Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar

Introduction

This paper discusses Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. It examines the historical developments of the museum, which was founded in 2010 with a collection of works provided by Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali al-Thani (Raza 2011). Mathaf, which simply means "museum" in Arabic, now boasts a collection of over 6,000 works "spanning the late 19th century to the present" (Raza 2011). This paper provides an assessment of the museum's collecting process, which is "intimately linked with the construction of a new Qatari identity for global consumption and national cohesion" (Exell 2014). The paper also analyzes the museum's exhibition style, programmes, and overall structure, and compares it to the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha.

Mathaf represents an Arab perspective on modern art and contemporary life. It reflects the shared history of the Arab world as interpreted by contemporary artists, and fulfills the need for modern culture to be promoted as a force that shapes and advances society. Through the works of art collected and displayed at Mathaf, society is illuminated by Arab artists who seek to influence, impact, and communicate with their contemporaries about issues of lasting importance. Not only does the art in Mathaf speak to the world, but so too does the curatorial expertise and the authority guiding the institution's exhibits. This paper demonstrates why Mathaf is recognized by critics as one of the top cultural attractions of Qatar.

History and Origins of Mathaf

Mathaf is the first of its kind in Qatar. It owes its origins to the great love of contemporary art nurtured by Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali al-Thani. The purpose of the modern art museum is to "foster creativity, promote dialogue and inspire new ideas about modern and contemporary Arab art" (Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art n.d.). Since museums are cultural institutions that "adjust to the changing needs of their audiences and recognize the factors that influence visitation rates in order to attract, engage, and maintain their visitors" (Karafotias 2016), Mathaf presents itself as a cultural force in the 21st century, standing at the forefront of Qatari society and the Arab community as a sponsor of cultural ideals, cultural expressions, and artistic empowerment.

The building itself is a celebration of intellectual ambition and education. Situated in a renovated and architecturally transformed school — the work achieved by French architect Jean-François Bodin — in Doha's Education City district, Mathaf serves as a "remarkable example of recycled architecture that purposefully complements the building's former identity as a space for learning and exploration" (Raza 2011). The building is full of elegance, charm, and taste, and is well considered in terms of planning and structure. Even though the building is intended to be a temporary home for the museum, it is a worthy setting for Sheikh Hassan's collections.

The three exhibits that opened the museum were: "Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art," "Interventions: A Dialogue Between the Modern and the Contemporary," and "Told/Untold/Retold: 23 Stories of Journeys through Time and Place." Each of these exhibits showcases the talent, style, and beauty of the Arab world. It is evident that Sheikh Hassan's aim in opening these works to the public was to embrace the rich culture and heritage of the Arab people and display it for the modern world in a striking, contemporary setting that illuminates the significant progress made by the people of Qatar. A country that neglects to embrace its people and its past is a country destined to lose its identity and fall into confusion about who it is and what it should cherish. Mathaf shows that Qatar is not about to make that mistake, thanks to the well-trained eye of Sheikh Hassan.

As Shabout, al-Khudhairi, and Chalabi (n.d.) note, Doha, Qatar, is part of the new Arab world and is playing an important role in shaping Arab identity in the 21st century. What is significant about this role is that the identity being cultivated in Doha does not conform "to secularized newly independent Arab countries, such as Egypt and Iraq, of the middle of the twentieth century" (Shabout, al-Khudhairi, and Chalabi n.d.: 15). Instead, this identity establishes a new Arabian face — one that is represented well by the state of Qatar: a rich, prosperous, modern country. Mathaf comes into play by expressing a vision that is at once regional but also global in its modernity. Mathaf embraces an ideal that is "no longer popular in contemporary rhetoric on art, but nevertheless essential to its understanding, namely, cultural Arabism" (Shabout, al-Khudhairi, and Chalabi n.d.: 15–16). In other words, Mathaf bridges the old and the new, and gives those passing between the two the opportunity to share ideas, communicate, and engage in peace and understanding.

The First Exhibits

The Sajjil exhibit was designed to illustrate the depth of the Mathaf collection and consisted of 200 paintings, sculptures, and other works. Its purpose was to historicize the modern art movement in the Arab region. The works were selected by Shabout, al-Khudhairi, and Chalabi — respected scholars of the modern Arab art world. Their taste and knowledge of modern Arabian art shone through in the inclusion of works such as those by Turkish-born Iraqi artist Jewad Selim, who founded the Baghdad Modern Art Group; Turkish-born Fahrelnissa Zeid, who established the Fahrelnissa Zeid Institute of Fine Arts in Amman; and Syrian artist Madiha Umar, who joined Baghdad's One Dimension Group, which radically explored and expressed Arabic calligraphy in abstract designs. While Sajjil demonstrated the expansive range of modern Arabic art, it was still somewhat constrained by the limits of Sheikh Hassan's collection (Raza 2011). And though it did not offer much of a glimpse into Egyptian artists, who helped develop modern art in North Africa, it nonetheless projects a narrative that is forceful and compelling.

For example, the section of the exhibit called "Huroufiyah" featured works that were highly experimental in their treatment of Arabic text and lettering. This section exhibited a thematic structure that captured the bridging of the old and new that Mathaf sought to showcase. The work by Hassan Sharif entitled City (1981) showed a "black-and-white etching of Arabic text and numbers within an abstract urban façade" (Raza 2011), which artistically encapsulated the simultaneity of oldness and newness in the Arabian world.

The Interventions exhibit was also curated by Shabout and consisted mainly of sculptures with a few paintings. One painting addressed the violence in the Middle East in recent years and was titled Victim's Rose (2010). It belonged to the abstract genre, and the canvas on which it was painted was filled with bullet holes to express the way that Iraq — the native country of the artist — had been riddled with violence following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Other works echoed this sentiment, giving the exhibit a mournful and melancholy character.

Told/Untold/Retold also captured the spirit of the times. The exhibit focused on the "forced migration within the 22 Arab states due to war and unrest: the large sculptures tread a very fine line between the playful and the menacing" (Raza 2011). This contemporary exhibit served to highlight the ongoing problems facing the Arab world, giving voice to the struggles of Arab peoples whose region and homeland has been invaded and destabilized by external forces pursuing geopolitical aims at odds with the objectives of the native population — with violence and forced migration as frequent outcomes. For the museum to display these haunting works is to give voice to the region's major issues and to remind viewers to come together as a community, embrace one another, and remain mindful of the cultural heritage that the Arab people possess even in times of severe difficulty.

Conclusion

Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to the spirit and newness of Arab identity in the 21st century, while celebrating the history and artists of the Arab countries. There is a link between the old culture and the new Arab culture in Mathaf, and the museum itself represents and serves as the bridge between these two identities. It recognizes the struggles and voices of Arab artists and the people whose lives they describe in their works. It celebrates modernist movements in art through abstract works that capture the spirit of the 20th and 21st centuries.

At the same time, Mathaf is a labor of love for Sheikh Hassan, whose own private collection is on display in a public museum. A friend of artists for many years, Sheikh Hassan has been the driving force behind Mathaf, and it is through his passion and desire to see modern Arab art claim its place in the Arabian world that Mathaf now exists as a window for global audiences onto what modern Arabic artists are doing to celebrate their culture, their identities, and their sense of connection with the past, the present, and the future (Murray n.d.). For that reason, Mathaf stands out as truly unique in the Arab world.

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