Tammam Azzam, a resident artist at Dubai’s Ayyam Gallery is part of UK street and graffiti artist Banksy’s current pop-up in an English seaside town. Azzam, who relocated to Dubai from Syria due to the war, caused a viral sensation when he superimposed Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss onto a Syrian war-torn building — juxtaposing a universal symbol of love with the raw horrors of war.
This work, titled Freedom Graffiti, is the piece that Banksy chose for his show, which takes the form of a "bemusement" park called Dismaland, which opened on August 21. The apocalyptic theme park set up inside a derelict swimming resort in the town of Weston-super-Mare, includes a fire-ravaged and dilapidated Disney-like castle and pools of stagnant water filled with relics of park rides. It also features an assortment of bizarre artworks from 58 artists including Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Jimmy Cauty, Bill Barminski, Caitlin Cherry, Polly Morgan, Josh Keyes, Mike Ross, David Shrigley, Bäst, and Espo. Banksy is also showing 10 artworks of his own.
Fellow Syrian artist, Ammar Abd Rabbo is also exhibiting a piece called Into the Wild — a photograph that measures the extent of the destruction in Aleppo all while highlighting the artist's visual storytelling abilities. Saudi artist Huda Beydoun takes part in Dismaland with four digital pieces from her Documenting the Undocumented series, in which a recurring Minnie Mouse figure is used to link pop culture, graffiti, and social issues.
* For more info see www.ayyamgallery.com
