Hassan Sharif Towel 2, 2013 Objects series Towel and copper wire (7 parts) 35 x 290 x 175 cm Unique piece Hassan Sharif (Born 1951) has been working in Emirate of Dubai for the past forty years. He began his practice in the greatest secrecy before becoming an oracle for today’s younger generation. Steeped in the thought of Marcel Duchamp and constructivist movements, Hassan Sharif was the first artist from the Persian Gulf to realize performances. Since 1982, he has taken up humble, scrap materials to create objects like so many signs of resistance in the face of the transformation of Emirate society and the waste of the economic boom. Hassan Sharif used simple materials, first natural then synthetic, to make sculptures he called Objects. They are a reflection of the everyday and echo the visual landscape of his environment. The action is repetitive and anonymous, but the artist energizes the Objects whose identity has been lost to industrialization.
