Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present works by Farid Haddad from the 1970s.
Farid Haddad was born in Beirut, Lebanon, 1945. In 1969, he graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from the American University of Beirut. He then earned an MFA from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. In 1972 he was the recipient of a Fulbright-Hays grant, which he used to explore lithography in New York City. He has participated in more than fifty group exhibitions in Europe, the Middle East and North America.
In the early 70s, Haddad’s work was recognized for its linear composition consisting of geometric shapes, patterns, and gradations, in the form of black and white ink drawings. During this period, he composed small pen drawings in the pursuit of combining sensory experiences in conflict–– fragmentation and unity, depth and flatness, cohesiveness and randomness.
Haddad resisted following the path of his contemporaries in Beirut in the early 70s, which was attached to the direction and aesthetics of early 20th century European art. Keeping his distance from traditional mediums such as oil and charcoal, Haddad investigated the boundaries of spatial dimension and worked against its limits using pen and ink.
Following this period, Haddad experimented with spontaneous decision making in drawing and collage, after which he switched to exclusively painting color fields that harvested abstract expressions of shape and color. He then circled back to gestural mark making layered with tight calligraphy or thinly applied brushstrokes.
As Van Doren Waxter presents a cross generational program specializing in artists from the post WW II era to the present, it is meaningful to showcase an artist’s work from the 70s which was a significant period of rule breaking and beginning of postmodernism.
Van Doren Waxter’s program brings together foundations and estates with a select roster of living artists who are creating new work within the context of historical artists. The estates that the gallery represents include the Richard Diebenkorn Foundation, the Harvey Quaytman Trust, and the Jack Tworkov Estate. Contemporary artists include Farid Haddad, Volker Hüller, and Brian Rochefort. Additionally, the gallery handles secondary market work specializing in Milton Avery, Helen Frankenthaler, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, George Rickey, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Anne Truitt among others.
