator of the British Museum on the sidelines of the fourth Dubai International Exhibition of the Arabic Calligraphy Art at the Dubai Cultural and Scientific Association.
Selected works of 21 award-winning contemporary calligraphers from nine countries are on display at the seven-day show, being held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Executive Council. The works cover verses from the Holy Quran, Arabic Poetry, Proverbs and Sayings.
A total of 70 selected works of 21 renowned Arabic calligraphers from nine countries, including six from the UAE, are on display.
The calligraphers participating in the exhibition are from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Sudan and the US.
Exhibition will be open to the public from 5 pm to 10 pm.
The exhibition is sponsored by National Bank of Dubai (NBD), Dubai Cultural and Scientific Association, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and IRCICA.
The exhibition has been organized in cooperation with the Istanbul-based Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture (IRCICA), an arm of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).
Arabic Calligraphy: Word and Form was the titled of the talk by Dr. Venetia Porter, Curator of the Department of Asia at The British Museum in London.
The lecture started with a tribute to the Sudanese calligrapher Osman Waqialla who died in January.
"I studied Arabic inscriptions but it was from him that I first learnt to respect Arabic calligraphy as something very much alive. Simple is definitely not the word I would have used to describe what is one of the most complex and rigorous of skills," she remarked.
The main theme of the lecture was to talk about Arabic calligraphy and writing from ancient to modern works in the context of the collections of the British Museum: how they were exhibited, studied and displayed and the activities around calligraphy organized by the British Museum during the past three years.
She highlighted a few important objects in the collection of the British Museum with Arabic calligraphy from the first few centuries of the Hijra.
These included tombstones and inscribed personal seals. The exhibition offered the opportunity for calligraphy demonstrations which attracted many visitors.
In 2006, the British Museum organized an exhibition Word into Art, artists of the Modern Middle East, in partnership with Dubai Holding. This exhibition featured artists from across the Middle East who use writing in their work. The basis for the exhibition was the collection of the British Museum which has been actively collecting contemporary Middle Eastern art for the last 15 years.
The British Museum considers exhibitions and activities such as this playing a vital role in promoting greater understanding of Middle Eastern and Islamic artistic traditions in Britain and elsewhere. It is hoped that Word into Art may be shown in Dubai in the near future.
-Ends-
MOHAMMED ABDUL MANNAN
Executive Media Relations
Telephone +971 4 201 0421
+971 4 223 00 22
Fax +971 4 201 0412
mmannan@dubaitourism.ae
© Press Release 2007
