Ali Kaaf

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Ali Kaaf (born 1977 in Oran , Algeria ) is a visual artist living in Berlin .

Live and act

Ali Kaaf completed his studies of fine arts at the Institut des Beaux-Arts in Beirut from 1994 to 1998 and from 2000 to 2005 at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) with Prof. Marwan Kassab-Bachi and Rebecca Horn .

The German-Syrian artist is shaped by both European and Arab culture and art tradition. In his abstract art he links the personal worlds between Syria , Beirut and Berlin . His world of ideas is shaped by the mysticism of Sufism and the philosophy of Islam . One of the most important rules in the tradition of spiritual immersion is teaching the balance between meditation and return. This topic is part of the artist's thinking and is directly inscribed in his artistic work, his poiesis . Ali Kaaf's work encompasses various artistic disciplines from drawing , photography , glass sculpture, sound and video to room installation . However, he mainly works with the materials paper and ink and is thus in the tradition of a manuscript culture of the Orient and Occident that is thousands of years old . He has his European role models in both classical modernism and the avant-garde of the 1960s: works, for example from the series Die Byzantinische Ecke, would be inconceivable without the example of the paper cuttings by Henri Matisse or the collages of the Dadaists , just like his radical cuts and Burnouts without the spatial concept (“Concetto spaziale”) by the Italian Lucio Fontana . Ali Kaaf uses a brutal cut or a scorch track to give his image a new dimension and to create a metaphysical moment. Influences from the occupation with the German art movement ZERO can be seen. In the almost complete reduction to black, there is the greatest concentration and clarity. Using fire, scissors and knives, ink or water, the artist breaks up the monochrome surfaces, exposing gaps and spatial structures. Often he adds further layers to the composition with a second sheet or collage-like cutouts. The principle of taking away and adding again is characteristic of the way he works. The works show their own formal language of points and lines, surface and depth, black and white, surfaces and shapes, rhythm, fire, erosion, light and shadow. Kaaf's abstractions are the result of his intensive examination of writing, architecture and history.

Ali Kaaf's works are in dialogue with cultures and disciplines, moreover through interdisciplinary cooperation to form total works of art: such as a video installation on 48 variations for two pianos by John McGuire (Festival ME_MMIX 2018) in the Es Baluard Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art, Palma, or 2015 Intima , a dance project in collaboration with Dawson Dance SF and choreographer David Dawson , San Francisco, and the composers Ashraf Kateb and Kinan Azmeh, or the regular collaboration since 2011 with the glassblower James Mongrain in Seattle. The products are flowing sculptural forms that have cooled to glass, bearing titles such as Helmet , Tattoo , and Larynx (2014) and corresponding with his works on paper ( Rift , Kleid , Wall or Brandspur ). Kaaf also communicates his work through artist talks, lectures and workshops , for example at Montana State University Billings (MT, USA), or in 2019 at the symposium on Yemen and Syria: Art making today ( Yemen and Syria: making art today with Anna Wallace-Thompson, Buthayna Ali, Fadi Yazigi and Kevork Mourad) in the British Museum, London. The artist-in-residence program of the Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with the State Association of Berlin Galleries, which Ali Kaaf received in 2020, is the first in-house residency program of a German ministry. It is open to selected artists who come from abroad or who deal strongly with foreign countries in their work.

Ali Kaaf's works are in private and public collections around the world, for example in the Darat Al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation in Amman , in the Solidere Beirut collection , in the MAXXI , the Italian national museum for the art of the XXI. Century in Rome (Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo), the Moontower Foundation in Bad König, the Museum of Islamic Art (Berlin) and the Peter Raue collection in Berlin.

Awards

  • 2004: DAAD award from the University of the Arts Berlin (UdK) for outstanding artistic work
  • 2005–2006: Artist in Residence Program at Solidere , Beirut, Lebanon
  • 2010: Young Collectors for MAXXI , Young Collectors Association Prize, Rome
  • 2014: Honorary AIR Awardees, Kala Art Institute Prize, Berkeley, USA
  • 2015: Artist in Residence, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, USA
  • 2020: Artist in Residence Federal Foreign Office in cooperation with the State Association of Berlin Galleries (lvbg)

Exhibitions (selection)

(Solo exhibition = EA)

  • 2004 Aswad (EA), Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan
  • 2006 Discovery Planet (EA), Solidere , Beirut, Lebanon; Khan Ashad-Bacha (EA), in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Damascus, Syria
  • 2007 Schwarz (EA), Galerie Haus am Lützowplatz , Berlin; Château Ivre , curated by Rebecca Horn , Sacrow Palace , Potsdam
  • 2008 Oh no Oh , Gallery Naprzeciw, Poznan, Poland; RAS RAS / The Black Garden , Sakamoto Contemporary Gallery, Berlin
  • 2009 Eclipse , Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch, Rome, Italy; Taswir - Islamic Imagery and Modernism , Martin-Gropius-Bau , Berlin
  • 2010 Fragile Strength (EA), Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings (MT), USA; Gubar , Gallery Rafia, Damascus, Syria
  • 2011 BIOISM INVOLVED , Kunstgarten Graz , Austria
  • 2012 Maribor Project - Rebecca Horn and Guests , Contemporary Art Museum, Maribor, Slovenia
  • 2013 SyriArt , Institut du monde arabe , Paris, France
  • 2015 on-site meeting with Leoni Wirth - models and designs from Leoni Wirth's studio and contemporary positions on abstraction and modernity, Kunsthaus Dresden
  • 2015 Ali Kaaf - Paper and Glass (EA), ALLDIEKUNST - Space for Art and Culture, Velbert-Langenberg; Living with endangered Languages ​​in the information age , Root Division, San Francisco (USA)
  • 2016 Box of Pain (EA), video and audio installation in the Kühlhaus Berlin; The Color of Water is the Color of its Vessel (EA), The Bumiller Collection Berlin; As If, At Home , Artists in Europe, group exhib. with Mirosław Bałka, Norbert Bisky , Michaël Borremans, Irina Botea, Valérie Favre , Lia Kazakou, Marie Lund, Šejla Kamerić, Flo Kasearu, Sean Scully and others, curated by Jurriaan Benschop, Freiraum in der Box, Berlin
  • 2017 Syria: Into the Light , Atassi Foundation, Concrete-Alserkal Avenue, Dubai
  • 2018 Dins un garbell no es pot guardar el sol (EA), Galeria Maior, Palma, Spain;
  • 2018 The Byzantine Corner (EA), C&K Gallery, Berlin; Caravane Culturelle Syrienne , art publisher Galerie Till Breckner, Düsseldorf
  • 2019 FOURFOLD - Positions from Berlin , group exhibition with Silvina Der-Meguerditchian, Anton Roland Laub and House of Taswir Salon Galic, Split, Croatia; 8 artists, 8 unique pieces, 8 new editions , group exhib. with Jáchym Fleig, Martina Geccelli, István Haászr, Vera Röhm and others, youngcollectors as a guest in room 2810, Bonn; For Birds' Sake , group exh. with Amador, Norbert Bisky , AR Penck , Cornelia Schleime and others, C&K Galerie, Berlin; A Journey of Belonging - Part II , CAA. Group exhibition with Tammam Azzam, Rebecca Raue, Nasan Tur and others, Bikini-Haus , Berlin

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Doris von Drathen: Ali Kaaf , ed. by Detlef Bluemler, artist - Critical Lexicon of Contemporary Art , Kunsthandel Verlag, issue 104, issue 22, 4th quarter 2013. ISSN 0934-1730
  2. ↑ Nafas Magazine, April 2018, Ali Kaaf: The Byzantine Corner , article by Almút Sh. Bruckstein
  3. ↑ Cf. Nafas Art Magazine, Jan. 2008, Alexandra von Stosch Ali Kaaf. Dramaturgy of the characters
  4. ↑ Festival ME_MMIX 2018 ( Spanish ) esbaluard.org. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
  5. ^ Symposium and Lecture at the British Museum - Yemen and Syria: making art today
  6. ^ Prize of the Young Collectors Association, Rome
  7. ↑ AArtist in Residence program of the Foreign Office
  8. ↑ Federal Foreign Office and LVBG present scholarship holders from 2020 and documentation from 2019
  9. ^ Tomas Fitzel: Ali Kaaf, artist. rbbKultur am Morgen, March 20, 2020, accessed on May 6, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Speech by Prof. Dr. Peter Raue on the occasion of the Ali Kaaf Schwarz exhibition in the house on Lützowplatz on February 15, 2007
  11. ↑ Tagesspiegel, May 26, 2019, Ali Kaaf in the Bumiller Collection , article by Birgit Rieger
  12. ^ Michaela Gericke: Ali Kaaf: The Byzantine Corner. rbb Kulturradio, April 22, 2018, accessed on May 6, 2020 .
  13. ^ Ali Kaaf: The Byzantine Corner. Nafas Art Magazine. Retrieved May 6, 2020 .
  14. ^ Exhibition Review. Atassi Foundation, accessed May 6, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Kaaf, Ali
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Syrian visual artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Oran