A Tribute to Adonis - The Mosaic Rooms

Press release
For immediate release
Mixed media on paper, 2009
Adonis © Torstein Blixfjord
A Tribute to Adonis
First U.K solo exhibition of art works by great Syrian poet
3 February – 30 March 2012
The Mosaic Rooms, 226 Cromwell Road, London, SW5 0SW
‘His vision is extraordinary. His poetry sublime… He is for me a master of our times’
V.S. Naipaul
The Mosaic Rooms is delighted to announce for 2012 a tribute to the Arab
world’s greatest living poet, Adonis. From February to March 2012, the Mosaic
Rooms will host an exhibition of Adonis’ exquisite drawings alongside a series of
literary events celebrating his life, poetry and criticism. This is the first solo
exhibition of Adonis’ artwork in the United Kingdom.
Adonis, who is now in his eighties, has been painting and creating works of art for
the past 12 years. His pictorial pieces are beautiful collages, made up of rags,
yarn, fabric, documents, ancient papyri, used cans, and other found objects
that have inspired him. By unifying these materials which belong to different
cultures, Adonis aims to give sense to objects that have previously had no
significance.
Each collage has a background of Arabic writing, not only used because it is
Adonis’ native language, but also because he considers the language to have
an exceptional graphic quality. Through his art work Adonis demonstrates the
beauty of the Arabic language, both in its musicality and also in its literal written
form. ‘The written word’, he says, ‘is a picture in itself’.
The Italian artist Marco Nereo Rotelli has previously described Adonis’ artworks as
being ‘like a short story told in an instant.’ Adonis himself considers the pieces to

e an extension of his poetry, defining his art work as poems but in a different
form.
Winner of the 2011 Goethe Prize and a favourite for last year’s Nobel Prize for
Literature, Adonis is recognised as the man who led the modernist movement in
the Arabic literary scene in the past 50 years and brought Arabic poetry the
international recognition it deserved. He is also famous for his critical views on
Arab culture, politics and current affairs and even today, at 81years of age, he
retains his fresh and critical outlook on the events in his homeland, attracting
controversy and debate because of his cautionary and critical worlds on the
Arab Spring.
ADONIS: A BIOGRAPHY
Adonis was born Ali Ahmad Said Esber near the city of Latakia, western Syria, in
1930. He had no formal education for most of his childhood, learning the Quran
at the local mosque school and memorising classical Arabic poetry, to which he
was introduced by his father. His formal education began after he impressed the
then President of Syria as a teenager by reciting one of his poems. He was given
a scholarship to a French lycée and went on to study philosophy at Damascus
University.
In 1956, he was forced to leave Syria after being imprisoned following his
involvement with the Syrian National Socialist Party. He moved to Beirut,
Lebanon, and, together with Yusuf al-Khal, set up the legendary Shi’r (Poetry)
magazine, one of the Arab world’s most influential literary journals. Adonis then
studied in Paris before returning to Beirut and taking up a post teaching Arabic
Literature. In 1982, he and his family relocated to Paris as a result of the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon and they have remained there until this day.
Adonis’ work includes over 50 books of poetry, criticism and translation in his
native Arabic. His multi-volume anthology of Arabic poetry (Diwan al-shi’r al-
‘arabi) covers almost two millennia of verse. He has also translated a number of
works into Arabic, including the first complete Arabic translation of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses (2002). He has won several awards, including the Goethe Prize
in 2011, and has been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature a number of
times.
Notes to editors
For further information contact:
Katy MacMillan-Scott or Ellie Hughes at Colman Getty
Tel: 020 7631 2666
katy@colmangetty.co.uk / elliehughes@colmangetty.co.uk
• Adonis is available for interview via Colman Getty
• Images from the exhibition are available via Colman Getty

• For details of talks and events happening as part of A Tribute to Adonis, please
visit www.mosaicrooms.org
• Entry to the exhibition is free
• Copies of Adonis: selected poems, published by Yale University Press and
translated by Khaled Mattawa, will be available to buy from the Mosaic Rooms’
bookshop
• The Mosaic Rooms are open from 11am – 6pm Tuesday to Saturday
• The Mosaic Rooms, a leading independent arts space in west London, deliver a
high quality, contemporary and progressive cultural programme from the Middle
East and internationally. They are managed by the A.M. Qattan Foundation, a UK
charity dedicated to the support of culture and education in Palestine and the
Arab world. The Foundation’s London office, headed by one of its trustees, Omar
Al-Qattan, is responsible for the Mosaic Rooms’ programme. The Rooms are part
of the Culture and Arts Programme of the A.M. Qattan Foundation.
• The Mosaic Rooms is situated on the corner of the Cromwell Road and Earl’s
Court Road in Kensington, London, a short walk from Earl’s Court Underground
Station and Exhibition Centre.
• For further information about The Mosaic Rooms and the A.M. Qattan Foundation
visit www.mosaicrooms.org