Art in Qatar between Modernism and Postmodernism: Yousef Ahmed as a Case Study

Abstract

The article discusses the development of art and art movements in Qatar. Throughout the paper, I examine modern and postmodern arts and highlight the roles of different factors that could influence artists in their move between modern and postmodern art and vise-versa. The forms of art developed during the modernist and postmodern periods were influenced by the traits of the people. For example, the modernists constantly searched for the abstract truth of life, while the postmodernists did not believe in the abstract truth. It is important to recognize that postmodern culture is a reaction against the culture of modernism. The works of postmodern artists create reality, whereas those of modernist artists reflect reality. During history, political crisis, natural crisis, economic development and social move have always played fundamental roles in art practice and movement in the world. Through studying art movement of the Qatari artist Yousef Ahmed and his transitions between modern and postmodern art, this paper nalyzes the reasons that might drove post-modern artists to look back at modernism. The paper addresses this question: why did Yousef Ahmed return to modernism after his huge success as a postmodernist artist? Through looking at the question, we realized that the reason for such move it could be the individuals’ real experiences in the real world. Yousef Ahmed had to look back to modernism to move from metaphor to reality so that he could better express his attachment to his culture. Keywords: Qatari Culture, Arts in Qatar, Yousef Ahmed, Postmodernism, Qatari Identity