Warhol of Arabia

A solo exhibition by Raed Yassin

In 1977 Andy Warhol visited Kuwait, at a time in his career where he was attempting to find new patrons for his work in emerging markets around the world. In the beginning of that year, Najat Sultan, one of the co-founders of the Sultan Gallery and an active member of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, coordinated a solo exhibition for Andy to be held at the council’s Salat Al Funoon in Dahiyat Abdullah Al-Salem. It was a short visit, during which Andy met with many important figures within Kuwait’s art scene at the time and sold a number of his works to local collectors.

Although the incident is mentioned in the famed artist’s diaries, the photographs and documents related to his visit were stored in the gallery’s archive for decades. In 2010, Farida Al Sultan met with Raed Yassin in his studio in Beirut and recounted to him the story of Warhol’s visit to Kuwait. As an artist working on topics related to pop culture and Arab collective memory, Raed became very interested in this happening, urging Farida to dig up the photographs of Andy’s visit. After some time, she located them and sent them to Raed who began pouring over these rare and remarkable materials.

As he involved himself deeper and deeper into the archive’s letters, accounts and photographs, slowly but surely the events, characters and stories began to evolve in his mind. If it were true that the artist was commissioned by Kuwaiti patrons to create portraits of them or of their pets, what did those works look like? Did Andy make lifelong friends here where his work and his visit took a central position within the local creative imaginary? Did the exposure to Arab culture influence the artist’s upcoming works? The more Raed thought about it, the more these fictions began to materialize in his mind, resulting in the artworks in this exhibition.

Lying somewhere in between fact and fiction, Warhol of Arabia attempts to create a new scenario around Andy Warhol’s time spent in Kuwait, and its possible aftermath. After years in the making, the artist wished to display these works within the place that originated them: Kuwait, and more specifically Sultan Gallery, in order to give this story a final homecoming.