Ali Kaaf "Beyond Painting"
"Beyond Painting" Artist Talk
in collaboration with the Yellowstone Art Museum
Thursday, October 24 at 5:30 pm
Murdoch Room, Yellowstone Art Museum
A Conversation with Ali Kaaf
Friday, October 25
9am-12pm
Northcutt Steele Gallery
MSUB Campus
The Northcutt Steele Gallery at Montana State University Billings is pleased to welcome
Berlin-based artist Ali Kaaf to our community in partnership with the Yellowstone
Art Museum.
Kaaf will offer an Artist Talk titled, "Beyond Painting" at 5:30 pm on Thursday, October
24 at the Yellowstone Art Museum.
The artist will be in conversation with students and interested community members
on Friday, October 25 from 9am-12pm. Kaaf's conversation begins at 9 am in the lobby
immediately in front of the Northcutt Steele Gallery, on the 1st floor of the Liberal
Arts Building, MSUB campus.
Ali Kaaf was born in Syria, and graduated from the Institut des Beaux-Arts in Beirut,
Lebanon. He continued his studies at Universität der Künste in Berlin under the supervision
of Professors Marwan Kassab Bachi and Rebecca Horn.
In 2010, Kaaf received the Young Collectors for MAXXI prize by the Young Collectors
Association in Rome, and in 2014, he was awarded the Honorary AIR Award by the Kala
Art Institute in Berkeley.
In his multifaceted work, Kaaf develops unique artistic forms exploring point and
line, shallow space and depth, black and white, planes and shapes, light and shadow,
effacement and erosion. Disaporic experience and the realities of violent displacement
inform his approach, which resolves formal tensions and oppositions through elegant,
sensitive handling of materials.
Kaaf's paperwork, glass works, video art, installations and photographic works have
been shown in numerous solo exhibitions in renowned international venues such as the
Darat al Funun, Khalid Shoman Foundation in Amman; the Khan Ashad-Bacha in collaboration
with the Goethe-Institut, Damascus; Solidere, Beirut; Galerie Haus am Lützowplatz,
Berlin; Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch in Rome; Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings,
Montana; and at the Moontower Foundation in Bad König-Zell in Germany.
His work has also been featured in notable galleries and museums such as Rebecca Horn
and Guests, Contemporary Art Museum in Maribor, and Villa Grisebach in Berlin; three
pieces from his Mihrab series and photographic work from Ras-Ras were shown in the
Taswir exhibition at the Martin-Gropius Bau in Berlin.
This artist visit and program is supported in part by a grant from the Montana Arts Council, an agency of the state government, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additionally funding is provided by the Art Students League of Montana State University Billings.
