Category: Art

One of my favorite museums in Kuwait is the Tareq Rajab Museum. I always found the museum interesting since it was packed with a vast variety of objects covering many different subjects. They have an incredible collection of over 30,000 pieces many of which can’t be found anywhere else in the world. Over a year ago, the museum closed for renovations but they’re now finally reopening again tomorrow (Oct 17).

The museum was originally founded in 1980 by Tareq S. Rajab and his wife, Jehan S. Rajab. A couple of years ago their grandson Tareq N. Rajab took over the responsibility of the family museum and started the process of rejuvenating it. He originally started with the website and Instagram account, that was followed by the creation of the new Arms & Armor wing of the museum before being handed the rest of the museum to renovate.

Tareq invited me to visit the museum for a sneak peek and although before visiting I was worried it might have lost its charm with the renovation, I’m pleased to say it hasn’t.

At first glance, the museum’s aesthetics remain largely unchanged, but there have been significant improvements. The displays, previously overcrowded and lacking descriptions, have been completely revamped. They are now curated with clear descriptions for every item. There is also a new and HUGE diorama in the museum depicting the famous “Battle of Hattin”. The diorama is composed of 3,500 tiny soldiers that were hand painted individually by Tareq, his dad and three other colleagues over a period of 14 months. There was clearly a lot of time and passion involved in the museum renovation.

If you’re looking for an interesting place to visit then I can’t recommend this museum enough. The entrance fee is still only 2KD and it also gives you access to the “Tareq Rajab Museum of Islamic Calligraphy” that’s located in the same neighborhood.

The opening hours are:
Saturday to Thursday: 9AM – 1PM & 4:30PM – 8:30PM
Friday: 9AM – 1PM

The museum is in Jabriya and here is the location on Google Maps.

Found these vintage ANSI art relating to the 1990 Gulf War and thought they were super interesting. I use to love ANSI and ASCII art back in the day and if I remember correctly, my first digital porn image I had was a black and white ASCII drawing sometime back in the 80s which a friend had given to me on a 5.25 floppy. Source

Onus is a glass installation by Kuwaiti visual artist Monira Al Qadiri. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw the pictures and read the story behind it.

During the Gulf War, dead birds, fish, and animals regularly lined the coastline and deserts because of the massive toxic clouds fed by hundreds of torched oil wells. When images of these oil-drenched animals were shared in the news, many people thought they were fake and just propaganda. Monira learned of this misconception while she was studying at university in Japan and so Onus is her way of breathing life back into her memories by recreating these oil-drenched birds as glass objects.

If you’re in Berlin, Monira’s work is currently on display at the Koenig Galerie. If you want to see more of her work online, check out her Instagram @moniraism or website moniraalqadiri.com

I was going through some articles about Kuwaiti homes on Architectural Digest when one home caught my attention. The house had a giant bronze pumpkin by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama in their courtyard. I recognized the pumpkin because I had previously come across photos of them nearly a decade ago when they were being exhibited outside in a garden at a gallery in London (see below).

So random that one of them ended up here in Kuwait. To get an idea on how much these sell for, Yayoi is considered to be the most expensive living female artist at auction and a smaller version of this pumpkin got sold for a million dollars back in 2017.

To check out all the photos from the house, here is a link to the article on Architectural Digest.

Pinot is a digital artist that was living in Kuwait up till 2014 and is incredibly talented in pixel art and animation using vintage computers. He gained worldwide fame through the service Vine which back before Twitter acquired it, used to allow users to share six-second-long looping video clips. Eventually a digital agency in New York found out about him and offered him a job so he packed up and left Kuwait with his family to work and live there. Since then he’s gotten even more popular with nearly 400K followers on Instagram and even ended up on an MKBHD episode where he showed Marques how to paint on an old Mac.

His Childish Gambino video that went viral

Sadly back in June he suffered a stroke and fell into a coma. Since then he’s been gradually progressing ever so slowly and eventually was taken off life support since he started breathing by himself. He also started making hand gestures and moving one of his arms and legs and is still slowly improving.

