Gallery Isabelle is delighted to present a solo show from Hassan Sharif at Art Basel Qatar 2026.
Hassan Sharif maintained an experimental practice throughout his forty-year career, in which experimentation, chance, and error played a central role. Unforeseen outcomes were not only accepted but fully integrated into the work, and the final result often depended on variables such as energy, motivation, spatial constraints, limitations of materials, or even random mathematical formulas. Sharif deliberately removed himself from the role of the “author,” instead positioning himself as a machine—repeating mechanical gestures or following instructions. Yet, when an error occurred, agency was momentarily recovered. In this sense, from inception to completion, the work follows its own process of “becoming.”
Given that the theme set by Art Basel Qatar’s curator, Wael Shawky, is Becoming, we felt that Hassan Sharif’s philosophy was profoundly aligned with this curatorial vision.
