Etel Adnan, Between East and West, is a retrospective exhibition of the internationally acclaimed late Lebanese-American artist. Photo: Ithra
Etel Adnan, Between East and West, is a retrospective exhibition of the internationally acclaimed late Lebanese-American artist. Photo: Ithra
Etel Adnan, Between East and West, is a retrospective exhibition of the internationally acclaimed late Lebanese-American artist. Photo: Ithra
Etel Adnan, Between East and West, is a retrospective exhibition of the internationally acclaimed late Lebanese-American artist. Photo: Ithra

Inside Saudi Arabia's first major Etel Adnan exhibition Between East and West


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  • Arabic

In a first for Saudi Arabia, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, also known as Ithra, has opened a retrospective exhibition of the internationally acclaimed late Lebanese-American artist, poet and writer Etel Adnan.

Showcasing 41 works across a range of mediums, Between East and West is curated by former Lille Metropole Musee director Sebastien Delot. It traverses Adnan’s creative journey over her lifetime, from the very beginnings of her career in the 1950s to her final creations in 2021. Adnan died in 2021 at the age of 96.

Made possible by loans from Sharjah Art Foundation and Lebanon’s Sfeir-Semler Gallery and Sursock Museum, as well as private collectors, the exhibition delves into Adnan's multifaceted practice, influenced by her multicultural upbringing, eye-opening encounters with other creatives around the world and a need to ground her own complex identity during a time of global change.

“Etel was born in Lebanon but her father was born in the time of the Ottoman Empire. His family was coming from Damascus and her mother was from Cyprus,” Delot tells The National.

“When they first met each other they were living in Smyrna, which is Izmir today in Turkey, and after the Dardanelle conflicts and the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the family left, because the father was a soldier, a high-ranking officer, and it became difficult for mixed marriages to remain.

Between East and West marks the first time Adnan's works have been exhibited in Saudi Arabia. Photo: Ithra
Between East and West marks the first time Adnan's works have been exhibited in Saudi Arabia. Photo: Ithra

“Eventually they went to Lebanon, where they settled down, and in 1925 Etel was born. So the idea of Between East and West is because she was born in between languages, in between different cultures, and in between different times, because her father was an Ottoman man of the 19th century and Lebanon had become a French protectorate – they didn't speak Arabic, but they wrote to each other in French.”

This context she was born into would inform her work for the rest of her life. Adnan longed to connect with the Arabic language, which she explored by turning the language into visual symbols, painting in Arabic as she could not write in it.

In the 1950s, she received a scholarship to Paris, where she met many artists, writers and philosophers, all of whom opened her mind to new ideas and forms of creative expression, such as Gabriel Bounoure and Andre Gide.

Adnan has now become well known for her blend of Arabic calligraphy and poetry within her artworks, most noticeably in her Leporellos – an accordion-style art book of Japanese origin – where she painted visual interpretations of poems by great contemporary Arab poets. One of these fragile artworks is on show at the exhibition.

This accordion-style art book, Freedom of People, Freedom of Animals, Freedom of Plants, Freedom of Nature, is on display. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut
This accordion-style art book, Freedom of People, Freedom of Animals, Freedom of Plants, Freedom of Nature, is on display. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut

“It’s a small exhibition, so we couldn’t go into every aspect of her work in great detail, but we wanted to give a compass to the public to understand her relationship to literature, and how much calligraphy was important to her,” Delot says.

“She felt she was rejected by Arab poets, and she really wanted to connect with the language. She started copying some of the great Arabic poetry, to be part of it, and then wrote her own poetry in Lebanon, as a young student.

“Then she first published Moonshots (her book of poetry) in 1966 when she was in America, living in California,” he adds. “If you look at Arab Apocalypse (another book published in 1980), you have all these symbols on the pages and it becomes like a musical score or some kind of notations. She had visual signs that she invented that would take over the voice when she became speechless about a situation.”

These symbols were also prevalent in her artwork – a kind of glyphic alphabet that would also pop up in her Leporellos. In her abstract paintings and tapestries, images of the sun, mountains and vast landscapes reigned, rendered in patches of vibrant hues often left as undiluted block colours.

Etel Adnan died in 2021 at the age of 96. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut
Etel Adnan died in 2021 at the age of 96. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut

This can be seen best in her painting Mount Tamalpais (1985), one of the exhibition’s highlight pieces on loan from Sursock Museum. It stands out due its large size and theme of the mountain, painted in soothing yet unusual tones of dusty pinks and peaches, lilac and pea green, shadowed by an ultramarine blue sky.

“She had a big focus on nature and the landscape, which she also saw as a political thing, because it's a result of centuries of mankind transforming the world around us,” Delot says. “Even behind the colours, or when painting an aggressive red sun, it could be both a symbol of destruction, but also a symbol of life. She always had layers of meaning and sometimes even contradictions.

“She was living in California for many decades and she was impressed with Mount Tamalpais, but at the same time in Lebanon, the mountains were never very far from view, so her paintings of mountains are always a mix of different things she'd seen,” he adds. “Also the colours she used in this painting are a bit unusual. It seems almost childish in the way it's painted, but it's vibrant. It's really incredible.”

The exhibit also includes several examples of Adnan’s hand-woven wool tapestries, inspired by the Arab tradition of woven craft. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut
The exhibit also includes several examples of Adnan’s hand-woven wool tapestries, inspired by the Arab tradition of woven craft. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut

Other highlights of the show include a 25-square-metre ceramic mural – part of Ithra’s permanent collection – and a screening of Motion, a montage of several Super 8 films made by Adnan in Yosemite, New York and San Francisco in the 1980s.

