In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

FRAGMENTS OF POETIC MEMORY: THE ART OF RASHID DIAB n accomplished painter and a master printmaker, Rashid Diab was born in 1957 in Wad Medani on the banks of the Blue Nile in the Gezira Province, Sudan H e currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain where he has owned and directed the Medani Galeria since the early 1980s H e is both artist and critic H e studied at the School of Fine and Applied Arts in Khartoum and graduated with honors in 1978 In 1980, he traveled to Madrid on scholarship from the government of Spain, where he completed several graduate degrees: an M F A in painting and M F A in etching and earned a SUDANESE BACKGROUND AND CULTURAL HERITAGE Rashid Diab arrived in Spain with a rich heritage and a wealth of experience gained from studying and growing up in Sudan He studied at the Khartoum School of Fine and Applied Art, considered, until very recently, one of the most outstanding centers for creative talent which has contributed to the growth of the modern art movement in Africa The history of the modern art movement in Sudan, like other African countries, is embedded in Ph D in Fine Arts at the Complutense SalabMs HdSSdM the Western educational system Most University in Madrid for his thesis on the specifically, it is associated with the rise Sudanese contemporary art movement Diab, a prolific artist, mounted more than twenty solo exhibitions in Africa, Europe, North America, and the Middle East, as well as participated in an extensive number of group exhibitions H e has won prizes from several countries including Cuba and Taiwan Once a Guest of Honor at the 2nd Mediterranean Biennial of Graphic Arts in Greece, Diab has been a recipient of several other honors in his young but exceptional artistic career These include prizes or medals at the 1st Biennial of Abu Dhabi in 1986, the 3rd Biennial of Taipei in 1987, the Salon de Otono de Madrid in 1989, and the 10th Biennial of Dibuji, Zamora, 1991 His works are included in the permanent collections of several museums and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Art in Cairo, Egypt; the Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad, Iraq; the Royal Museum of Fine Art in Amman, Jordan; and the National Library of Madrid, Spain Diab is probably the only Sudanese artist in his generation to succeed in making a living as a professional artist Many Sudanese artists must work as teachers, government bureaucrats, or other non-art professions in order to subsidize their income and support their art Faced with the high costs of art materials, many artists have even deserted their art career and moved to other professions Diab's decision to reside permanently in Spain has been a major factor in his success as an artist He has received generous support from the official Spanish art circles in the form of fellowships and grants since the early 1980s Diab has so far been the only Sudanese artist to study in Spain The norm among Sudanese artists has been to travel to the United Kingdom A few have studied in France, the U S , the ex-Soviet Union or Egypt of higher education in Sudan introduced during the British colonial period Through the Khartoum School of Fine and Applied Art, Sudanese artists were exposed to Western contemporary artistic traditions in terms of techniques, materials and forms The early graduates of that School traveled to England and other European countries for further studies Upon their return, they helped train generations of artists and laid the foundation for the modern art movement in Sudan From those pioneers evolved one of the well-known art movements in Africa known as the "Khartoum School", a term primarily coined by Western art critics and expatriates who formed the early patrons of those artists 2 In the 1950s and 1960s Sudan experienced a nationalistic cultural resurgence as did many newly independent African countries Similarly, Sudan had also witnessed a collective intellectual effort to build a "national culture", and to search for a new identity expressed in modern forms, a common feature of most contemporary art or literary movements in...

pdf

Share