Hassan Sharif: Iron No. 3

Alder & Co., 222 Main Street, Germantown NY 12526

Hours: Friday – Sunday 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM

Known as the “father of modern art in the United Arab Emirates," Hassan Sharif combined a London-based art education with the singular experience of living in the young and fast-developing culture of the U.A.E. He began making his Objects in the 1980s, using materials sourced from industrial and commercial contexts. Inspired by Duchamp’s objects made of inexpensive and readily available materials, Sharif employed things like fabric, rope, and paper to make sculptures based on a logic of accumulation. Iron No. 3 (2013) foregrounds Sharif’s engagement with weaving, which appealed to him for its simplicity of construction. Strips of rusted iron are woven together and covered with a web of thin steel wires hooked and twisted to one another. An artist who imbued everyday objects with a poetic sensibility, Sharif perceived a softer side to these industrial materials, explaining, “The rusted surface looks similar to a tree’s bark. It’s in nature, for example, and it protects itself. And with iron, if you leave it exposed to the elements, the surface becomes rusted, so rust is protecting the iron. Protection might become the narrative.”