Art Basel Qatar 2026

Our first showing of Amir Nour's work will be a solo presentation at the inaugural edition of Art Basel Qatar (3–7 February, M7, Qatar). Art Basel Qatar is Art Basel's fifth premier event and its newest show, curated by Wael Shawky around the theme Becoming. For the event, we present a focused selection of Nour's key works, each with significant exhibition history.

 

At the core of the presentation is Serpent (1970), an early masterpiece composed of thirty-four quarter-circular steel pipes—industrial in material yet refined in finish—embodying the poetic concision central to Nour's practice. Serpent is accompanied by two unique bronzes, Doll (1974) and One and One (1976), as well as a group of rare early lithographs from the 1960s, offering a succinct view into the foundations of his sculptural vocabulary.

 

Serpent demonstrates Nour's profound ability to balance minimalist austerity with symbolic weight. Its undulating geometry echoes the rhythmic lines of desert dunes, animal horns, and coiled vernacular patterns—abstraction that carries both physical dynamism and metaphorical resonance. As an embodiment of Nour's pursuit of essential form, the work has been featured in major exhibitions including Amir Nour: A Retrospective (1965-Present): Brevity is the Soul of Wit at the Sharjah Art Foundation (2016-17); the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution (1994-95); and was illustrated in African Arts (Summer 1971).

 

Cast in bronze, Doll transforms the suggestion of a figurative object into a serene, abstract form composed of rounded, vessel-like volumes. Rooted in the shapes of calabashes and organic forms that marked Nour's early environment, the sculpture's gentle balance and interplay of interior and exterior space give it a contemplative calm. Doll has been exhibited at the Sharjah Art Foundation (2016-17, illustrated) and at the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh (1976).

 

The monumental bronze One and One draws from the Sudanese jabannah—an everyday coffee or water dispenser—reimagining its elements as two interlocking bronze forms held in a poised relationship of tension and harmony. Through this work, Nour encapsulates his exploration of duality, rhythm, and the transformation of utilitarian shapes into a refined modernist language. The sculpture has been shown at the Sharjah Art Foundation (2016-17, illustrated), the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art (1994-95), and the Carnegie Institute (1976).

 

Created during Nour's formative period at the Slade School of Fine Art, his lithographs reflect his fascination with the stone matrix not only as a sculptural material but as a surface for elusive communication. In one of these, Confessions, delicate passages of Diwani script appear as traces of text—suggestive, rhythmic, yet intentionally unreadable—aligning Nour with early calligraphic experiments by Sudanese contemporaries such as Ibrahim El-Salahi and Ahmed Shibrain. Confessions was exhibited at MoMA P.S.1 in Okuwi Enwezor’s The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994 (2002), and related works reside in private and institutional collections, including Chase Manhattan Bank and Fisk University. Confessions and other lithographs by Nour were exhibited at the African-American Institute, 1974, and at his retrospective at the Sharjah Art Foundation (2016–17).

 

Today, Amir Nour’s works are held in major collections including the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University; Asilah Municipality, Morocco; the City of Chicago; and the Sharjah Art Foundation.

 

Bringing together sculpture and works on paper from across Nour’s career, this presentation at Art Basel Qatar situates his practice within broader histories of modernism while reaffirming its deep cultural specificity. In doing so, the exhibition underscores Nour’s enduring relevance and affirms his position as a pivotal figure whose work expands and redefines the narratives of 20th-century sculpture.