Palais Populaire

The retrospective ”Fahrelnissa Zeid" introduces one of Turkey’s most important pioneering modernists to an international audience. Although Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901-1991) travelled extensively, exhibited internationally and influenced a younger generation of artists in Europe and the Middle East during her lifetime, this will be the first major retrospective dedicated to her work. ”Fahrelnissa Zeid" is a celebration and a revelation of an artist who lived a fascinating life and made some of the most important works of her time.

"Fahrelnissa Zeid" traces the artist’s career from the first works she made in Turkey, through Zeid’s engagement with the d-Group, her later experiments with abstraction and, finally, her return to figuration. Her large-scale abstract works from the late 1940s-1960s form the heart of the exhibition. The show focuses on how Zeid’s practice both related to and diverged from international art movements. It also re-evaluates her work in relation to her nomadic subjectivity to create a clearer understanding of her aesthetic preoccupations, the individuality of her abstract vocabulary and the specificities upon which this depended. Previously to the presentation at the KunstHalle ”Fahrelnissa Zeid„ will be on view at the Tate Modern next spring.

Curators: Kerryn Greenberg, Curator International Art and Vassilis Oikonomopoulos, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern.