Here is June’s events and exhibitions list happening throughout the month, this list is updated regularly so keep checking, scroll down to see the latest as events and exhibitions are listed per date ascendingly.
To check ongoing exhibitions from May, click here.
In addition to the monthly list, I will add “What’s On?!” a link to most active initiatives, hubs and museums across the Middle East & the world such as V&A, MoMA, ArtintheCity, AlSerkal Avenue, Ashkal Alwan and more!
If you have a non-profit or commercial gallery and like to be featured in upcoming lists, drop us an email.
What’s On?!
Alhondiga Cultural & Art Center:
Bayt Lothan: Classes | Exhibitions | Workshops
Contemporary Art Platform (CAP) Kuwait:
V&A:
The Third Line
Dubai, June 4: Summer Show 2014
Occasion: The Third Line will be closing the season with Summer Show 2014, presenting a selection of artworks by artists represented by the gallery and those who have shown at the gallery in the past.
With a series of media ranging across photography, painting, sculpture and installations, Summer Show 2014 will be showcasing the works of Arwa Abouon, Ala Ebtekar, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Golnaz Fathi, Hassan Hajjaj, Huda Lutfi, Laleh Khorramian, Pouran Jinchi, Rana Begum, Rhea Karam, Sara Naim and others.
The exhibition will include new works, as well as those that have never been shown in Dubai, bringing home works such as Laleh Khorramian’s special project from Art Basel 2013; photographs by Sara Naim, one of the youngest and newest artists on the gallery roster; Ala Ebtekar’s lightboxes from Frieze London 2013; and earlier works by Pouran Jinchi from the 90s, amongst others.
Opening Reception: Wednesday, June 4 at 6 PM
Duration: June 4 – July 23, 2014
Location: The Third Line, Dubai
Gallery Wendi Norris
San Francisco, June 5: Christine Elfman’s Fix & Fade
Occasion: Gallery Wendi Norris is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of works by Christine Elfman, recipient of the 2014 San Francisco Artist Award. Through a selection of photographs and paintings, Elfman’s Fix & Fade explores the longing for stability while acknowledging the reality of change.
Elfman is a Bay Area artist working in photography, painting and film. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Elfman holds a BFA in Painting from Cornell University and an MFA in Photography from the California College of the Arts (CCA). She received the San Francisco Foundation Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship, the Graduate Merit Scholarship at CCA, and the Center for Emerging Visual Artists Fellowship.
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 5, 2014, 6 – 8 pm
Duration: June 5 – August 2, 2014
Location: Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco.
San Francisco, June 5: Val Britton’s Passage
Occasion: San Francisco’s Val Britton will install her first solo exhibition at Gallery Wendi Norris. Britton’s exhibition coincides with her immense public installation at the San Francisco International Airport and follows on her residency and corporate commission for Facebook. Britton will transform the gallery’s space with a massive installation of her hand cut assorted papers in her thematic series of cartography inspired landscapes.
Opening Reception: JUNE 05, 2014 from 6:00-8:00PM
Duration: June 5 – August 2, 2014
Location: Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco.
Dar Al Mussawir
Beirut, June 5: Rashwan Abdelbaki’s Light Up Darkness
Occasion: Art exhibition by Rashwan Abdelbaki in Dar Al Mussawir. “Moment, Music, Family” through an art exhibition combining etching, mixed painting, and digital art.
Rashwan is a Syrian artist with Bachelor degree in Fine Arts from Damascus University. Participated in solo and collective exhibitions in Syria and Lebanon.
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 5 at 6pm.
Duration: June 5th and 19th.
Location: Dar Al Mussawir, Hamra (Beirut)
GALERIE DANIEL TEMPLON
Brussels, June 5: HE AN’s Wind Light as a Thief
Occasion: Galerie Templon is showing a series of neon installations by conceptual Chinese artist He An, never before seen in Brussels. He An’s light sculptures are made up of characters stolen – with the complicity of the police and the local mafia – from the signs that light up his native city of Wuhan.
Using these stolen ideograms, often damaged by the weather and the course of time, the artist recreates the names of people who are dear to him. We see the name of his father, a martyr of the regime, and of a Japanese erotic actress, the illicit heroine of his youth when her banned videos circulated secretly in China.He An’s work is autobiographic and obsessive: he offers us an approach to contemporary Chinese society that is both intimate and subversive.
Opening Reception: Thursday, 5 June from 5:30 – 8:30PM
Duration: JUNE 5 – JULY 19, 2014
Location: GALERIE DANIEL TEMPLON, Brussels.
