Then the realization dawned on us that we have always been talking about showing Green Art Gallery version 1.0. i.e. the gallery in the 80's and 90's, where and how it started, what its roots were, and we just never had that time.
So we capitalized on the opportunity and decided to screen an incredible film “Moudarres” (1996) on the late Syrian artist Fateh Moudarres, produced by the late Syrian documentary filmmaker Omar Amiralay, in collaboration with Mohamed Malas and Oussama Mohammed.
It made perfect sense, as Moudarres really was in a way the reason the gallery opened in the 80’s in a small city called Homs. The exhibition is not only a tribute to Moudarres but in a way also to two exceptional women and their passion to the arts starting in 1988 in an attic of a bookshop in Homs, Syria.
It is a beautiful film presenting Moudarres the artist, father and son, the intellectual. His works are all over auctions but no one really knows why they are collecting his works. We hope this film will shed light on this fascinating character.
We have also gathered a few of his works, both from the gallery and from private collections that we were able to get from our generous supporters in this short period of time.
Finally we decided to present some documentation of his shows at the Gallery from the old days and his books (that we had access to), some of which were published by Atassi Gallery, our “sister” gallery in Damascus.
Considering the current situation in Syria we thought we would take the opportunity to bring this fantastic man to life once more and make sure his memory and art lives on.
We hope you will enjoy this spontaneous pop up show. Because we surely did organizing it the last 2 days, we went back in time when art was purely a passion.
Fateh Moudarres (1922-1999, Aleppo, Syria) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome between 1954 and 1960, continued his postgraduate studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris between 1969 and 1972. Upon returning to Syria, he was lecturer and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts until 1993. He was internationally renowned as the pioneer of Modernism in Syria. He created a unique style influenced by primitive and ancient Syrian arts and Christian iconography. Moudarres has also written several collections of poetry and short stories. He participated in numerous shows including the Venice Biennial, 1961, the Sao Paulo Biennale, 1963 (Medal of Honour) and 1975, New York International Art Fair, 1964, Contemporary Arab Art Exhibition, Grand Palais, Paris, 1980, the Seoul Biennial, 1986, the Cairo Biennial, 1994 and a retrospective of his work was held at the L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris in 1995.