VERY SHARP TOOLS - Nujoom AlGhanem
VERY SHARP TOOLS - Nujoom AlGhanem
A collage of scenes to symbolise a man who built his practice on a collage of objects. Bowled over by the rise of consumerism and an almost obsessive interest in visual accumulations and systematic production, this artwork evokes the sense of Hassan Sharif’s practice. His voice and his mannerisms are overlaid with artwork production in such a way that over the course of over 47 seconds, the piece feels like it is a piece of the artist himself.
Hassan Sharif was one the most influential figures in contemporary art in the Gulf. Provocative and experimental, considered a leader of more than one generation of conceptual artists, Sharif died in 2016 at the age of 65. This artwork is derived from snippets from Sharp Tools, Nujoom Alghanem’s 2017 artistic film portrait of Sharif with whom she was a life-long friend and collaborator.
ARTIST BIO
Nujoom Alghanem is an Emirati artist, poet, and multi- award-winning film director. She was born in Dubai in 1962, has published eight poetry collections and produced around twenty films including short fiction, short documentaries, art films and seven feature length documentaries. Her films have won local, regional and international prizes.
In 1985, she co-founded the Aqwas group, with artist Hassan Sharif, Youssef Khalil, the late Sudanese storyteller, and Khalid Albudoor, the poet, researcher, and translator. She went on to be part of the emergence of the contemporary art scene in the UAE. Alghanem has her own film production company based in Dubai and is a professional trainer and mentor in filmmaking, art and creative writing. She is also on the Board of Trustees of the International Prize of Arabic Fiction.
Alghanem represented the UAE at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019 with a site specific, two channel film, Passage, which was co-written, designed, and supervised by curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath.