• Introduction

    This exhibition brings together eleven early works on paper by Mohammed Kazem, dating from the 1990s. Rare and intimate in scale, they were created at a moment of intense experimentation and during a formative period in the career of the artist. The artworks reveal the emergence of themes and motifs that would come to define Kazem’s practice over the decades that followed: observation, repetition, materiality, and an enduring fascination with the traces through which we experience the world. The exhibition invites visitors into the early development of one of the first conceptual artists of the region, whose practice significantly contributed to the development of contemporary art in the United Arab Emirates.

  • Installation view, Scene 1, 2, 3, 4 (1993)
  • A Creative Friendship

    Hassan Sharif and Mohammed Kazem in front of the entrance to Sharif's home in Dubai (2006) 

    © Haupt & Binder

    A Creative Friendship

    Born in the Deira neighborhood of Dubai in 1969, Kazem gravitated towards art at a young age. At fourteen, he became the student of Hassan Sharif, one of the most renowned conceptual artists of the United Arab Emirates. Under his tutelage, Kazem learned how to paint. He was encouraged to look beyond representation and toward a practice grounded in process, perception, and the possibilities of ordinary materials.

  • Scene 4, 1993 Scratch and watercolor on paper 9.5 x 9.5 cm (each) / 61.5 x 15.8 cm (overall) Frame: 84 x 39 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Scene 1, 1993 Scratch and watercolor on paper 9 x 9 cm (each) / 56.8 x 15.5 (overall) Frame: 80 x 38 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Details Scene 2, 1993 Scratch and watercolor on paper 9.5 x 9.5 cm (each) / 57 x 15.5 cm (overall) Frame: 80 x 38 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Scene 1 - No.3, 1998 Watercolor on cardboard 14.7 x 12.5 cm Frame: 35 x 35 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Landscape 1, 1999 Acrylic on paper 35 x 50 cm Frame: 52 x 66.5 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Landscape 2, 1999 Acrylic on paper 35 x 50 cm Frame: 52 x 66.5 cm (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

    Scene 4, 1993

    Scratch and watercolor on paper

    9.5 x 9.5 cm (each) / 61.5 x 15.8 cm (overall)

    Frame: 84 x 39 cm

  • Oscillating between Observation and Abstraction

    “The meaning or purpose of his paintings lies in the life of the colours and the ways they can be put to use, not in the painted objects themselves.” - Hassan Sharif on Mohammed Kazem.

    The exhibition brings together three series of works produced between 1993 and 1999.

     

    Occupying a wall of their own, the first Scenes series (1993) comprises four scratch and watercolor works on paper, displayed in a scroll-like format. Created in Al Qusais, where Kazem shared a studio with Hassan Sharif at the Youth Club, these works mark the artist's earliest exploration of the technique that would later become known as his Scratches. Working directly into the surface of the paper through repeated incisions, Kazem transformed drawing into an act of accumulation and duration. Delicate yet rigorous, these compositions hover between image and object, surface and relief, revealing an artist increasingly interested in the material presence of the work itself.

     

    A second Scenes series (1998) consists of four watercolor works on cardboard, presented together as an ensemble. While more restrained, these works further develop Kazem's investigation into materiality.

     

    Finally, the Landscape series (1999), ties the exhibition together with three acrylic on paper works. Painted in Hatha, they reflect the artist’s early engagement with observation and atmosphere. Rather than depicting a landscape as a fixed image, Kazem explores sensory and emotional qualities of color, light, and rhythm, seeking to translate experience rather than representation.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Scene 1, No. 1 (1998)