Hassan Sharif

Critical text

Hassan Sharif (1951, Bandar Lengeh – 2016, Dubai) was a versatile artist who worked with paper, painting, sculpture, and performance, in the area of conceptual experimentation. In the desire to liberate art from the traditional dominance of calligraphy, Sharif kept faith with scrap materials like cardboard, disposable tissues, paper regenerated through techniques of découpage and assemblage. After having worked in the 1970s drawing caricatures for a newspaper in Dubai, Sharif studied in London, learning about Minimal Art and the Fluxus group. Back in Dubai, he witnessed rapid change in the Arabian society, after the discovery of oil, and developed an archaeology of works with humble and recycled materials, which he displayed on shelves in response to the consumerism and commodification he was seeing all around him. Parallel to this, he developed the Semi-Systems series of drawings, which starting from mathematical calculations and geometric figures on grids were corrupted by errors the artist failed to conceal, in an ongoing challenge to any pre-set authority.

Text by Irina Zucca Alessandrelli

The artist’s voice

I resorted to the idea of 'redundant repetition' in producing art. I would continuously engage myself in boring, recurring and endless activities, a feature that would become a signature of my artwork since 1982, its underlying purpose.