To mark the opening of  ‘Artist’s Rooms’, join us for a conversation with exhibiting artists Risham Syed and Daniele Genadry, along with exhibitions curator Nadine El Khoury.

Drawn largely from the Art Jameel Collection, Artist’s Rooms is a series of solo exhibitions by influential, innovative artists, with a particular focus on practitioners from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. These capsule shows are collaborative and curated in dialogue with the artist. Autumn 2022 – Winter 2023 features rooms by Ayesha Sultana, Risham Syed and Daniele Genadry in galleries 1, 2, 3.

The conversation will focus on the research and thinking behind each artist’s work as well as engage with the broader thematics of their individual exhibitions. 

Risham Syed delves into her series The Seven Seas, (2012), where she connects the intricacies of contemporary geopolitics with the 19th and early 20th Century cotton trade of the British Empire. Daniele Genadry expands on her project Blind Light (2017) as well as the recent body of work following her research in la Rochelle, France and the Grand Canyon, USA. 

RSVP required. Attendees are welcome to stay after the talk for a preview of the exhibitions, 7-8pm.

Risham Syed (b.1969, lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan)
Risham’s practice focuses on the remains of cultural and historical inheritance and its perceived authenticity in present-day Pakistan. She received a BFA in Painting from the National College of Art, Lahore (1993) and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (1996). Her solo and group exhibitions include Appointments and Disappointments with History, Canvas Gallery, Dubai 2022; Frieze, London 2022; Frieze, New York 2021; Meditations Biennial, Warsaw 2020; Art Basel Hong Kong, 2017; and the ABRAAJ Capital Art Prize, Dubai, 2012.

Daniele Genadry works with painting, photography and print, to examine conditions and contemporary forms of seeing, particularly those present in postwar Lebanon. Her practice considers the potential of an image to generate its own temporality (light), and to create a mediated field of vision that sensitizes our consciousness. Often based on landscape motifs, the paintings seek, through their material surface, to act physically on the viewers’ eyes, requiring a time of focus and adjustment, in order to apprehend the (painted) image. Their aim is to give a heightened and intense view –  and an image form to a particular quality and force – of presence, fragility and disappearance. Genadry studied at Dartmouth College, NH and at the Slade School of Art, London. She has participated in residencies at the Bronx Museum, Anderson Ranch Art Center (USA), Fondazione Ratti (Italy), and Frans Masereel Centrum (Belgium), and was the Abbey Scholar at the British School at Rome (2013-14), a fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation (IT, 2019) and at the Camargo Foundation (2021). Recent exhibitions include: Artist Rooms at Jameel Arts Center, Beirut Art Center, Centre Intermondes, Sharjah Biennial 13, Biennial del Sur, SMBA, Bronx Museum and Fondazione Pastificio Cerere. Genadry is an assistant professor of studio arts at the American University of Beirut.