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As explained by the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director, Dr. Souraya Noujaim: “The sources of abstraction that might be said to have dominated 20th-century art are found in the attention that many artists paid to the varied signs, calligraphies and ideograms of non-Western cultures. Beyond the limits of immediate sensory experience, in an environment where letters are everywhere present in declamation, calligraphy and graffiti, Asia and North Africa were intuitively experienced as an essential model. This almost mystical dimension of gesture and letter finds an echo in the Arab Hurufiyya movement, whose importance in the development of contemporary abstraction should not be underestimated”.

Unknown artist Page of the “Blue Quran”, North Africa (?), c. 900 Gold on blue-dyed parchment 28.5 × 38.2 cm Louvre Abu Dhabi LAD 2014.006 © Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi/ Photo: APF

Unknown artist Page of the “Blue Quran”, North Africa (?), c. 900 Gold on blue-dyed parchment 28.5 × 38.2 cm Louvre Abu Dhabi LAD 2014.006 © Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi/ Photo: APF

Shakir Hassan Al Said 1925, Samawah (Iraq)– 2004, Baghdad (Iraq) Writing on the Wall, 1978 Mixed media on board 90 × 100 cm Guggenheim Abu Dhabi © Rights Rerserved Photo © Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

Unknown artist Page of the “Blue Quran”, North Africa (?), c. 900 Gold on blue-dyed parchment 28.5 × 38.2 cm Louvre Abu Dhabi LAD 2014.006 © Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi/ Photo: APF

Georges Mathieu 1921, Boulogne-sur-Mer (France)–2012, Boulogne- Billancourt (France) Anneau de la princesse Honora [The Princess Honora’s Ring], 1961 Oil on canvas 97 × 195 cm Paris, Centre Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne- Centre de Création Industrielle On loan at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes © ADAGP, Paris, 2021 Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Philippe Migeat

Unknown artist Page of the “Blue Quran”, North Africa (?), c. 900 Gold on blue-dyed parchment 28.5 × 38.2 cm Louvre Abu Dhabi LAD 2014.006 © Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi/ Photo: APF

1922, Tervuren (Belgium)– 1979, Buizingen (Belgium) Parfois, ne fais qu’attendre : c’est vivre le temps même [Sometimes I Can Only Wait: Living Time Itself], 1971 Indian ink on Chinese paper, mounted on canvas 61 × 98 cm Gift of Micky and Pierre Alechinsky, 2011 Paris, Centre Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne- Centre de Création Industrielle © ADAGP, Paris, 2021 Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/ Images Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI

Unknown artist Page of the “Blue Quran”, North Africa (?), c. 900 Gold on blue-dyed parchment 28.5 × 38.2 cm Louvre Abu Dhabi LAD 2014.006 © Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi/ Photo: APF

Lee Ufan b. 1936, Kyongsan (South Korea) Lives and works in Kamakura (Japan) and Paris (France) From Line, 1977 Grease pencil on Arches wove paper, with stumping effect 56.1 × 76 cm Purchase, 1984 Paris, Centre Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne- Centre de Création Industrielle © ADAGP, Paris, 2021 Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais/ Georges Meguerditchian
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