Bady Dalloul: Self-portrait with a Cat I Don’t Have

Bady Dalloul’s first institutional solo exhibition in the UAE is an extended solo show curated by Art Jameel’s Lucas Morin. The artworks feature fragile heroes and ordinary people navigating systems larger than themselves; Dalloul repurposes everyday materials (including books, matchboxes, board games and magazines) to elevate everyday narratives into epics, bridging high- and low-brow, and importantly, linking into  non-Western cultures outside conventional delineations and the Eurocentric gaze.

For example, ‘Age of Empires’ – a new series of 50 works on paper specially made for this exhibition – uses onmyōdō, a 19th-century Japanese astrology manual, to contemplate the life and death of imperial power. ‘Matchboxes’, a series of dozens of minuscule drawings framed in matchboxes on the gallery walls, offer snapshots of everyday scenes, news broadcasts and political developments witnessed by the artist over the years, notably in his family’s native Syria. Inside a recreated apartment inspired by Dalloul’s live-in studio in Dubai, multiple small works retrace the last five years of his nomadic practice.

The opening on 20 September will include a conversation between Bady Dalloul and Ahmed Makia, Lucas Morin, Ala Younis, and Mizuho Yamazaki.

To 22 February.