The Art of Resistance: Defending Academic Freedom since 1933 | Page 80

Issam Kourbaj?Syrian/British
The Distance
2010
Signed (on rear)
Unframed
Oil and mixed media
on canvas
66 x 85.5 cm
Guide Price £1,750

Issam comes from a fine art, architecture and
theatre design background. Born in Syria, he
trained at the Institute of Fine Arts in
Damascus, the Repin Institute of Fine Arts in
Leningrad (St Petersburg) and at Wimbledon
School of Art (London). Since 1990, he has lived
and worked in Cambridge, eventually becoming a
Christ’s College Bye-Fellow, where he is now a
Lector in Art.
In 2009, as part of Cambridge University’s
celebration of its 800th anniversary, Issam was
invited to design the sets for the play Let
Newton Be! and for a contemporary dance piece
Light Matters, which were both presented in
the University Senate House. His Cambridge
Palimpsest, a puzzle box linking time and
archaeology, was also published by Cambridge
University Press as part of the celebrations.
His work has been widely exhibited and, in 2008,
a collection of his sketches Sound Palimpsest
(some inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh and
others by language, war and memory) was
acquired by the British Museum and exhibited in
their Iraq’s Past Speaks to the Present
exhibition, run in parallel with their major
2008-2009 exhibition Babylon: Myth and
Reality. The Museum also featured Issam’s work
in their 2001/12 exhibition: Modern Syrian art
at the British Museum.

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The Art of Resistance? Defending Academic Freedom

Lot 24