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

An extended solo exhibition for the Syrian-French artist, curated by Art Jameel’s Lucas Morin.

Self-portrait with a cat I don’t have is Bady Dalloul’s first institutional solo exhibition in the United Arab Emirates. Blending autobiographical anecdotes with stories of individuals he encounters, 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 create surprising dialogues across cultures and genres. He elevates everyday narratives into epics, bridges high and low brow, and importantly, connects non-Western cultures, at times unexpectedly, outside of conventional delineations and Eurocentric gaze.

Specially made for this exhibition, Age of Empires, a new series of 50 works on paper, uses onmyōdō, a 19th-century Japanese astrology manual, to contemplate the life and death of imperial power. On the gallery walls, Matchboxes, a series of dozens of minuscule drawings framed in matchboxes, 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.