Hassan Sharif | New York: March 17–April 23, 2022 | Alexander Gray Associates

Hassan Sharif

Political Paintings (2008–2009)

Alexander Gray Associates, New York: March 17–April 23, 2022
Hassan Sharif, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2015

Alexander Gray Associates, New York presents Hassan Sharif: Political Paintings (2008–2009).

While Sharif (1951–2016) is best known for his sculptural compositions, he was a dedicated painter—insisting, “It is so easy now for me to give up painting and make objects, but time and time again I feel painting is important.” Highlighting the medium’s primacy in his practice, the Gallery’s presentation brings together political cartoons from the 1970s and paintings and works on paper from the late 2000s to center the artist’s unflinchingly wry observations on contemporary life and politics.
Trained as a painter, Sharif first received critical recognition for his figurative images. By the mid-1970s, he had applied his compositional skills to drafting caricatures for a variety of United Arab Emirates newspapers and magazines. Using his platform to critique everything from the United States’s foreign policy in the Middle East to the changing economic realities of life in Dubai after the establishment of the U.A.E. in 1971, Sharif’s images have an immediacy and irreverence that makes their outspoken commentary all the more compelling.
- Hassan Sharif
  Raising Hands, 2009
  Pastel on paper
  17 5/8 x 11 1/4 in (44.8 x 28.6 cm)
- Hassan Sharif
  Raising Hands No. 1, 2009
  Pencil on paper
  16 1/2 x 11 1/2 in (41.9 x 29.2 cm)
Later paintings by the artist amplify these cartoons’ political critique and gestural style. Canvases from the Press Conference series (2008–2009) feature an impassioned leader ranting into a microphone. As Sharif once observed about these politicians, “They are so confident that, in the end, they go mad. They think that when they talk there are bombs coming out of their mouths.” Alluding to this madness, the works’ loose brushstrokes animate each scene—dissolving every figure’s face into a grotesque parody that captures their unhinged psychological state.
Sharif stated, “My work as a caricaturist honed my sardonic perspective; at the time, I was immersed in the tumult and the ‘culture of revolution’ and the sloganeering that have, for a long time, been used as a stick to keep the Arab people in line, and that have hindered their ability to make any conclusive existential decisions about their collective fate.” In Press Conference No. 4 (2008), Sharif depicts a monstrous politician howling into a host of microphones, as two individuals stand silent behind him.
In Press Conference No. 4 (2009), Sharif depicts a group of four politicians, all standing on blocks and talking aimlessly in every direction. Alluding to the politicians' delusional—and ultimately maddening—confidence, the loose brushstrokes animate the scene, emphasizing the figures’ madness and reflecting their unhinged psychological state.
In the Press Conference series, Sharif directed his biting political commentary specifically at those who used power and position for their own gain at the expense of others. “The series is about politicians all over the world. They are self-centered people, full of false promise, saying we will do this and that, we make your dream come true and so on.”

In Press Conference No. 7 (2008), Sharif depicts one such speaker, his mouth comically agape and his facial features warped and twisted as he peddles lies and false truths into a microphone.
In Press Conference (2008), Sharif depicts a monstrous politician howling as two individuals stand silent behind him. Instead of microphones, however, the speaker is shown screaming into an assortment of household items like scissors, a funnel, a spoon, highlighting the emptiness and inanity of his words.
Throughout the Press Conference series, Sharif directed his biting political commentary specifically at those who used power and position for their own gain at the expense of others. Emphasizing the emptiness of these promises, Press Conference No. 3 (2009) depicts a group of politicians standing aimlessly, their mouths agape like zombies. In Sharif’s words: “The series is about politicians all over the world. They are self-centered people, full of false promise, saying we will do this and that, we make your dream come true and so on.”
Other works by the artist from this period shift their focus away from political figureheads to picture the grim reality of those whose collective fates they control. Repeating the gesture of a raised hand over and over again, Sharif’s 2009 Raising Hand paintings abstract the movement until its meanings collapse and run together—making each figures’ arc-like motion simultaneously a wave goodbye, a sign of surrender, and a plea for help. Rendered in sickly hues of blue, green, and orange, Sharif’s figures recall the emotive, distorted forms of German Expressionists, drawing parallels between their questioning of convention and Sharif’s own.

This critical appraisal—an inherent social critique—was foundational to Sharif’s approach to art-making. “Every act from man is a political act. An artist is a realist by nature,” he once concluded. “I record reality through visual symbols which overflow with combinations of black humor.”
Though widely known for his trailblazing conceptual sculptural compositions, Hassan Sharif first received recognition for his figurative images. In some of his late works on paper, Sharif repeats the gesture of a raised hand, abstracting the movement until its meanings collapse and run together into an endless surrender. In Raising Hands (2009), he depicts two figures with raised hands, their entire forms abstracted almost beyond recognition. Recalling the charcoal sketches of German Expressionists, Sharif’s pained, waving figures imbue the composition with an uncanny psychological charge. Their gesture—a plea for help—serves as an indictment against authoritarianism, recalling the artist’s assertion, “every act from man is a political act. An artist is a realist by nature. So the function of my work of art is to say no to the authoritative orders, so I still feel and I consider myself as a realist."
Depicted in Sharif’s cartoonish, caricature-like style, the figures in Raising Hands No. 2 (2009) and Raising Hands No. 3 (2009) raise their hands above their heads in an arc-like motion—simultaneously a wave goodbye, a sign of surrender, a plea for help, and a desire for acknowledgement. Rendered in sickly hues of blues and oranges with twisted, despondent expressions, the figures recall the emotive, distorted forms of German Expressionists, drawing parallels between their questioning of convention and Sharif’s own.
- Hassan Sharif
  Raising Hands No. 2, 2009
  Oil on canvas
  78 3/4 x 57 1/4 in (200 x 145.4 cm)
- Hassan Sharif
  Raising Hands No. 3, 2009
  Oil on canvas
  78 3/4 x 57 1/4 in (200 x 145.4 cm)
- Hassan Sharif
  Raising Hands No. 2, 2009
  Pencil on paper
  11 3/4 x 8 1/4 in (29.8 x 21 cm)
- Hassan Sharif
  Raising Hands No. 3, 2009
  Pencil on paper
  11 3/4 x 8 1/4 in (29.8 x 21 cm)
Many of Sharif’s works are imbued with biting cultural critique and political satire. In Airport (2009), Sharif depicts a throng of people, their faces and bodies abstracted to the point where they appear to become one large mass, fusing together as their individuality fades. Musing on the symbolic and political utility of art, Sharif said: “The function of the image is not only to overlap or intertwine with the truth. Images are above the truth in terms of their rank and absorb the truth; thus in our age images help create truth and its opposite.”

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