As it marks its fifteenth anniversary, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art reasserts its role not only as a guardian of modern Arab art history, but as a living, responsive institution deeply engaged with the urgencies of the present. Through two parallel exhibitions—Resolutions: Celebrating 15 Years of Mathaf and we refuse_d—the museum offers a powerful reflection on memory, resistance, and the continued necessity of artistic expression.
Resolutions looks inward, tracing Mathaf’s institutional journey from its early foundations to its current position within global artistic discourse. Drawing on the museum’s permanent collection, archival material, and exhibition history, the show foregrounds the intellectual and cultural conditions that shaped the emergence of Doha as a centre for artistic experimentation in the 1990s. Central to this narrative is the founding vision of Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani, whose commitment to collecting and knowledge-building laid the groundwork for a museum rooted in Pan-Arab thought and post-independence cultural inquiry.
Curated through multiple perspectives, the exhibition explores institutional memory, education as a form of cultural production, and the evolution of shared visual languages across the Arab world. Rather than presenting history as static, Resolutions positions Mathaf as an active participant in ongoing decolonial conversations—where the past is continuously reread through the lens of the present.
Running alongside it, we refuse_d shifts attention decisively to the now. Featuring fifteen artists from across the Arab world and beyond, the exhibition examines refusal as both a political gesture and a creative methodology. Developed through sustained dialogue between artists and curators, the works respond to conditions of censorship, displacement, and erasure, affirming art as an act of presence and persistence.
Referencing the nineteenth-century Salon des Refusés, the exhibition emphasizes solidarity, collective care, and resilience. Many of the works are newly commissioned, reinforcing the idea that refusal is not withdrawal, but a deliberate choice to imagine and insist on alternative futures.
Together, these two exhibitions articulate Mathaf’s identity as both archive and arena—where history, resistance, and imagination intersect. Fifteen years on, Mathaf demonstrates that institutional reflection gains its true meaning only when it remains inseparable from contemporary urgency and the ongoing struggle to make art, speak, and remember.
Location: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Dates: we refuse_d until 9 February 2026 | Resolutions until 8 August 2026
