Mustafa Ali Art Gallery & Foundation

The Open Hands Initiative has partnered with the Mustafa Ali Gallery, a leading non-profit art gallery and foundation in Damascus, Syria, to provide a platform for the Syrian Art Exchange Program.

The Gallery & Art Foundation

The Mustafa Ali Art Gallery is a 500-year-old Syrian house located off a narrow street in the old city of Damascus. Mustafa Ali, a renowned Syrian sculptor, bought the building in 2004, triggering an urban revival of the neighborhood and catalyzing new development. Since moving into the neighborhood, another 40 artists moved into the area luring tourists and other visitors to experience this unique enclave of Damascus.

The space includes an open courtyard in Damascene style, several rooms on the main floor that serve as exhibition and performance spaces, guest rooms on the second floor that are rented out to art students or travelers, and an ancient, cavernous basement where the Gallery hosts film screenings, dance nights, Karaoke and other cultural and social activities. The space also hosts workshops, lectures, and other art-related events.

The goal of the Mustafa Ali Art Foundation is to support artistic endeavors and local artistry. It fosters public dialogue, organizes art-related events, and helps forge networks between local artists. It has worked with the British Council and the UK-based charity, Delfina Foundation. It strives to “secure the cultural and artistic exchange between the Orient and the West and to take part in and encourage the Syria movement of art at the Arab and international levels and meet with the international movements keeping pace with time.”

 

Mustafa Ali

Mustafa Ali is a highly revered contemporary artist in the Middle East. He specializes in sculptures forged from metal, marble, and wood. Arab Business magazine ranks Mustafa Ali as one of “The World’s Most Influential Arabs.”

In a way, Mustafa Ali is more than just an artist. He is an aspiring cultural ambassador and town planner. He says, “I want to change people’s perceptions of Syria, especially the perceptions formed by Western media. People think it’s dangerous to come here. Many people have no idea there are artists in Syria and that we have such cultural activities.”

According to an interview with Gulf Life Magazine, he has “direct access” to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, with whom he meets on a regular basis. He has been working with the president to develop the gallery’s neighborhood into an arts enclave, and to “offer scholarships to foreign artists, writers and filmmakers to bring them to Syria to produce works that might change notions of the country overseas.” Additional plans include the development of a small park for cultural activities. The most grandiose of ideas includes persuading the authorities to close the entire old city to traffic, “establishing car parks outside the walls and introducing electric vehicles as alternative public transport.”

Mustafa Ali was born in Lattakia, Syria in 1956 and graduated from the Plastic Arts Center (1974) and from the Minor Arts Center (1977). He holds two degrees in Fine Arts, one from Syria (1979) and one from Italy (1996).

He is currently a member of the Arab Plastique Artists Union, Syndicates of Fine Arts, the Arab Plastic Artists Union, and the higher committee for acquisition at the Syrian Ministry of Culture.

He has shown his work in both collective and personal exhibits from Damascus to Dubai, as well as in France, the UK, Canada, Switzerland and Morocco. He has held sculpture symposiums in Syria, Lebanon and Germany, and has won prizes for his work, one of which was awarded in February 2008 from the Arab World Institute Competition. Finally, he has commissioned monuments: Tower of Memory, Syria (Umayyad Square with Dr. Ihsan Intabi) and The Gate of Syria in the Mediterranean Olympiad (Pari, Italy).

For more information, please visit the official Mustafa Ali website.

Image: Gulf Life, October 2009