Art for Pinot is an initiative from the Indonesian NFT community to help him by inviting fellow creators to donate their artwork as a form of support. If you’re an artist reading this you can help by donating an artwork. For more information visit bit.ly/ArtforPino

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Pinot (@pinot)

If you’re not an artist but still want to help, there is a GoFundMe page.

If you’re just curious and want to check out some of Pinot’s work, his Instagram is @pinot and his twitter (which he posts animations in progress) is also @pinot

If you want to stay updated on his progress, his wife is sharing updates on her Instagram @ditut

If you’re an illustrator you might be interested in this. The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters is asking local artists to share illustrations with the theme of Cosmic Fantasy. There is no prize, it’s not a competition, but the best illustrations will eventually get featured on their Instagram account.

If you’re interested, more details are available here.

One thing to be careful of, according to the rules, they might choose to use your artwork for future campaigns and you won’t be paid for it. So you’d be providing campaign artwork for free which doesn’t seem very fair to the artist.

The Contemporary Art Platform is opening four different exhibitions tonight featuring:

I Am Here – Manuella Guiragossian
My Name Is Woman – Maha AlAsaker
Deconstructed Phyche – Sheikha Al Habishi
DIVA! – Organized by the Italian Embassy

The opening is at 7:00PM and is free to attend. Here is the location on Google Maps

In May 1960, an international competition was held for the architectural project for the Kuwait National Museum which would be located in the cultural district of the 1952 Master Plan of Kuwait. The competition was won by French architect Michel Écochard and the museum was finally opened in 1983 where it stayed open up until the 1990 invasion. The museum was badly damaged during the war and most of the buildings remained closed (some photos of the destruction here). There were talks at one point of demolishing the museum and building a new one but thankfully in 2014, it was decided to save the existing museum by restoring it.

The restoration project is now complete and the museum is currently in the process of getting ready to reopen. I got invited to a sneak peek of the museum, something that I’ve been wanting for years. I was lucky enough to visit the museum back in the 80s, and although I don’t remember much of it, I do appreciate the fact that they decided to restore the landmark building instead of demolishing it as is the case most of the time.

The Kuwait National Museum is part of the Qibla Cultural District (Google Maps) which includes the Sadu House, the National Library, and Al-Qibla School for Girls Education. The main museum complex comprises of four buildings each housing a different part of Kuwait’s history:

Building 1 – Archeology of Kuwait
Building 2 – Ethnographic History of Kuwait
Building 3 – Ancient East
Building 4 – Ancient East

Buildings 1 and 2 are already open while buildings 3 and 4 are the ones heavily damaged during the war and the ones I got to tour. Buildings 3 and 4 are the largest buildings and will cover art in the Ancient East starting in the 3rd millennium BC going through Arabia before Islam, then the beginning of Islam, followed by the full chronology of Islamic Art.

All four buildings are connected by closed bridges. This means once you enter a building you can navigate the whole museum without stepping outside making it very convenient during the hot summer months.

Minor changes were made to the structure of the buildings, large semi-opaque windows were installed to bring in more daylight, and some minor new stairs and walkways were added due to updated fire safety requirements. All the work looked very tasteful and well-executed although I do wish they had kept the original pink brick facade.

There is also a planetarium outside the museum which you’ve most likely seen driving by on the Gulf Road since it’s the building closest to the road and its round spherical shape is hard to miss.

The planetarium is also in the final stages of renovation and will be reopening soon.

As I mentioned early on in the post, buildings3 and 4 of the museum are currently in the process of getting ready to reopen. They’re expecting that would happen in two years’ time, around 2024. In the meantime, buildings 1 and 2 are open and you can visit those now, here is my previous post about them. Link

Pixel artist Comet Confetti yesterday posted a really great 8-bit art recreation of the famous photo of a Kuwaiti girl and her lamb taken right after the Gulf War. If you’re into 8-bit art like me then you should check out her instagram account for more of her work @cometconfetti

On a side note, what’s the story behind the picture? I couldn’t find anything about it online and I’m guessing the girl in the photo is around 40 years old now. I wonder where she is?

