One of the western art world’s most seismic shifts – the move from figurative to abstract styles – borrows a great deal of inspiration from the East.
Hieroglyphics, Kufic script and Zen calligraphy were among the writing systems that artists such as Paul Klee, Joan Miro and Andre Masson, and Wassily Kandinsky studied and dissected to bring new forms and shapes into their canvases.
Louvre Abu Dhabi’s latest exhibition, Abstraction and Calligraphy – Towards a Universal Language, examines how artists in the early 20th century sought to establish a visual vocabulary that would appeal to all, borrowing heavily from Asian and Islamic calligraphy as their source material.
The show opens to the public on Wednesday, February 17 and includes a total of 80 abstract artworks by pioneering artists from the western canon and the Arab world.
Split into four sections, the exhibition examines abstract art’s elements – from its use of symbols to its expressionist tendencies and links to calligraphy.
Such cultural connections have been acknowledged by the artists themselves, and the works they have produced are often more famed and memorable than their references.
This speaks to the prominence of western art history, but Louvre Abu Dhabi attempts to emphasise the role of visual art from the East by juxtaposing works with artefacts and contemporary paintings by Arab and Asian artists.
"The masterworks in Abstraction and Calligraphy, some on display in the region for the very first time, are exceptional for many reasons," says Mohamed Al Mubarak, chairman of the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi. "Not only because they have been crafted by some of the world’s most celebrated artists, but because they tell stories of discovery and inspiration across time, cultures and geographies.
Pictograms, the first section, includes a stone slab with Egyptian inscriptions from around 170 to 163 BC. It anchors works by Klee, Miro and Kandinsky, displayed alongside, which brim with pictorial characters and forms.
In Klee's Oriental Bliss, for example, the artist starts with a patchwork of luminous colours, adding a scatter of symbols reminiscent of pictograms in ancient writing systems. Klee was particularly fascinated by Egyptian hieroglyphs, in addition to Chinese and Arabic alphabets.
Unable to understand them, he focused instead on their shapes and geometric qualities.
The next section, Signs, moves from schematic to more fluid forms inspired by Chinese and Japanese calligraphy.
In the aftermath of the world wars emerged modernist and, by extension, post-modernist thought, with artists and writers experimenting with new forms of expression. In art, there was also an interest in the spiritual, in the way that Zen calligraphers linked their practices to explorations of consciousness.
These influences are seen in Masson's eye-catching scarlet painting Panic, covered with delicate strokes, and Georges Mathieu's The Princess Honora's Ring, which features a sweeping calligraphic form against a white background.
Lineaments, the show’s third section, presents abstract art at its most freed forms. In the 1940s, artists concentrated on movement and gesture, leading to bold strokes and drips as seen in action paintings, as well as layered experiments with colour. This style of abstract expressionism carries abstract art’s most well-known features and set about expressing the subconscious on the canvas.
Willem de Kooning's stunning work Untitled X, wherein blue and red waves flow and overlap like calligraphic writing, exemplifies this, as well as Jean Dubuffet's paintings of spontaneous, child-like scrawls.
Abstraction and Calligraphy - Towards a Universal Language ends with a focus on calligraphy.
Miro, in particular, saw the art form as the fusion of painting and poetry, and artists that followed after him, including Brion Gysin and Christian Dotremont, pushed this idea further through “painted poetry”, which is more about visual forms than language itself.
From a distance, the works of Jean Degottex and Mark Tobey appear as calligraphic scrolls, but a closer look reveals they only mimic these characters as a way to evoke the written word.
Artists such as Ghada Amer and Mona Hatoum go beyond the canvas or paper, giving words dimensionality with sculptural works.
Hatoum's Found (Wire Drawings) curl like letters of ancient text, though they are actually twisted pieces of metal collected from the ruins of Lebanon's civil war. Amer's sculpture The Words I Love Most consists of cast bronze that spells out Arabic words of love and humanity.
The exhibition also includes two new commissions by artists eL Seed, who lives and works in Dubai, and Sanki King, a Jeddah-born Pakistani artist who is now in Karachi.
The latter's Here I Am calligraffiti digital projection shows intricate rings that surround an eye, with passages inspired by a Muhammad Iqbal poem that express a "cosmic wholeness".
eL Seed’s eight-panel calligraphy of deep blues and oranges, meanwhile reads, “art is the shortest path from one man to another”, a hopeful summary of what Louvre Abu Dhabi’s latest show is all about.
