Do not miss these four exhibitions in the region and beyond this week.

Growing Like A Tree, Ishara Art Foundation, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai

Ishara Art Foundation presents Sohrab Hura’s inaugural curatorial project, Growing Like A Tree, exploring regional histories of image-making through a visual and sonic excavation of place, memory and culture. Referencing the interconnected spheres of contemporary artistic practice, this show considers photography as a locus in an expanded field of art that includes videos, books, and sound installations.

The ensemble of artists and collectives in the exhibition includes Aishwarya Arumbakkam, Anjali House, Bunu Dhungana, Farah Mulla, Jaisingh Nageswaran, Katrin Koenning, Munem Wasif, Nida Mehboob, Nepal Picture Library, Reetu Sattar, Sarker Protick, Sathish Kumar, Sean Lee, Yu Yu Myint Than, and a citation of Dayanita Singh along with site-specific interventions by Sohrab Hura.

The exhibition closes on 15 July.

Farid Belkahia, for a New Modernity, Centre Pompidou, Paris

Centre Pompidou explores the artistic practise of the Moroccan painter Farid Belkahia (1934-2014) in an extensive (and historically rather significant!) retrospective exhibition co-organised with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.

The show examines Belkahia’s role as a founder of Moroccan and, more generally, Arabic artistic modernity by focusing on two consecutive periods in his work: the artist’s Prague and expressionist period beginning in 1959, and his return to Casablanca in 1962.

The exhibition closes on 19 July.

Divas. From Umm Kulthum to Dalida, Institut du monde arabe, Paris

L’institut du monde arabe presents a major exhibition inviting its visitors to discover the lives and careers of the Arab world’s most renowned musicians and cinema stars, from the 1920’s to the 1970’s. The exhibition Divas. From Umm Kulthum to Dalida groups artists that have pioneered the scene and paved the way to other generations who have come, such as Mounira al-Mahdiyyan, Aziza Amir, Assia Dagher, Umm Kulthum, Warda, Fayrouz, Sabah, Laila Mourad, Souad Hosni, and Dalida. In tandem with this exhibition, artworks by contemporary artists are presented to celebrate and deal with the oeuvre and lives of the so-called ‘divas’.

The exhibition closes on 26 September.

Ali Cherri: Return of the Beast, Galerie Iman Farès, Paris

Galerie Iman Farès presents the fourth solo exhibition of Ali Cherri. In this iteration, the body of works presents the artist’s ongoing research on hybridity and invites viewers to rethink the historical figures of monsters by reevaluating their gaze, body composition, and their role in our shared history. Additionally, the exhibition coincides with the launch of the artist’s first monograph titled Earth, Fire, Water, co-edited by the gallery and Éditions Dilecta.

The exhibition closes on 23 July.

Featured image: Shirin Neshat, ‘Looking for Oum Kulthum’ (2017). Film.