In Memoriam Kamal Boullata (1942 - 2019 ) Influential Palestinian artist and historian

Kamal Boullata influential Palestinian artist, historian, intellectual and writer who was acclaimed for his  intricate explorations of the concepts of exile, modernism and the emergence of Palestinian identity against colonial powers, has died in Berlin on August 6 at the age of 77. His death was first reported by the National, a publication about Middle Eastern culture based in the United Arab Emirates, on Tuesday.https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/prominent-palestinian-artist-kamal-boullata-dies-in-berlin-1.895390
Boullata was born in Jerusalem in 1942, growing up in the Christian Quarter and  his parents sent him to the workshop of painter Khalil Al-Halabi,who was well known for his paintings of icons, in the quarter where he lived, and it was with him that Boullata  would  learn the same process while studying the Arabic calligraphic and geometric aesthetics that would later influence his body of work. Following Israel’s occupation of the territory in 1967, he was exiled to Beirut and later traveled to Europe where he graduated from the Academia di Belle Arte in Rome and then to the United States, where he studied at the Corcoran Art Museum School in Washington, DC and used  this time to make significant contributions to the cause of Palestinian activism and the Arab American awakening that was occurring at the time.
In the 1970's and 1980's he was a member of the hurufiyya movement, where Arab artists experimentally brought together Arabic calligraphy and Modernism. Boulatta  was best known for his colourful, geometric silkscreen artworks  and his use of Kufic script, an early form of Arabic calligraphy, where he addressed the concepts of binaries and divided identity, often including  clear visual references to the decorative elements of the Dome of the Rock, a site he frequently visited as a child in Jerusalem, as well as the traditions of Palestinian embroidery.
His later works moved away from geometry towards an interest in depicting light and transparency. In the following  video interview with the online publication Electronic Intifada, Boullata says “perhaps it was the light of Jerusalem that I have been seeking to recapture all along”.

Kamal Boullatta on painting, exile and Jerusalem

In 1993, he received a Fullbright Fellowship to conduct field research on Islamic art in Morocco and Spain, and in 2001, he was awarded a Ford Foundation grant to research post-Byzantine painting and the origins of modern art in Palestine. Boullata  was a worldly figure who spent the last five decades of his life moving between the US (1968-1992 , Morocco, (1993-1996) and France,  (1997-2012) before settling in Berlin in 2012 when he was elected as a fellow of the Wissenschaftskollen zu Berlin, Institute for Advanced in Berlin.
His career was rich and varied, moving regularly between the worlds of writing and of painting. Throughout his life  he was known for his generosity to friends, human rights advocates, and causes. He was the author of  four groundbreaking books on Palestinian art, including Belonging and Globalisation: Critical Essays in Contemporary Art and Culture  (2008 ) and Palestinian Art:From 1850 to the Present (2009) in which he gave  the first insider's study of Palestinian art in English yet published, this scholarly analysis presented insights into the development of Palestinian art before and after the cataclysmic events of 1948 during which Palestinian society was uprooted and dispersed. Writer and Critic John Berger wrote in its preface: "Boullata takes the reader to the struggle of those visionary, obstinate Palestinian artists who create so that their anonymous heroic land with its ancestral olive trees  may survive."
He believed that Palestinian artists who sat idly by had failed to do their job properly, and he saw writing such histories as being integral to his practice. “I don’t think that you can lead a purely creative life or a purely political life,” Boullata said in a 2009 National interview. “Everything is interrelated, even if we are unaware of that fact. When artists in Gaza were under bombardment and looking after their families, they still kept on thinking about art.” https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/visual-memories-a-new-book-on-palestinian-artists-1.4
An individual with a brilliant mind Boullata also edited books on modern poetry and contemporary culture and his essays in English and Arabic have appeared in catalogues, anthologies, and academic journals.In 2003 he edited  If Only the Sea Could Sleep: Love Poems by Adonis. We Begin Here a collection of poems he co-edited was written in response to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon,updated with new works rising from Israel's 2006 bombardment of its northern neighbor. These poems, covering a period of nearly 25 years, testified to the poets' spirit of resistance and support of the dignity, rights and humanity of the Palestinian and Lebanese people. 

 “The Palestinian cultural movement lost with the departure of Boullata a dedicated artist who will remain present in the history and future of Palestinian art as an expression of freedom, struggle and creativity and in the memory of Palestinian generations inspired by his works,” said the Palestinian Ministry of Culture in a eulogy statement.

“Boullata remained faithful to Palestine and its cause in its political and humanitarian dimensions. He defeated with his art the aura of darkness and death that the occupation is trying to consolidate and impose in Palestine,” it added.

Boullata’s works are well regarded around the world  and he has been exhibited in Europe, the US, France, and the Middle East and can be found in collections including the British Museum, London; the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; the New York Public Library; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; and Mathaf:  Museum of Modern Arab Art, Doha. Recent solo exhibitions include Addolcendo at Meem Gallery, Dubai (2017); ‘… And There Was Light’ at Berloni Gallery in London (2015); and Bilqis at Wiensowski & Harbord in Berlin (2013).

His loss is a huge loss to the thousands of people he inspired across the world and to Palestinian culture, because he did so much in his work and his writings to situate Palestine art  in the full context of Palestinians lived experiences. He will be remembered foremost as one of Palestines great modernist artist, a creator of vibrant Arabic abstract art, as well as being a scholar of the history of Palestinian art,whose legacy will live on as a result of the rich contribution he has given to humanity,  He is survived by his wife  Lily Farhoud. Kamal Boullatta  may his creative soul rest in peace.

"Today, memory continues to be the connective tissue through which Palestinian identity is asserted and it is the fuel that replenishes the history of their cultural resistance." -- Kamal Boulatta

Kamal Boullata