Things Heard & Seen
Directed by: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, James Norton
2/5
BRAZIL%20SQUAD
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Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
Starring: Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Rating: 4/5
'Brazen'
Director: Monika Mitchell
Starring: Alyssa Milano, Sam Page, Colleen Wheeler
Rating: 3/5
SPECS
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Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
If you go
Flight connections to Ulaanbaatar are available through a variety of hubs, including Seoul and Beijing, with airlines including Mongolian Airlines and Korean Air. While some nationalities, such as Americans, don’t need a tourist visa for Mongolia, others, including UAE citizens, can obtain a visa on arrival, while others including UK citizens, need to obtain a visa in advance. Contact the Mongolian Embassy in the UAE for more information.
Nomadic Road offers expedition-style trips to Mongolia in January and August, and other destinations during most other months. Its nine-day August 2020 Mongolia trip will cost from $5,250 per person based on two sharing, including airport transfers, two nights’ hotel accommodation in Ulaanbaatar, vehicle rental, fuel, third party vehicle liability insurance, the services of a guide and support team, accommodation, food and entrance fees; nomadicroad.com
A fully guided three-day, two-night itinerary at Three Camel Lodge costs from $2,420 per person based on two sharing, including airport transfers, accommodation, meals and excursions including the Yol Valley and Flaming Cliffs. A return internal flight from Ulaanbaatar to Dalanzadgad costs $300 per person and the flight takes 90 minutes each way; threecamellodge.com
OTHER IPL BOWLING RECORDS
Best bowling figures: 6-14 – Sohail Tanvir (for Rajasthan Royals against Chennai Super Kings in 2008)
Best average: 16.36 – Andrew Tye
Best economy rate: 6.53 – Sunil Narine
Best strike-rate: 12.83 – Andrew Tye
Best strike-rate in an innings: 1.50 – Suresh Raina (for Chennai Super Kings against Rajasthan Royals in 2011)
Most runs conceded in an innings: 70 – Basil Thampi (for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2018)
Most hat-tricks: 3 – Amit Mishra
Most dot-balls: 1,128 – Harbhajan Singh
Most maiden overs bowled: 14 – Praveen Kumar
Most four-wicket hauls: 6 – Sunil Narine
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder turbo
Transmission: CVT
Power: 170bhp
Torque: 220Nm
Price: Dh98,900
Russia's Muslim Heartlands
Dominic Rubin, Oxford
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre, six-cylinder
Transmission: six-speed manual
Power: 395bhp
Torque: 420Nm
Price: from Dh321,200
On sale: now
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
The biog
Age: 30
Position: Senior lab superintendent at Emirates Global Aluminium
Education: Bachelor of science in chemical engineering, post graduate degree in light metal reduction technology
Favourite part of job: The challenge, because it is challenging
Favourite quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” Gandi
more from Janine di Giovanni
The biog
Name: Salem Alkarbi
Age: 32
Favourite Al Wasl player: Alexandre Oliveira
First started supporting Al Wasl: 7
Biggest rival: Al Nasr
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
'Cheb%20Khaled'
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
LA LIGA FIXTURES
Saturday (All UAE kick-off times)
Valencia v Atletico Madrid (midnight)
Mallorca v Alaves (4pm)
Barcelona v Getafe (7pm)
Villarreal v Levante (9.30pm)
Sunday
Granada v Real Volladolid (midnight)
Sevilla v Espanyol (3pm)
Leganes v Real Betis (5pm)
Eibar v Real Sociedad (7pm)
Athletic Bilbao v Osasuna (9.30pm)
Monday
Real Madrid v Celta Vigo (midnight)
Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner,
Canongate
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Lamsa
Founder: Badr Ward
Launched: 2014
Employees: 60
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: EdTech
Funding to date: $15 million
Dark Souls: Remastered
Developer: From Software (remaster by QLOC)
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Price: Dh199
RESULT
Arsenal 1 Chelsea 2
Arsenal: Aubameyang (13')
Chelsea: Jorginho (83'), Abraham (87')
UAE FIXTURES
October 18 – 7.30pm, UAE v Oman, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 19 – 7.30pm, UAE v Ireland, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 21 – 2.10pm, UAE v Hong Kong, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 22 – 2.10pm, UAE v Jersey, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 24 – 10am, UAE v Nigeria, Abu Dhabi Cricket Oval 1
October 27 – 7.30pm, UAE v Canada, Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
October 29 – 2.10pm, Playoff 1 – A2 v B3; 7.30pm, Playoff 2 – A3 v B2, at Dubai International Stadium.
