We are proud to show Anwar Jalal Shemza’s ‘Red and Black’ from 1966 at Frieze London, a rare and significant work as…
We are proud to show Anwar Jalal Shemza’s ‘Red and Black’ from 1966 at Frieze London, a rare and significant work as it’s one of four in which Shemza worked with wood. Representative of the artist’s ongoing investigation into the possibilities of geometric shapes, the works in this series, notes Iftikhar Dadi, ‘draw on a creative tension between geometric abstractions derived from the Roman alphabet, and the sinuous character of Arabic scripts.’
‘Red and Black’, made from sawn pieces of discarded tables and chairs, has a topographical quality likely related to the waxing and waning of the moon. Similar to collages in the collections of Tate and Sharjah Art Foundation, this particular collage was exhibited
in the 1969 Commonwealth Institute in Edinburgh.
Pictured here is Shemza at the Commonwealth Institute with ‘Red and Black’ (image 2), ‘Composition with Number Six’ (image 3) in the collection of Tate, ‘Meem’ (image 4) with MoMA. Image 5 shows us ‘The Sun and the Sea’, a collage we had a chance to exhibit in India as early as 2013, now with Sharjah Art Foundation.
Shemza remains an abiding influence on younger artists on our stand, whether Rana Begum, Lubna Chowdhary, Shezad Dawood or Ali Kazim.
Find us at Stand B24 between 15 and 19 October.
