Ayyam Gallery Beirut is pleased to present It’s a Mad World, a solo show of recent work by Shurooq Amin. Featuring mixed media paintings that explore a number of sociopolitical issues, the exhibition will travel from Kuwait, where it debuted at Contemporary Art Platform, a leading art space in the Gulf. There, It’s a Mad World was organised in collaboration with Ayyam Gallery under the direction of guest curator Martina Corgnati. Corgnati previously served as the curator of In the Eye of the Thunderstorm: Effervescent Practices from the Arab world and South Asia, an official collateral event of the 2015 Venice Biennale that highlighted a diverse group of established artists, including Amin.
The Kuwait installment of It’s a Mad World marked the first time in four years that Amin exhibited in her native country after facing censorship from local authorities. In 2012, controversy arose when a selection of paintings depicting the hidden, transgressive lives of Khaleeji men were banned from public view. Although the exhibition It’s a Man’s World was shut down, Amin’s paintings brought attention to the social mores that dominate the region, and the frequent clashes that occur between an increasingly globalised youth culture and the religiosity of traditional life in the Arabian Peninsula.