Geometric Abstraction: Opy Zouni, Etel Adnan, Samia Halaby, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Lubna Chowdhary

October 15, 2025 – February 22, 2026

Works on view are drawn from the collections of the Onassis Foundation, Irini Panagopoulou, the Barjeel Art Foundation, the Saloua Raouda Choucair Foundation, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, as well as other private collections.

Bringing together diverse artistic practices, the exhibition shifts attention from strict formalism to themes of memory, identity, politics, and cultural heritage. It also highlights the unique genealogies of abstraction in the Arab world, where Islamic aesthetics—geometry, repetition, and calligraphy—serve not merely as decoration but as a profound system of thought and interpretation. Here, the concept of the motif is redefined, emphasizing its intellectual and philosophical resonance.

From Choucair’s modular structures and Halaby’s dynamic compositions to Chowdhary’s architectural forms, these traditions forge an alternative narrative of abstraction. Adnan’s luminous landscapes, suspended between form and abstraction, and Abdulaziz’s works, which merge mathematics, language, and social critique, expand the visual field even further. Opy Zouni, born in Egypt, integrated the visual idioms of Islamic art early in her career, embedding her practice in a cross-cultural dialogue that is vividly reflected in the works presented here. The works of Opy Zouni form the central axis of the exhibition, engaging in a creative dialogue with the works of the other participating women artists.

Through these dialogues, the exhibition underscores that abstraction is not solely a Western invention but a global language, equally resonant from Beirut, Cairo, and Sharjah as from Paris and New York. This language operates as an act of resistance, a poetic articulation, and a vehicle of cultural continuity.

The exhibition is curated by the art historian, Yannis Bolis, and is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue.