Hamed Abdalla: ARABÉCÉDAIRE

This solo exhibition is dedicated to the influential Egyptian modernist painter Hamed Abdalla (1917–1985). ARABÉCÉDAIRE explores Abdalla’s extensive archives and library, looking at him both as an artist and as a researcher. Curated by Morad Montazami, this will be the first exhibition in the UK of this significant artist.

This exhibition is the first in a special programme of exhibitions, celebrating the tenth anniversary of The Mosaic Rooms. It forms the first of a three part series curated by Morad Montazami entitled Cosmic Roads: Relocating Modernism presenting important modernist artists from three countries, Egypt, Iran and Morocco. The programme will also feature an alternating strand of group shows of contemporary art from these three countries organised in partnership with regional institutions and curators.

The title ARABÉCÉDAIRE is rooted in the French word abécédaire meaning a visual alphabet primer. Abdalla’s work centred on his development of what he called the “creative word,” written words expressed in paint, blending abstraction and human forms. The exhibition looks at six words that were significant to the artist: Lovers, Revolution, Nubia, Caves, Lettrism and Klee. It uses them to examine the development of his visual language and political ideas through previously unseen material and archives.

This exhibition will explore Abdalla’s transnational journeys, with connections extending to the European CoBrA group and the non-aligned movements (the global movement of states who remained independent from the super powers of the time). Through mapping and archival displays it will show Abdalla as a kind of visual archaeologist of “Arabness.” 

The exhibition’s curator, Morad Montazami comments: “I consider Hamed Abdalla the epitome of Arab cosmopolitanism. He went beyond the ‘East and West’ abstract categories, to set up a new language of what he called ‘Letterist Expressionism’ and ‘Talismanic modernism.’ In Abdalla’s paintings and archives we see a whole underground art history take on a life of its own.”

About Hamed Abdalla
Hamed Abdalla (1917–1985) a self-taught artist, gained public recognition early in his career. He had his first solo exhibition in 1941, before going on to show widely throughout Egypt in the 1940s including a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art Cairo (1949). His first trip to Paris saw him exhibit at the Gallery Bernheim-Jeune (1950), followed by a group show at Palais Du Louvre, and a show at Egyptian Institute, London (1951). From the mid 1950s he was exhibiting throughout Europe, the US and Asia, including a group show at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (1956). He left Egypt for Copenhagen in 1956 but was committed to the pan Arab movement. He exhibited widely in the Middle East and North Africa. Solo shows included National Museum of Damascus (1967), Gallery One, Beirut (1968); collective exhibitions included an exhibition for Palestine, UNESCO, Paris (1982) and Contemporary Arab Art, Museum of Modern Art, Tunis (1984).

About Morad Montazami
Morad Montazami is an art historian and curator. His research interests are cosmopolitan modernisms and histories of the avant-garde between trans-Arab, Iranian and Mediterranean zones. He has published essays on Farid Belkahia, Bahman Mohassess, Behjat Sadr, Mohamed Melehi, Mehdi Moutashar, Latif Al Ani, among others. He curated the exhibitions Bagdad Mon Amour at Institut des cultures d’Islam, Paris (2018), Fugitive Volumes and Faouzi Laatiris: Catalogue déraisonné at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rabat (2016) and co-curated the exhibition Unedited History: Iran 1960-2014 at Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris and MAXXI, Rome (2014). He is the director of Zaman Books Publishing and its related journal Zamân. Montazami is also a research curator at Tate Modern, London.