Qatar Museums Announced Fall 2024 Exhibitions Programme

Qatar Museums, the nation’s preeminent institution for art and culture, announced its fall 2024 exhibitions programme.

Among the highlights are MANZAR: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to Today, an unprecedented exhibition on the diverse and rich landscape of visual art and architecture from Pakistan and its diasporas; The Art and Influence of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), the first major exhibition on the artist in the Middle East; Splendours of the Atlas: a Voyage Through Morocco’s Heritage, exploring the multifaceted heritage of Islamic Morocco and organised as part of the ongoing Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture; Ellsworth Kelly at 100, the American painter and sculptor’s first-ever retrospective in the Middle East; and the first Forensic Architecture exhibition in the Gulf region.

The exhibitions have been made possible through collaborations within Qatar Museums, including between the future Lusail Museum and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the future Art Mill Museum and National Museum of Qatar. The Museum of Islamic Art will present two exhibitions connected to the Years of Culture, Qatar’s national initiative that spearheads long-term cultural exchanges between Qatar and partner nations to promote respect and understanding among countries and people. In addition, 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum will debut a touring exhibition, Esports| A Game Changer, opening in Paris timed to the Summer Olympic Games.

The fall programme will be presented as part of Qatar Creates, the year-round national cultural movement that curates, promotes, and celebrates the diversity of cultural activities in Qatar.

The diverse group of exhibitions include (in chronological order):

Esports | A Game Changer
23 July – 8 September 2024
Citeaux, Paris, 45 Boulevard Diderot, 75012 Paris.

Esports | A Game Changer, organised by the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum and opening in time for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, explores the evolution of esports from niche origins to celebrate mainstream megaevents, addressing socio-cultural challenges and forecasting its future trajectory. The first of its kind exhibition seamlessly integrates digital kiosks and portals into an inspiring design for visitors.
The immersive exhibition is structured into four sections:

• “What is Esports” examines how esports relates to gaming and traditional sports, and the organisational and economic aspects behind it.
• “History of Esports” traces its inception from early devices, games, and events, through the growth of international structures and titles, to its mainstream breakthrough.
• “We are Esports” celebrates the accessibility of esports, spotlighting how anyone can ascend to stardom through social media, forge a unique identity, and engage in a range of esports-related hobbies.
• The exhibition culminates with “Future of Esports”, which contemplates its societal, educational, recreational, and occupational implications, and its future role in the gaming landscape.

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Christian Wacker, Deputy Director of Exhibitions, Qatar Museums, with esports industry leaders Benjamin Buchtala and Jannik Rädisch; Abdulla Yousuf Al Mulla, Director, 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum; and Aalia Khalid Al-Khater, Head of Exhibitions, 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum.

In the Footsteps of Ara Güler
9 August – 9 November 2024
The Museum of Islamic Art

A special collaboration between the Ara Güler Museum in Istanbul and Qatar Museums, In the Footsteps of Ara Güler will offer a glimpse into the life of the globally acclaimed photographer. Structured as an expansive journey into his career spanning over 70 years, the exhibition will introduce Ara Güler’s life, segueing into ‘Istanbul: A Lifelong Study,’ followed by ‘The Discovery of Sites,’ spotlighting his archaeological findings across Turkey. A section dedicated to his portraits of leading writers, artists, politicians, philosophers and other notable figures of his time will follow, culminating in a display featuring iconic pieces from the Ara Güler Archives and Research Center and the Qatar Museums’ General Collection. The exhibition concludes with the screening of Hero’s End, a film directed, written and produced by Ara Güler.

Curated by Sheikha Maryam Al Thani and the Ara Güler Museum team, the exhibition of Güler’s photography offers a comprehensive overview of the artist’s work depicting Istanbul’s inhabitants, revealing historical landmarks, and immortalising both through his inquisitive eye.

The Ara Güler Archives and Research Center and the Ara Güler Museum are founded by Doğuş Group.

