Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz draws upon his Arab-Jewish heritage to scrutinize Western interventions in the Middle East. His works foreground the significance of cultural heritage in times of war and probe the ways in which societies negotiate the relative value of human life and cultural monuments. At the centre of this exhibition are eight reliefs conceived specifically for Stavanger Art Museum, presented as a room within a room. These reliefs are reconstructions of sculptures that once adorned the walls of a chamber in the Assyrian Northwest Palace of Kalhu (near present-day Mosul). They form part of Rakowitz’s ongoing series “The invisible enemy should not exist,” originally initiated as a response to the looting of the Iraq Museum in 2003 following the US-led invasion of Iraq. Rather than replicating the lost objects, the artist “reappears” them using discarded materials to evoke their absence.
External Link
This is the first presentation of works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection on the east coast, held at the Kalba Ice Factory, featuring rarely seen large-scale works by nine international artists. The exhibition juxtaposes the ambitions of the postcolonial state with the grief of the dispossessed. It concludes with John Akomfrah’s three-screen film Vertigo Sea (2015), which uses archival and staged footage to explore diverse sea narratives, including migration, environmental collapse, and the refugee crisis. Water is viewed alternately as a border, a gateway, and an open network.
External Link
Darat al Funun with The Khalid Shoman Foundation present a major collective exhibition featuring nineteen artists and collectives from countries including Jordan, Palestine, and South Africa. Inspired by global solidarity with Gaza, the exhibition spans film, installation, and research-based practices across multiple buildings. The works invite engagement with current central questions, charting a geography of reflection and resistance, and exploring themes of witnessing, memory, disappearance, and persistence.
Network
YAY Gallery presents the first solo exhibition, by young artist Mouk (Ali Israfilov), featuring new works created during his residency at YARAT. The show, which references a half-forgotten motel and noir-like characters, creates a space of deceleration and prolonged encounter with existence. The philosophical foundation draws on Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist principle that “existence precedes essence,” and also references Albert Camus, exploring the simultaneous anguish and relief in recognizing the arbitrariness of being. Israfilov’s works encourage a slowness of gaze, resisting “clip culture” by focusing on private rituals, objects, and social relations that define the rhythm of solitude.
Network
“Through a language that combines formal minimalism with political tension, Hatoum questions how space is regulated, surveilled and colonised. Her work does not offer solutions, but rather builds environments of experience and suspension, in which viewers are continuously called upon to reposition themselves, to negotiate their perspective and to “see” what remains behind the scenes. In this sense, her works act as critical zones of perception, where the artistic gesture becomes a tool of excavation, deconstruction and unveiling. The exhibition’s title plays on the double meaning of “seen” and “scene,” suggesting a gaze beyond appearances, toward the hidden spaces of human experience: memory, trauma and the desire for resistance.” Curated by Giuliana Altea, Antonella Camarda and Luca Cheri.
External Link
Led by Artistic Directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, the theme draws on a colloquial phrase describing the cycles of encampment and journeys of nomadic communities in the Arabian Peninsula. The exhibition, opening January 30, 2026, in Riyadh’s JAX District, explores movement, migration, and cultural transmission. It views the world in “procession”—a braiding of humans, histories, stories, and planetary currents—to understand continuity, exchange, and resilience in a time of constant global transformation.
External Link