Alongside a variety of oil and watercolour pieces, the exhibit also includes several examples of Adnan’s hand-woven wool tapestries, inspired by Persian rugs of her childhood and the Arab tradition of woven craft, intersecting with the weaving styles she discovered in her travels to Mexico and Egypt.

“She was impressed when she travelled to Harraniya, the weaving village in Egypt, because it was a completely different field of tapestry, which was not intellectualised – there were no drawings that were precedent to the designs,” Delot explains. “It was really weaving out of the observation of nature, and that was really something that interested her.

“In California she met Ida Grae, a tapestry artist who would dye the wool with natural pigments, which to Etel was like capturing the essence of nature, to use in the artwork,” he adds. “Even in the late Leporellos, Etel would use fruits to make colours. For example, she has this distinctive pink she used and I know she made it from natural pigments.”

This untitled oil on canvas work by Etel Adnan from 1969 is part of the exhibition. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut
This untitled oil on canvas work by Etel Adnan from 1969 is part of the exhibition. Photo: Sfeir-Semler Gallery Beirut

With colour being such an integral part of her practice, she experimented with drawing natural pigments from onion skins, red cabbage and pomegranate. Similar to her paintings, the tapestries allude to landscapes and natural motifs – some of the tapestries shown in the exhibit were created mere months before she died, having spent her life in perpetual creativity.

Most notably, the exhibition presents the fluidity and curiosity of Adnan’s artistic practice, which innately stemmed from her desire to devise a universal visual language that balanced the many facets of her identity, without needing to define her expression through any one meaning or medium.

The exhibition's catalogue, published by Hatje Cantz in both Arabic and English, will feature contributions from Delot, alongside art historian, writer and poet Toni Maraini, and art historian, publisher and curator Morad Montazami. The text intends to delve deeper into Adnan’s life and career, which was as vibrant and complex as her brightly coloured canvasses.

Etel Adnan, Between East and West runs until June 30 at Ithra, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

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%3Cp%3E-%20Diriyah%E2%80%99s%201.9km%20King%20Salman%20Boulevard%2C%20a%20Parisian%20Champs-Elysees-inspired%20avenue%2C%20is%20scheduled%20for%20completion%20in%202028%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20The%20Royal%20Diriyah%20Opera%20House%20is%20expected%20to%20be%20completed%20in%20four%20years%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20Diriyah%E2%80%99s%20first%20of%2042%20hotels%2C%20the%20Bab%20Samhan%20hotel%2C%20will%20open%20in%20the%20first%20quarter%20of%202024%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20On%20completion%20in%202030%2C%20the%20Diriyah%20project%20is%20forecast%20to%20accommodate%20more%20than%20100%2C000%20people%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20The%20%2463.2%20billion%20Diriyah%20project%20will%20contribute%20%247.2%20billion%20to%20the%20kingdom%E2%80%99s%20GDP%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20It%20will%20create%20more%20than%20178%2C000%20jobs%20and%20aims%20to%20attract%20more%20than%2050%20million%20visits%20a%20year%0D%3Cbr%3E-%20About%202%2C000%20people%20work%20for%20the%20Diriyah%20Company%2C%20with%20more%20than%2086%20per%20cent%20being%20Saudi%20citizens%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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If you go

Flight connections to Ulaanbaatar are available through a variety of hubs, including Seoul and Beijing, with airlines including Mongolian Airlines and Korean Air. While some nationalities, such as Americans, don’t need a tourist visa for Mongolia, others, including UAE citizens, can obtain a visa on arrival, while others including UK citizens, need to obtain a visa in advance. Contact the Mongolian Embassy in the UAE for more information.

Nomadic Road offers expedition-style trips to Mongolia in January and August, and other destinations during most other months. Its nine-day August 2020 Mongolia trip will cost from $5,250 per person based on two sharing, including airport transfers, two nights’ hotel accommodation in Ulaanbaatar, vehicle rental, fuel, third party vehicle liability insurance, the services of a guide and support team, accommodation, food and entrance fees; nomadicroad.com

A fully guided three-day, two-night itinerary at Three Camel Lodge costs from $2,420 per person based on two sharing, including airport transfers, accommodation, meals and excursions including the Yol Valley and Flaming Cliffs. A return internal flight from Ulaanbaatar to Dalanzadgad costs $300 per person and the flight takes 90 minutes each way; threecamellodge.com

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Uefa Champions League, semi-final result:

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Liverpool win 4-3 on aggregate

Champions Legaue final: June 1, Madrid

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Dust and sand storms compared

Sand storm

  • Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
  • Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
  • Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
  • Travel distance: Limited 
  • Source: Open desert areas with strong winds

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SUNDAY 

Brighton and Hove Albion v Southampton (5.30pm)
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MONDAY 
Burnley v Newcastle United (midnight)

Anti-semitic attacks
The annual report by the Community Security Trust, which advises the Jewish community on security , warned on Thursday that anti-Semitic incidents in Britain had reached a record high.

It found there had been 2,255 anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2021, a rise of 34 per cent from the previous year.

The report detailed the convictions of a number of people for anti-Semitic crimes, including one man who was jailed for setting up a neo-Nazi group which had encouraged “the eradication of Jewish people” and another who had posted anti-Semitic homemade videos on social media. 

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HIV on the rise in the region

A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.

New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.

Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.

Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.  

Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.

Updated: February 14, 2024, 8:04 AM`