Opening on 16 September, the Goethe-Institut New York presents the first solo exhibition and first institutional presentation of Syrian-German artist Tammam Azzam in the United States. Bringing together paintings, collages, and works on paper, Tammam Azzam: A Horizon Remains focuses on a body of work centered on Azzam’s sustained engagement with the city as landscape.
Rather than documenting ruin, Azzam begins with it, recognizing it as an enduring condition of the built environment and transforming the city into landscapes that speak as much to human making as to human unmaking. Central to the exhibition are the artistic lineages informing Azzam’s practice. Like his teacher, Marwan Kassab-Bachi, who repeatedly returned to his own face as a motif until it dissolved into landscape, Azzam revisits the city with similar persistence. Further developed during his years in Germany, this investigation enters into dialogue with the traditions of postwar German painting. The exhibition positions Azzam within a broader contemporary return to the city as a site through which the possibilities of painting continue to be reimagined.
Curated by: Saria AlMidani (Curatorial Assistant at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York)
Managing Curator: Zachary B. Feldman (Curator of Visual Arts & Programs at Goethe-Institut New York)
Supported by: KORNFELD Galerie Berlin and Ayyam Gallery Dubai.
