ARTISTS
Abstraction and Calligraphy: Towards a Universal Language
What’s the driving force behind Cy Twombly’s emotive expressions? Behind Kandinsky’s vibrating canvases?Abstract artists set out to form a universal language that could be understood by all. And that idea was influenced by the calligraphy of Asia and North Africa. There was something about eastern script that fueled the imagination of western artists. The Arab world was full of signs and symbols they could draw from. Both raw and precise, expressive and restrained, calligraphy unlocked a new way for them to express the inexpressible: emotion, empathy, ideas.
For visitors of all ages, this exhibition is a rare chance to appreciate the modern masters’ works by Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Lee Ufan, André Masson or Jackson Pollock, alongside contemporary works and monumental calligraffiti made by artists responding to Eastern traditions. In this first exhibition of 2021, we explore masterworks from the Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and others – many shown here for the very first time – and discover how East and West come together on the same canvas.
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What’s the driving force behind Cy Twombly’s emotive expressions? Behind Kandinsky’s vibrating canvases?Abstract artists set out to form a universal language that could be understood by all. And that idea was influenced by the calligraphy of Asia and North Africa. There was something about eastern script that fueled the imagination of western artists. The Arab world was full of signs and symbols they could draw from. Both raw and precise, expressive and restrained, calligraphy unlocked a new way for them to express the inexpressible: emotion, empathy, ideas.
For visitors of all ages, this exhibition is a rare chance to appreciate the modern masters’ works by Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Lee Ufan, André Masson or Jackson Pollock, alongside contemporary works and monumental calligraffiti made by artists responding to Eastern traditions. In this first exhibition of 2021, we explore masterworks from the Centre Pompidou, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and others – many shown here for the very first time – and discover how East and West come together on the same canvas.
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