Paris, June 7: Norbert Bisky’s Works on Paper
Occasion: German painter Norbert Bisky is returning to Galerie Daniel Templon this summer with a new and spectacular series of works on paper at the Impasse Beaubourg space. The artist is releasing his demons with a series of previously unseen watercolours and oil paintings on paper that play on the conflict between the life instinct and the death instinct.
Norbert Bisky’s figurative style of painting, conjuring up the socialist realism he experienced as a child in GDR, is striking in its use of shimmering colours and its apocalyptic visions. Peopled by beautiful young men, his work depicts ambiguous scenes that lie somewhere between natural catastrophe, battlefield and festivities. Norbert Bisky likes to create a link between chaos and beauty. He combines elements taken from our contemporary hedonistic culture with reminiscences of past ideologies.
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 7 from noon to 8PM
Duration: JUNE 7 – JULY 25, 2014
Location: GALERIE DANIEL TEMPLON, Paris.
Paris, June 7: Chiharu Shiota’s Small Room
Occasion: Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is returning to Galerie Daniel Templon with A new project named Small Room. The artist has transformed the gallery space with a spectacular installation of hanging suitcases and miniature sculptures in woven thread.
Chiharu Shiota combines performance, body art and installations in a process that places the body at the centre of her sculptural work. She is famed for her vast structures in black and red wool thread that imprison various evocative objects, such as musical instruments, dolls’ dresses, shoes and beds. The graphic network that connects the elements invokes the power of interpersonal bonds, the subject’s inevitable dependency on her or his roots, the very relationships that are harmed by the individualism of modern Western culture. “The threads are woven together. They become entangled. They tear. They unravel. They are like a mirror of the emotions,” writes Chiharu Shiota.
In Hamburg, Chiharu Shiota joined Marina Abramovic’s class in the 1990s. Her artistic language was influenced by pioneering artists Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse and Ana Mendieta, both in terms of the physical experimentation and focus on the unconscious, and the choice of delicate materials like fabrics and thread, traditionally associated with femininity.
Opening Reception: SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 2014 FROM NOON TO 8PM
Duration: JUNE 7 – JULY 25, 2014
Location:GALERIE DANIEL TEMPLON, Paris.
Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch
Rome, June 9: ICONIC | IRONIC
Occasion: Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch is proud to inaugurate the exhibition ICONIC | IRONIC; a group show of three talented illustrators: Neal Fox, Fausto Gilberti and Hell’O Monsters who make their singular elegy to the great masters of art, with an ironic and playfully sarcastic work of desecration-consecration. Their respect and admiration for these masters is demonstrated through the iconoclastic confrontation and comparison seen this apparently irreverent and light-hearted show of their work.
The three illustrators attempt to interpret these great artists, praise them and go beyond them with a series of witty laudatory and deconstructive citations. A rather impertinent homage by these three which stems from their admiration and deference of the protagonists of the “old school”, who still represent powerful references and inspiration today for their immediate recognition, their unrivalled professions and personal lives.
In this exhibition they become source of inspiration for surreal and dreamlike suggestions, puzzles and paradoxes in a fun and caustic journey that enhances through their drawing technique, the strong individuality of each illustrator, transversely linked by an ironic, mocking trait.
Opening Reception: Monday June 9, 2014 at 6 PM
Duration: June 9 – September 13, 2014
Location: Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch, Rome.
A4 Space
Dubai: June 9: Mon Oncle Film Screening
Occasion: Academy Award winning comedy ‘Mon Oncle’ (My Uncle),1958 by Jaques Tati will be screened at our A4 Space by Alserkal Avenue- the hub for arts &! With classic slapstick setpieces and wonderful scenes of inner and suburban Paris, Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle is undoubtedly one of the most beloved comedies of all time.
Young Gerald Arpel (Alain Bécourt) lives a well-organised life with his equally well-organised parents in a house filled with contraptions and devices that make it, well, well-organised! Enter his eccentric and old-fashioned uncle, Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati). With effortlessly gangly grace, Jacques Tati muddles bewilderedly through the most mechanical of homes, creating havoc along the way. Whether employed in Mr Arpel’s factory or helping Mrs Arpel host a garden party, Monsieur Hulot shows that a mod con is no match for an old pro!
