Shad Abdulkarim is building a Kurdish museum in Iraq. Pawan Singh / The National
Shad Abdulkarim is building a Kurdish museum in Iraq. Pawan Singh / The National
Shad Abdulkarim is building a Kurdish museum in Iraq. Pawan Singh / The National
Shad Abdulkarim is building a Kurdish museum in Iraq. Pawan Singh / The National

Dubai collector Shad Abdulkarim plans to build first Kurdish museum of art


Melissa Gronlund
  • English
  • Arabic

“When you say Iraqi art, you think of it as an Arab art form,” the Kurdish-Iraqi collector Shad Abdulkarim says. “But what about the Kurdish artists, what about the Turkmen artists, what about the Yazidi artists? There isn’t a focus on these different ethnicities, but they are also part of Iraqi art history.”

Abdulkarim, who is partly based in Dubai, plans to build the first Kurdish museum of modern art in Iraq: the Salam Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, which is due to open in his native ­Sulaymaniyah next year. 

“The purpose of the museum is to put a little more focus on these lesser-known artists,” Abdulkarim says. “And the lesser-known works that are also quite important.”

The young patron behind the museum is not entirely what one would expect. When he is in Dubai, he lives at the Holiday Inn in Internet City and works as a ticket clerk at the art-house movie theatre Cinema Akil. 

Asma Khoory's 'Recollection' (2018) will be on view as part of the new Salam Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, due to open next year in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Asma Khoory's 'Recollection' (2018) will be on view as part of the new Salam Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, due to open next year in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“When people from the galleries in Alserkal Avenue see me, they recognise me from Art Dubai, when I’ve got my suit on, my sidara [hat] on.

“They say, ‘aren’t you the guy who wanted to buy the painting? Aren’t you the guy who actually bought the painting? Aren’t you supposed to be rich?’” he laughs. “No. I work at Cinema Akil. I work at the box office. I sell tickets.” 

Abdulkarim is probably less hard-up than he is letting on – he comes from a prominent Kurdish family in Sulaymaniyah, and his great-grandfather was the Grand Mufti of Khanaqin – but the Salam Museum will have an experimental feel.

Abdulkarim is a budding filmmaker who has only been collecting for two years, mostly fuelled by the proceeds of one of his father’s business interests in Iraq, which he now oversees. The collection will be comprised of around 40 works of Abdulkarim’s, a few loans from Kurdish families, and about 150 works donated by his uncle, Diar Ahmad, the former CEO of Asiacell, who has a substantial collection of Kurdish work.

The emphasis will be on Kurdish artists, such as Omar Darwish, Rostam Aghala and Ismail Khayat – currently little-known artists whose profile Abdulkarim hopes to elevate – as well as others from the region, such as the Palestinian Kamal Boullata and young Emirati Asma Khoory.  

'Untitled', a 2017 work by the Kurdish artist Goran Mohammed responds to the chemical bombing of the Iraq city of Halabja during the Anfal, an important subject of contemporary Kurdish art. The painting will be part of the Salam museum when it opens next year.
'Untitled', a 2017 work by the Kurdish artist Goran Mohammed responds to the chemical bombing of the Iraq city of Halabja during the Anfal, an important subject of contemporary Kurdish art. The painting will be part of the Salam museum when it opens next year.

Sulaymaniyah is one of the main cities in the Kurdish areas in the north of Iraq, which currently operates under a semi-autonomous government. Often known as the “Paris of Iraq”, it has deep cultural roots, and boasts a few galleries, an Institute of Fine Arts and an arts department at its university.

Abdulkarim is currently transforming the first floor of a building into 700 square metres of cultural space, made up of exhibition galleries, an art library and Iraq's first art-house cinema. ("That's why I work at Cinema Akil," he says.) 

The Kurdish context will be key. This will be the first opportunity for many local residents to grasp the role of Kurdish artists in the Iraqi art scene. 

'Untitled', a 2017 work by the Kurdish artist Goran Mohammed responds to the chemical bombing of the Iraq city of Halabja during the Anfal, an important subject of contemporary Kurdish art. The painting will be part of the Salam museum when it opens next year.
'Untitled', a 2017 work by the Kurdish artist Goran Mohammed responds to the chemical bombing of the Iraq city of Halabja during the Anfal, an important subject of contemporary Kurdish art. The painting will be part of the Salam museum when it opens next year.

"Kurdish work expresses the thoughts, theories and beliefs of Kurdish people, which is distinct from Arab art," he says. "We have our own language, our own traditions, our own clothes even, our own ways of doing things. A lot of works are political or nationalist, and many are landscape works – we're a mountainous region, so we paint our lakes and greenery."