Over the past couple of years, Mogahwi have really turned things around. At one point they looked like they were closing down after shuttering their Salmiya and Shuwaikh locations but instead, they restructured and came back a lot stronger. Their Kuwait City location got a major facelift and now they’ve reopened their Shuwaikh location.

Mogahwi in Shuwaikh used to be pretty huge, I think it was their main branch/head office. They ended up closing that location down, demolishing the whole building, and constructing a much nicer plaza in its place called MogArt. Now they’ve reopened a smaller Mogahwi there focusing mainly on art supplies.

It’s a small but really nice looking store and the items seem to have been curated, kinda like the best of the best art supplies. If you want to check it out, here is their location on Google Maps.

The Contemporary Art Platform is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with a new exhibition called Face to Face II.

The exhibition features artworks loaned from some of Kuwait’s prominent art collectors and includes artworks by Amine El Bacha, Andy Warhol, Banksy, George Bahgoury, Kimiko Yoshida, Picasso, Yayoi Kusama, and much more.

CAP is open Saturday to Thursay from 10AM to 8PM. Here is their location on Google Maps.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend you should consider passing by the Amricani Cultural Centre and check out their museum. Amricani is part of the Dar al Athar al Islamiyyah who have a collection of more than 20,000 items of rare Islamic art. Some of these rare items are displayed at the Amricani in rotation, changing every couple of years.

The exhibition area is located on the top floor and spans countless rooms, a lot bigger then you would expect it to be. You can choose to book a tour or just walk in and explore by yourself.

Here are their timings:

Monday to Thursday and Saturday: 10 AM to 7 PM
Friday: 2 PM to 7 PM
Sunday: closed

If you want to book a tour, send an email to both: [email protected] and [email protected]

Here is the location of the Amricani Cultural Center on Google Maps.

If you’re looking for a new exhibition to check out, the popular lifestyle Instagrammer @kickstq (Tareq Qaddumi) opened up his exhibit “Hella Paragraphs” yesterday evening at the Contemporary Art Platform. The exhibit focuses around Tareq’s battle with instagram and their algorithms:

Instagram introduced a new algorithm in 2016 that affected the engagement of millions of users. In reaction to this change, popular accounts with public outreach responded with efforts to take back control over content visibility, comment on lack of privacy and targeted censorship. These works make a statement against Instagram’s controversial algorithm and the consequences it has on popular users such as Tareq Qaddumi. Qaddumi uses his works to show his personal battle with an algorithm that continues to get in the way of expressing himself freely and making an impact in the way he chooses to.

The Contemporary Art Platform is located at the Design District, here is their location on Google Maps.

Haraka Center for Movement Arts (HCMA) is a new dance and movement center that just opened up in Shuwaikh. Their classes will focus on ballet, modern, contemporary dance, other dance styles, and movement-based classes.

HCMA is for women of all ages and levels (no classes for men). They started a few days ago and their full upcoming schedule is available on their website harakacenter.com. Drop-in classes are for KD15 while their packages start from KD40. If you’re looking for something to do then check them out, also make sure you follow them on instagram @haraka.center

If you’re looking for something to do then this exhibit might be interesting to visit:

SADI is an ambitious program envisioned by AlSadu Society to encourage creativity and innovation in contemporary textile arts and design for artists in Kuwait. Every year, we invite 5 artists from various creative backgrounds to be a part of the program, and explore a particular element of sadu.

Drawing on the unique global circumstances that have both connected and disconnected us, this year’s “SADI 2021: Connectivity Through Art” exhibit features the works of Ahmad AlAjmi, Fatema Al Bader, Sheikha Al Habshi, Razan Al Sarraf, and Fay Al Awadhi who have explored the principles of sadu and connectivity, and how the two interweave with modern art.

Opening: Saturday, May 29th 2021 at 5PM
​​Exhibit Dates: May 29th – June 7th 2021
​​Hours: 10AM – 2PM, 4PM – 8PM
​​Location: Sadu House

You need to pre-book your visit in advance due to Covid restrictions. Here is the booking link.