Hassan Sharif’s 1982 piece on display at London’s Whitechapel Gallery

It’s the kind of painting that can infuriate the more casual art follower. Walk into the Whitechapel Gallery in London and it’s there, almost confrontational in its simplicity. A solid black shape sits on a white rectangular background. That’s it. And yet Kazimir Malevich’s famous piece, now almost 100 years old, is credited with not just being a revolutionary symbol, but a dawn of a new age, the beginning of abstract art and, well, the first painting that isn’t “of’” anything. It’s one of the most important paintings in the world.

We’re at the Whitechapel Gallery because just around the corner from Malevich’s work is an offering from the pioneering UAE artist Hassan Sharif. He’s in exalted company – to get to his piece, Drawing Squares on the Floor Using a Cube, you have to walk past Piet Mondrian’s famous grid-style Composition With Yellow, Blue and Red, and work from the fascinating Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi, who melded western abstract ideas with Islamic patterns.

So to be included in this huge, and genuinely global survey of abstract art, entitled Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015, feels like a big moment for Sharif, and the notion of UAE art itself.

“I feel really happy that I was chosen, and yes, being included does feel very important,” he agrees. “I remember when I was in England in the beginning of the 1980s – I used to go to Whitechapel all the time. It was a gallery that was very important in my development. So to be exhibited there in particular feels good.”

Original article by Ben East

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Hassan Sharif’s 1982 piece on display at London’s Whitechapel Gallery