Fahar Al-Salih

Christoph Tannert on Fahar Al-Salih – from the opening speech for the exhibition “Fahar Al-Salih – painting, objects, photography” at Galerie Tammen, Berlin, 17 October 2025

“What a colour offensive. What an unknown wealth of experimental energy. You could walk around in circles several times and still keep finding new eye candy in the pictures of Fahar Al-Salih.”

“Fahar Al-Salih was born in Belgrade in 1964. His mother is Serbian, his father Iraqi. Because of his parents’ moves – for professional reasons, but also shaped by political upheavals and economic crises – he grew up in Kuwait, Vienna, Bratislava, London, Dubai and other cities. He has been living in Karlsruhe for some years now.

He studied under Markus Lüpertz, Jerry Zeniuk and Hermann Nitsch, which has left clearly visible stylistic traces. More striking, however, is Fahar’s interest in and ability to regard colour primarily as material and to bring its material peculiarity into view …

… Fahar makes decisions by painting colour. Or by wiping colour, for instance mixing it with a sponge, which has led to an almost flood-like accumulation of works that owe their existence to the geometric arrangement of pot scourers and car-wash sponges.

The artist has been working with this material for 22 years now, crossing set pieces of everyday culture with high culture, figuration with abstraction.”

The series “Baghdad Blues” also receives consistent attention: with photographic means it captures a melancholy of the everyday and shows the artist in his convincing, well-founded versatility.

Fahar Al-Salih on his work

“What is home? Why do people, in their greed for power, cause others to lose their homes?” – These questions run through the work of Fahar Al-Salih. His art sees itself as a bridge between the European and Arab cultural spheres; the search for shelter and security has been the theme of the “Shelter” series since 2009. Al-Salih does not speak as a representative but from his own experience of migration – and refuses to express only pain: life also includes children’s laughter, hope and dreams.