04/08/2013

Ibrahim el-Salahi, in London, Tate Modern, review


The British Newspaper 'The Independent' on Ibrahim el-Salahi:

Exhibition of week: Ibrahim el-Salahi: a Visionary Modernist

Tate Modern, London SE1

  • Ibrahim El-Salahi Vision of the Tomb
    Ibrahim El-Salahi
    Vision of the Tomb 1965
    Museum for African Art, New York
    © Ibrahim El-Salahi


Ibrahim el-Salahi is a veteran of the postwar renaissance in African art and its troubled politics. A minister one moment, imprisoned the next, his painting is a fascinating, moving search for forms that express his yearnings and the anguish of his prison experience.


The early works see him trying out the modern art learnt from the Western masters, but what makes him interesting is the tension between an intellect that seeks purity of expression and an imagination which wants to free itself from constraint. Featured works include the Self-Portrait of Suffering (1961).

020 7887 8888; tate.org.uk, to 22 September



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