Chaumet & Nature
30 October 2024 – 30 December 2024
Presented at M7

Chaumet & Nature is organised by Maison Chaumet. The exhibition will present a unique sensory journey to discover and celebrate the wonders of nature, between earth and sky, between sky and sea, all through which the true essence of Chaumet is revealed.

From 1780 to the present day, the Maison has placed its creativity and savoir-faire at the service of nature, transposing its preciousness into jewellery. Over the course of successive eras guided by the workshop heads, it has looked to the masterpieces of the earth’s flora and fauna, capturing the immensity of the sky, its stars and birds, and interpreting the infinite nuances of the sea and the treasures contained within, to create jewels imbued with emotion and symbolism.

Merging the Maison’s collections with those of Qatar Museums collection, the exhibition Chaumet & Nature will honour the links the country have shared since the 1970s.

Ellsworth Kelly at 100
31 October 2024 – February 2025
Presented at M7 

Ellsworth Kelly at 100 will be the American artist’s first-ever retrospective in the Middle East. Organised by Glenstone Museum (Maryland, USA), the Doha presentation includes more than 60 works from leading international lenders and spans the entirety of Ellsworth Kelly’s (1923–2015) career, from his early days as a burgeoning artist in post-war Paris, through his final years as an icon of Modern art.

The comprehensive presentation—which includes rarely-seen works—charts the artist’s lifelong exploration of the relationship between form, colour, line, and space. Among the highlights are Painting for a White Wall (1952) and Painting in Three Panels (1956), early foundational works by the artist in which he pares painting down to its simplest form and engages architecture. Ellsworth Kelly at 100 also features work from the Chatham Series (1971), Kelly’s first large-scale body of work made in the eponymous upstate New York town, and a selection of the artist’s lesser-known photographs (1950-1982).

The exhibition, marking what would have been Kelly’s 100th birthday (in 2023) will serve as the first major introduction to audiences from the MENASA region to the American artist’s work, which profoundly influenced Modern and contemporary art, design, and aesthetics. The exhibition was previously on view at Glenstone and is now on view at the Fondation Louis Vuitton through 9 September 2024.

Forensic Architecture
3 November 2024 – 22 February 2025
Presented at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art

The origins of Forensic Architecture (FA) lie in our critical practice seeking to confront settler-colonial violence in Palestine with locally situated counter-investigations. In the context of Israel’s genocidal military campaign in the occupied Gaza Strip, this exhibition, FA’s first solo exhibition in the Gulf, presents new counter-investigations, produced together with Palestinian civil society groups in the country.

The investigations examine systematic executions and mass burial experienced by Palestinians in 1948, with emphasis on the villages of Tantura and Dawayimeh – ethnically cleansed in 1948 and since wiped from the contemporary landscape. These interventions are put in relation to contemporary documentation of similar experiences made by Palestinians in Gaza in 2023-2024.

Shown publicly for the first time, the projects foreground the voices and living testimonies of survivors to reconstruct lost live-worlds. The exhibition thus demonstrates the historical continuity of the Palestinian experience of an ongoing, and escalating, Nakba.

Around these projects, other investigations by FA from across the world will also be presented. Together, the exhibition seeks to reveal the assembled techniques and grounded networks of relations that shape our political, intellectual, and artistic matrix.

In doing so, the exhibition also establishes different modes of engagement with the local intellectual context of Doha, in the form of seminars, conversations, pedagogical interventions, and public screenings on FA’s sensibilities and methodologies in collaboration with Georgetown University Qatar.

The Art and Influence of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
22 October 2024 – 22 February 2025
Presented at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art

The Art and Influence of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)  is organised by the future Lusail Museum in collaboration with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Drawing from the Lusail Museum’s substantial collection of Orientalist paintings, and important international loans and artist commissions, this exhibition will both celebrate and reevaluate the artist’s legacy throughout his lifetime until the present day.

The exhibition is organised across three distinct sections. The first section looks at Gérôme’s Orientalist artworks while considering his artistic techniques and biography, raising questions around the wider discourse of Orientalism. The central gallery explores the dialogue between art and objectivity, and authenticity and imagination in Middle East photography during the lifetime and by reference to the legacy of Gérôme. And the final section brings the conversation to the present day by showcasing modern and contemporary art and ideas that resonate with the legacy of Gérôme, while seeking to challenge outdated ideas pertaining to geography and identity.

The exhibition is curated by guest curator Dr. Emily Weeks (Gérôme); Lusail Museum’s Curator of Photographs, Dr. Giles Hudson (Photography); and guest curator Sara Raza (Contemporary).

MANZAR: Art and Architecture from Pakistan 1940s to Today
1 November 2024 – 31 January 2025
Presented at the National Museum of Qatar

The future Art Mill Museum is organising a major exhibition on art and architecture from Pakistan from the 1940s to the present day. Originated in Arabic, the word Manzar (منظر) in Urdu can be translated to mean a scene, a view, a landscape, or a perspective, highlighting the extraordinary vitality of the diverse art scenes in Pakistan and its diasporas.

A selection of approximately 200 paintings, drawings, photographs, videos, sculptures, installations, tapestries, and miniatures present multi-faceted modernities and contemporary practices. Tracing divergent narratives, perspectives, histories and presents, this multidisciplinary exhibition will focus on the deep engagement of artists and architects in continuity and discontinuity, and in the transference of knowledge, resilience and continued ecological concerns.

Spanning over eight decades, this groundbreaking exhibition traces how artists and architects have forged diverse personal and political languages, in dialogue or disjunction with regional styles and international art and world histories. The interconnections with scenes, individuals and communities in the subcontinent and on a global scale are testament to the strength of art withstanding imposed and desired divisions or movements. The land that is geographically defined as present-day Pakistan is an ancient one, even while the country is young.

New commissioned artworks, performances and talks will be part of a vibrant public programme.

Curated by Caroline Hancock, Art Mill Museum Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; Aurélien Lemonier, Art Mill Museum Curator of Architecture, Design and Gardens; and Zarmeene Shah, independent curator, writer and Director of Graduate Studies at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (IVS) in Karachi; with Art Mill Museum Senior Exhibition Project Manager Aebhric Coleman. The exhibition is designed by architect Raza Ali Dada (Nayyar Ali Dada & Associates, Lahore).
A catalogue, designed by Kiran Ahmad, expands on the research with essays by important art and architecture historians, educators, artists and architects from Pakistan.

Splendours of the Atlas: A Voyage Through Morocco’s Heritage
2 November 2024 – 8 March 2025
Presented at the Museum of Islamic Art, as part of the Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture

Presented as part of Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture, Splendours of the Atlas: A Voyage Through Morocco’s Heritage will investigate multifaceted heritage of Islamic Morocco, revealing the forces that have shaped its unique identity to the present day. Featuring historical artefacts, manuscripts, ceramics, costumes, and jewellery—much of it on view for the first time—the exhibition highlights the significance of key cities in Morocco in fostering religious scholarship and scientific advances, as well as the pivotal role crafts have played in the country’s identity.

Photographs of the Moroccan landscape and images of daily life by contemporary Moroccan photographers Bruno Barbey and Mous Lamrabat will also be on view.

Ektashif: Morocco Exhibition
2 November 2024 – January 2025
Presented at the Museum of Islamic Art,
as part of the Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture

The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) will present Ektashif: Morocco Exhibition, the result of an annual educational programme run by the museum. The programme offers Qatari artists an opportunity to gain new skills in traditional and Islamic arts and experience the enduring impact of the Islamic civilization worldwide. This year, seven Qatari artists travelled to Morocco as part of the Qatar-Morocco 2024 Year of Culture to view Islamic architecture and participate in art workshops to learn traditional arts from expert craftsmen.

For more information about Qatar Museums and the fall exhibition programme visit www.qm.org.qa.