October 30 – 2.10pm, Playoff 3 – A4 v Loser of Play-off 1; 7.30pm, Playoff 4 – B4 v Loser of Play-off 2 at Dubai International Stadium
November 1 – 2.10pm, Semifinal 1 – B1 v Winner of Play-off 1; 7.30pm, Semifinal 2 – A1 v Winner of Play-off 2 at Dubai International Stadium
November 2 – 2.10pm, Third place Playoff – B1 v Winner of Play-off 1; 7.30pm, Final, at Dubai International Stadium
THE%20STRANGERS'%20CASE
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
The years Ramadan fell in May
FIGHT CARD
Bantamweight Hamza Bougamza (MAR) v Jalal Al Daaja (JOR)
Catchweight 67kg Mohamed El Mesbahi (MAR) v Fouad Mesdari (ALG)
Lighweight Abdullah Mohammed Ali (UAE) v Abdelhak Amhidra (MAR)
Catchweight 73kg Mostafa Ibrahim Radi (PAL) v Yazid Chouchane (ALG)
Middleweight Yousri Belgaroui (TUN) v Badreddine Diani (MAR)
Catchweight 78kg Rashed Dawood (UAE) v Adnan Bushashy (ALG)
Middleweight Sallaheddine Dekhissi (MAR) v Abdel Emam (EGY)
Catchweight 65kg Rachid Hazoume (MAR) v Yanis Ghemmouri (ALG)
Lighweight Mohammed Yahya (UAE) v Azouz Anwar (EGY)
Catchweight 79kg Omar Hussein (PAL) v Souhil Tahiri (ALG)
Middleweight Tarek Suleiman (SYR) v Laid Zerhouni (ALG)
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan
Directed by: RS Prasanna
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar
What is tokenisation?
Tokenisation refers to the issuance of a blockchain token, which represents a virtually tradable real, tangible asset. A tokenised asset is easily transferable, offers good liquidity, returns and is easily traded on the secondary markets.
PROFILE OF CURE.FIT
Started: July 2016
Founders: Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori
Based: Bangalore, India
Sector: Health & wellness
Size: 500 employees
Investment: $250 million
Investors: Accel, Oaktree Capital (US); Chiratae Ventures, Epiq Capital, Innoven Capital, Kalaari Capital, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Piramal Group’s Anand Piramal, Pratithi Investment Trust, Ratan Tata (India); and Unilever Ventures (Unilever’s global venture capital arm)
Landfill in numbers
• Landfill gas is composed of 50 per cent methane
• Methane is 28 times more harmful than Co2 in terms of global warming
• 11 million total tonnes of waste are being generated annually in Abu Dhabi
• 18,000 tonnes per year of hazardous and medical waste is produced in Abu Dhabi emirate per year
• 20,000 litres of cooking oil produced in Abu Dhabi’s cafeterias and restaurants every day is thrown away
• 50 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s waste is from construction and demolition
![Installation view of Louvre Abu Dhabi's new exhibition Abstraction and Calligraphy - Towards a Universal Language shows Paul Klee's 'Oriental Bliss', right, on display next to Wassily Kandinsky's 'Trente [Thirty]'. Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi; Seeing Things](https://www.thenationalnews.com/resizer/v2/3TOWWIGJXEWUW5C56KWRITZIOI.jpg?smart=true&auth=bd92db87e3a7d761736d52422dbf44946db21834708c073f4556b85b5bae3c04&width=800&height=450)
![Paul Klee's 'Oriental Bliss', right, on display next to Wassily Kandinsky's 'Trente [Thirty]'. Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi; Seeing Things](https://www.thenationalnews.com/resizer/v2/3TOWWIGJXEWUW5C56KWRITZIOI.jpg?smart=true&auth=bd92db87e3a7d761736d52422dbf44946db21834708c073f4556b85b5bae3c04&width=800&height=532)
