The Peninsula
The Arab Museum of Modern Art (Mathaf) stands out as a beacon of modern Arab art in Qatar and one of several major art institutions and centres that have opened in recent years in the capital, Doha.
Founded in 2010 in Education City, Mathaf’s collection, which is jointly owned by Qatar Museums and Qatar Foundation, includes more than 9,000 works of art, making it the largest specialised collection of its kind in the world. It will serve as a hearty art meal for art lovers from football fans who will attend FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
The beginnings of the museum date back to a first collection of works on modern and contemporary art, acquired by H E Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed Al Thani, Head of Mathaf, in the early 1990s. It is mainly focused on the region and its historical and cultural connection from North Africa to Asia and from Turkey to Iran.
Its first space, situated in two private villas in Madinat Khalifa in Doha, was conceived from the idea of what an Arab Museum of Modern Art might look like, a place for sharing the massive production of art in the region. The development of the museum has continued as an inspiring space for dialogue and scholarship about modern and contemporary art with artists in residency in Doha, and also as a place for art production and display.
Today, Mathaf focuses on showing the permanent collection and producing major shows based on new commissions.
It hosted works by major international artists, whether from the Arab world or across the world and established several partnerships with internal and external parties.
One of Mathaf’s most prominent works is Mathaf Encyclopedia of Modern Art and the Arab World, which is a bilingual, peer-reviewed online resource providing free in-depth information on modern and — reviewed scholarly resource on facts and in-depth information about artists from the Arab world and is publicly available online in both Arabic and English.
Since the beginning of publishing the encyclopedia project in 2013, Mathaf’s research and evaluation team has commissioned a group of independent academics and researchers to write biographical references on artists in the context of modern and contemporary art, with the aim of developing knowledge about art history in the region in general and Mathaf’s permanent collection in particular.
The encyclopedia provides a database of Arab artists and a comprehensive view of the development of modernity in the Arab world.
Mathaf will be open to fans all throughout the World Cup, with the exception of match days that will be held at Education City Stadium: November 22, 24, 26, 28 and 30, and December 2, 6 and 9.