Looking at the World Around You

Features 160 works selected from the collections of the Qatar Museums, illustrating the Arab world's presence on the international art scene.

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The catalogue of the exhibition Looking at the World Around You: Contemporary Works from Qatar Museums features 160 selected works from the collections of Qatar Museums. It is a celebration of modern and contemporary art that attempts to illustrate the Arab world's perspective on the international art scene. Abdellah Karroum, Director of Mathaf and curator of the exhibition in Madrid, considers Looking at the World Around You an invitation to connect with multiple layers of history, mythology and representation, and to reflect on the role of art and the artist through a reading and display of works from Qatar Museums extending from Francisco de Goya's ca. 1825 tiny ivory painting, which inspired his exhibition's curatorial concept, to Wael Shawky's expansive cinematic re-imaginings of the past, completed in 2015.
Other artists such as Rene Magritte, Fahrelnissa Zeid, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Inji Efflatoun, Etel Adnan, Adam Henein, Chaibia Talal, Ahmed Morsi, Baya Mahieddine, Farid Belkahia, Ismail Fattah, Marwan Kassab Bachi, Nja Mahdaoui, Dia Azzawi, Abdullah Al Muharraqi, Jassim Zaini, Sami Mohammad, Chant Avedissian, Hassan Sharif, Mona Hatoum, Wafika Sultan Saif Al-Essa, Yousef Ahmad, Faraj Daham, Cai Guo-Qiang, Ali Hassan, Shirin Neshat, Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani, Yan Pei-Ming, Ghada Amer, Mounir Fatmi, Youssef Nabil, Manal AlDowayan, and Amal Kenawy are also included in the exhibition and catalogue. The exhibition runs from February to June 2016.