DUBAI.- Zawyeh Gallery is pleased to announce its next exhibition at Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, titled “Tracing Boundaries” by Palestinian artist Bashar Alhroub. In this exhibition, the artist repackages the city of Jerusalem as a religious symbol and reinvents it as a pop culture subject. He traces the boundaries between holiness and material culture and invites the visitor to observe a fine line between religion and commercial clutter. The exhibition that poses questions on the relationships between Jerusalem as a holy city and the material culture, opens on 14 November 2022.

Bashar Alhroub is a Ramallah-based Palestinian artist renowned for using a variety of materials and forms focusing on Sufi themes. Tracing Boundaries is a combination of installation, sculpture, and silkscreen printing. At the center of the exhibition is a four-meter-tall installation representing a façade resembling a real one at the Dome of the Rock holy compound. The scale of this installation creates an impact on the viewer and gives the exhibition a holy mystique despite the subtle criticism that lies between its folds.




Emphasizing the holiness of the city of Jerusalem and its closeness to the heavens, is one thing, yet the artist presents in the other part of the exhibition several sculptures of the Dome of the Rock, made on a small scale in different colors. Those sculptures pose questions on the relationships formed between religious sites as holy symbols and religion as a commodity in a highly commercialized competing market.

Alhroub was born in Jerusalem in 1978. He works with a variety of media including photography, video installation, and paintings. His work directly deals with the polemics of a place, questioning its role in humanity and its influence on creativity. His work is deeply influenced by socio-political sentiments.

The exhibition continues daily until 5 January 2023 from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm