Sunflower Black Girl (2020). Courtesy of the artist.
An in-person event is a rare thing these days. Even rarer is a new fair in Palestine. Yet the Ramallah Art Fair, which opened in December and continues until March 4, has proven that it’s possible especially if you’re willing to break the traditional art fair model.
Instead of a fair composed of galleries, the event comprises just artists and is staged in a single location: Zawyeh Gallery, Palestine’s only international gallery dedicated to modern and contemporary Palestinian art. (It also has a location in Dubai.)
The gallery’s owner, Ziad Anani, invited 26 artists to take part, giving each one space to exhibit five to seven small pieces that he worked to place with international collectors.
Monther Jawabreh
‘What is Known #4’
The first ever Ramallah Art Fair began last week at the city’s Zawyeh Gallery. It brings together more than 100 works from 26 Palestinian artists, including this series by Jawabreh silk embroidered representations of the faces of child martyrs.
Durar Bacri
‘Homeless in Yaffa’
All the participating artists, the gallery says, “explore a variety of subjects stemming from the Palestinian context.” Bacri’s work much of which is set in the time of the war on Gaza in 2014 is “a tribute to all the people who struggle to survive and who find beauty in even the worst tragedies.”