Adel Abidin

Cover- Up!

16 December 2014– [enter last day of the show], 2015

Cover-Up! Is Adel Abidin’s first solo exhibition in Kuwait and brings together two video installations - Cover Up (2014) and Three Love Songs (2010) - with a series of new text-based sculptures related to Three Love Songs (2014).

Abidin’s critically acclaimed Three Love Songs was a highlight of the inaugural exhibition at Mathaf Arab Museum of Arab Art, Doha in 2010 and has gone on to be shown in other venues around the globe. The installation is made up of three stylised music videos (lounge, jazz and pop) displayed on neighbouring screens, each featuring an archetypal western chanteuse. Sung in Iraqi dialect Arabic, the singers do not understand the words to the songs they sing; told they are traditional, passionate love songs when in fact they were Iraqi patriotic songs. This uncomfortable juxtaposition and manipulation is typical of Abidin’s practice. Displayed alongside is a text-based sculptural installation, re-moulded quotations from the lyrics in Arabic script made in copper. Taken out of the context of the video, but made into beautiful objects, these sculptures add a fresh perspective to the video installation.

Cover-Up was produced in August 2014 as part of a larger commission from the annual Flow Festival, Helsinki where Abidin was named Artist of the Year. Displayed on two screens back to back, Cover-Up is again a video installation of a seductive figure in close up. Filmed in black and white, the project replicates the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe in a white dress standing above a subway grating, a scene from the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch. Replacing Monroe with an Arab man in a ‘Dishdasha’, Abidin plays with our assumptions on attractiveness, the art of seduction and propriety. The title, which can be read in a number of ways, comments on the hypocrisy rife in contemporary society, mistakes and bad decisions that are hidden, but hinting that their exposure is all too easy.

About Adel Abidin

Abidin was born in Baghdad in 1973 and currently lives between Helsinki and Amman. He presented his work in biennials like Biennale of Contemporary Art of Bosnia (2013), 54th Venice Biennale- Iraq Pavilion (2011), 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011), 17th Biennale of Sydney (2011), 11th Cairo Biennale (2010), and 52nd Venice Biennale- Nordic Pavilion (2007).

Many group exhibitions including –in 2014- MACRO-Museum, Rome, Louisiana Museum, Copenhagen, 104 Cenquatre Paris, NY New Museum, The Jerusalem Show VII, Jerusalem, Palestine. Station Museum, Houston; -in 2013- Hauser & Wirth Gallery, London, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2012 & 2013), Singapore Art Museum, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, Mead Gallery, UK; -in 2012- Palais de Tokyo, Arab World Institute, Paris; -in 2011- MOCCA, Toronto, Arts-Talks and Sensations, Abu Dhabi; -in 2010- Mathaf, Doha; -in 2008- Espace at Louis Vuitton and MAC-VAL Museum in Paris.

Among his solo exhibitions are –in 2013- Maraya Art Center, Sharjah, Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai; -in 2012- Arter, Space for Art, Istanbul –in 2011- Darat al Funun, Amman; -in 2010- Centre of Contemporary Art in Salamanca, Spain, KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, and Helsinki.

His upcoming exhibitions participations are: 56th Venice Biennale, International Exhibition, Palazzo Franchetti, and GLASSTRESS 2015 GOTIKA. In March, 2015, Abidin’s new major video installation, MICHAEL, commissioned by the Qatar Museum Authority will premiere in Doha and KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki.

In 2013 Abidin has received Five Years Grant from The Art Council of Finland and Ars Fennica Prize Nominee 2011.

Cover-Up! Is in collaboration with Dubai based gallery Lawrie Shabibi.