With the unmistakable combination of fedora, trenchcoat, umbrella and pipe, Mon Oncle marks the moment where the character of Monsieur Hulot went from cult figure to cultural icon. A massive international sensation on release, the film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1958. This film is a joyous experience, whether you’re meeting Mon Oncle as a new acquaintance or an old friend.
Opening Reception: Monday June 9 at 7pm
Location: A4 Space, Alserkal Avenue, Al Qouz (Dubai)
Al Riwaq Art Space
Manama, June 9: Memories Recreated
Occasion: Al Riwaq Art Space invites you to the opening of a photography exhibition in collaboration with CanvasBH, featuring artists Gaye Bentham, Haya Al-Khalifa, Isa Swain, Rasha Yousif.
Gaye Bentham was born in and raised in England came to Bahrain in 1983 and uses her passion for photography to capture emotive images that communicate the beauty, wonder and mystery she finds in the world. Haya Al Khalifa is a Documentary & Street photographer living in Bahrain. British-Bahraini artist Isa Swain works with different media, including photography, digital video and film, sound, performance art and installations. His practice engages with the space between things and with issues of the alien and the disconnected. Rasha Yousif who is born and raised in Muharraq (Bahrain) is passionate about documentary and travel photography focusing on culture, architecture and traditional ways of living. She captures moving objects or vibrant colors are what keeps her photos alive.
Opening Reception: Monday, June 9 at 7:00pm
Duration: June 9 – June 24
Location: Al Riwaq Art Space, Manama (Bahrain).
Dar Al Funoon
Kuwait, June 10: Ibraheem Al-Attiyah
Occasion: Dar Al Funoon cordially invites you to an exhibition of works by Ibraheem Al-Attiyah. Born in Kuwait, Ibraheem Al-Attiyah earned his Bachelors in Art Education and is currently working as a teacher at the Formative Art Institute. In addition, Al-Attiyah worked as a portrait artist in Awan newspaper and Al-Majaalis magazine and has illustrated several childrens books. His works deal mainly with calligraphic letters and Al-Attiyah is recognized internationally after his participation in the 2014 Bonhams art auction in London and the JAMM auction.
Opening Reception: Tuesday, June 10th at 7pm
Duration: June 10th to 26th, 2014.
Beirut Art Center
Beirut, June 11: 3rd Fundraising Auction
Occasion: Beirut Art Center is a non-profit space dedicated to contemporary art in Lebanon. The Center is holding its third fundraising auction, the proceeds from which will go toward securing a part of the funds required for the operating costs and upcoming activities. The artworks included in the auction have been generously donated by artists who have exhibited at BAC. Online bids will transfer to the live event.
Viewing: May 29 – June 11, 2014
Auction Date: Wednesday, June 11
Location: Beirut Art Center, Beirut
El Bab Gallery
Cairo, June 17: AMEN – A Prayer for the World
Occasion: El Bab Gallery proud to invite you to the 2014 CARAVAN Exhibition of Visual Art titled “AMEN – A Prayer for the World” sponsored by SODIC. This artistic project aims to express the fundamental power and hope in the universe for all people. The exhibition is an art initiative that serves as an aspirational expression for both the people of Egypt and the rest of the world, which will be hosted by religious dignitaries.
AMEN-A Prayer for the World is co-curated by CARAVAN founder Rev. Paul-Gordon Chandler and participating celebrated Egyptian artist Reda Abdel Rahman. The Exhibition will be on display in Egypt and the United States, opening first with 30 Egyptian sculptures in Cairo, Egypt in collaboration with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture on the Cairo Opera House grounds.
The 30 Egyptian artists participating include renowned, established and emerging artists are: Ahmed Shiha, Ahmed Abdel Krim, Amr El Kafrawy, Ammar Abou Bakr, Ahmed Talal, Dahlia Refaat, Emad Abdel Wahab, Farghaly Abdel Hafiz, Farid Fadel, Gamil Shafik, Gamal Lamie, Hamdy Reda, Hossam Sakr, Hesham Nawwar, Hisham El Zeiny, Khaled Sorour, Karim Abdel Malak, Mahmoud Hamdy, Mohamed Abou El Naga, Mohamed Abla, Mohamed El Masry, Mohamed Shaker, Marwa Adel, Maha George, Neveen Taher, Reda Abdel Rahman, Salah El Meligy, Souad Abdel Rasoul, Tarek El Sheikh and Wael Darwish.
Opening Reception: Tuesday, June 17at 7:00pm
Duration: from June 17th to July 1st
Location: El Bab Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, Cairo Opera House
Al Mahha Art Magazine 