A number respond to the Anfal campaign, when Saddam Hussein’s forces sought to quell Kurdish opposition and bombed and gassed hundreds of Kurdish villages between 1986 and 1989. An estimated 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds died. 

'Hope' (1987) by Omar Darwish
'Hope' (1987) by Omar Darwish

The scene is the subject of Hope, for example, by Darwish. Executed on fibrewood, the story goes that he painted it the very night he fled from his bombarded village – a date, March 25, 1987, that he inscribed into the artwork.

"It took me a year to get that work," Abdulkarim says. "It belonged to a family friend, and stood out because it was the only painting in the house. Our friend had been with him, the night they ran away from the village. He said he painted it out of misery and out of pain." But the man depicted in the painting is not staring at his burning village. Rather, he is peering at the small sprig of a plant growing in the foreground – a message reflected in the work's optimistic title.

The violence of Iraq’s recent past, documented by many of these artists, is still near. Indeed, its presence also has a part to play in Abdulkarim’s campaign to build the museum. He initially started collecting with money from one of his father’s businesses.

As the idea took shape, Abdulkarim sold the apartment he owned in Dubai in order to raise funds – hence his current abode of the Holiday Inn in Internet City – and his father became more invested, emotionally as well as financially. "My father's support also became deeper and he started to believe in it more," Abdulkarim says. "We were at the Barjeel show at the Sharjah Art Museum, and saw A Wolf Howls by Dia Azzawi.

“The painting is based on a poem by Muzaffar Al Nawab. My grandfather was a prominent communist, and he spent seven years of prison time, in Hilla jail, with Al Nawab. When my father saw the work, he said the hairs stood up on the back of his neck.”

The young collector hopes, too, that his museum will be one of a number of projects elevating the standing of Iraqi minorities. He notes, for example, that the Kurdish artist Serwan Baran will represent Iraq at the Venice Biennale, which opens this week. “I want to help Iraq embrace its ­minorities,” he says, “And to help them embrace their country’s artworks.”

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Stars: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone

Four out of five stars 

The candidates

Dr Ayham Ammora, scientist and business executive

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MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League semi-finals, first leg
Liverpool v Roma

When: April 24, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Anfield, Liverpool
Live: BeIN Sports HD
Second leg: May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome

Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Ogram%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2017%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Karim%20Kouatly%20and%20Shafiq%20Khartabil%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20On-demand%20staffing%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2050%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMore%20than%20%244%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%20round%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Series%20A%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EGlobal%20Ventures%2C%20Aditum%20and%20Oraseya%20Capital%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
SQUADS

South Africa:
JP Duminy (capt), Hashim Amla, Farhaan Behardien, Quinton de Kock (wkt), AB de Villiers, Robbie Frylinck, Beuran Hendricks, David Miller, Mangaliso Mosehle (wkt), Dane Paterson, Aaron Phangiso, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Tabraiz Shamsi

Bangladesh
Shakib Al Hasan (capt), Imrul Kayes, Liton Das (wkt), Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim (wkt), Nasir Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Shafiul Islam, Soumya Sarkar, Taskin Ahmed

Fixtures
Oct 26: Bloemfontein
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
What are NFTs?

Are non-fungible tokens a currency, asset, or a licensing instrument? Arnab Das, global market strategist EMEA at Invesco, says they are mix of all of three.

You can buy, hold and use NFTs just like US dollars and Bitcoins. “They can appreciate in value and even produce cash flows.”

However, while money is fungible, NFTs are not. “One Bitcoin, dollar, euro or dirham is largely indistinguishable from the next. Nothing ties a dollar bill to a particular owner, for example. Nor does it tie you to to any goods, services or assets you bought with that currency. In contrast, NFTs confer specific ownership,” Mr Das says.

This makes NFTs closer to a piece of intellectual property such as a work of art or licence, as you can claim royalties or profit by exchanging it at a higher value later, Mr Das says. “They could provide a sustainable income stream.”

This income will depend on future demand and use, which makes NFTs difficult to value. “However, there is a credible use case for many forms of intellectual property, notably art, songs, videos,” Mr Das says.

Spare

Profile

Company name: Spare

Started: March 2018

Co-founders: Dalal Alrayes and Saurabh Shah

Based: UAE

Sector: FinTech

Investment: Own savings. Going for first round of fund-raising in March 2019

PROFILE OF SWVL

Started: April 2017

Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport

Size: 450 employees

Investment: approximately $80 million

Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani

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Power: 153hp at 6,000rpm

Torque: 200Nm at 4,000rpm

Transmission: 6-speed auto

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Specs

Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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