Critical Refuge: Sculptures by Mohamad Hafez

Event time: 
Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - 6:00pm to Wednesday, December 20, 2017 - 7:00am

Critical Refuge: Sculptures by Mohamad Hafez

On view: August 30, 2017 to December 20, 2017
 
A Syrian artist and architect, Mohamad Hafez was born in Damascus, raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and educated in the Midwestern United States. Expressing the juxtaposition of East and West within him, Hafez’s art reflects the political turmoil in the Middle East through the compilation of found objects, paint and scrap metal. Using his architectural skills, Hafez creates surrealistic Middle Eastern streetscapes that are architectural in their appearance yet politically charged in their content. Responding to the atrocities of the Syrian war, Hafez’s recent work depicts cities besieged by civil war to capture the magnitude of the devastation and to expose the fragility of human life. However, in deliberate contrast to the violence of war, his art imbues a subtle hopefulness through its deliberate incorporation of verses from the Holy Quran. At the core of Hafez’s work, the verses offer a distinct contrast between the stark pessimistic reality of destruction and the optimistic hope of a bright future. Scenes reiterate narratives from the Qur’an to affirm that, even during the darkest of times, patience is necessary for the blossoming of life and that, eventually, justice will prevail.
 
(Presented in collaboration with the Council on Middle East Studies, Digital Humanities Lab at Yale, Public Humanities, and Whitney Humanities Center)