The Emirate of Dubai is not just the scene of Babylonian towers or Pharaonic shopping malls. The artist Hassan Sharif—presented at Art Basel Hong Kong by the Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde—has been working there for the past forty years. He began his practice in the greatest secrecy before becoming an oracle for today's younger generation. Steeped in the thought of Marcel Duchamp and constructivist movements, Hassan Sharif was the first artist from the Persian Gulf to realize performances. He later developed a systematic grid, arising from his Body and Squares action from 1983, which constructs reality according to mathematical rules and objectives, detached from any notion of taste or subjectivity. Certain performances can be described as simple gestures, almost Fluxus-like, such as jumping or digging, which he documented with photographs. Since 1982, he has taken up humble, scrap materials to create objects like so many signs of resistance in the face of the transformation of Emirate society and the waste of the economic boom.
迪拜酋長國不只有巴別塔和壯觀的購
物商場而已。Isabelle van den Eynde藝廊
於香港巴塞爾藝術展展出的藝術家哈桑·謝
里夫（Hassan Sharif），四十年來在那兒從
事創作。他一開始無人知曉、無人關注，如
今儼然成為年輕一代所尊崇的聖賢。創作浸
潤著馬塞爾·杜象（Marcel Duchamp）
和構成主義流派思想的影響，哈桑·謝里夫
是波斯灣第一位從事行為藝術的創作者。隨
後，他自1983年的行動《身體與方塊》發
展出系統化的規格，擺脫任何喜好或主觀意
識，根據數學、客觀規則來建構現實。某些
行為作品呈現簡單、幾乎如激浪派的姿態，
如跳躍或挖掘，他同時以相片的形式記錄這
些行為。他自1982年起開始使用貧窮、廢舊
的材料來創造物件，作為對阿聯酋社會變遷
和經濟蓬勃發展殘留物的抵制。
