Artist Talk: Suleiman Mansour

As a follow up to Khaled Hourani's exhibition in CCA in April/May 2014, during Glasgow International, renowned Palestinian artist Suleiman Mansour will give a lecture in Glasgow Film Theatre in collaboration with The Glasgow School of Art’s ‘Friday Event’ series.

Suleiman Mansour (1947) has been a teacher and inspiration for Khaled Hourani personally, as well as for Palestinian cultural life in general. He was one of the early vocal supporters of the conservation and development of Palestinian cultural identity in a complex life of occupation and continues to be an active artist today.

With the practice of painting always at the centre of his work, Mansour has been helping to set up educational institutes such as the International Academy of Palestinian Art, as well as the League of Palestinian Artists. He taught at the Women's Teacher's Training Centre throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Next to that he has been a political cartoonist and printmaker throughout his long and ongoing career.

In this talk Mansour will give an overview of his career and talk about the motivations underlying the advocacy of Palestinian cultural identity and context. He will partly talk about perhaps his most famous work, Jamal Al Mahamel II, which has a significant history. This original painting was gifted to Muammar Gaddafi in 1973 by the Libyan ambassador to London, but is believed to have been destroyed in 1986 after American bombings on Libya. Its 2005 reconstructed counterpart is going to auction in March and is believed to be one of the most iconic Middle Eastern paintings of the last century.

This event is free and will take place at the Glasgow Film Theatre.

Organised with support of A.M Qattan Foundation.