Artist Mounir Fatmi presents Fragments of Invisible Space, a solo exhibition at Sharjah Art Museum in the United Arab Emirates, on view from 7 October to 15 November 2026, in collaboration with the 12th edition of the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial.
Bringing together a selection of sculptures, video projections and light installations, the exhibition explores the relationship between language, technology and visual perception. Through works created at different moments throughout his artistic career, Fatmi approaches calligraphy not simply as a form of writing, but as a space for experimentation, questioning and reinterpretation. The exhibition proposes a reflection on the visible and invisible dimensions of language: what words communicate, what they conceal, and how their meanings are transformed through images, materials and technology.
Among the works on display is Between the Lines (2010), in which Arabic calligraphy encounters the industrial form of a steel saw blade. By bringing together the delicacy of written language and the potential violence of a cutting instrument, Fatmi questions the relationship between words, interpretation and power. Technologia (2011), meanwhile, combines traditional Arabic calligraphy with the visual language of modern technology. Drawing inspiration from Marcel Duchamp's optical experiments, the artist transforms written signs into dynamic geometric compositions that challenge the boundaries between reading and seeing, tradition and modernity. The exhibition also includes Ghosting (2009), a black-and-white video installation that explores questions of memory, absence and the traces left behind by images and systems of communication, as well as Heavier than Words (2020). The latter presents a cast-iron balance carrying Arabic calligraphic forms made of steel, introducing a visual paradox by reversing the expected relationship between weight and gravity: the empty side appears heavier than the one holding the metal letters.
Through these different languages and media, Fragments of Invisible Space offers a contemporary approach to calligraphy and opens up new perspectives on communication, knowledge, memory and the power of images.
