EXHIBITIONSGenealogy Study of Artists No. 20 Safwan Dahoul

START Museum will present Syrian artist Safwan Dahoul’s first museum solo exhibition in Asia, opening to the public on November 14th, 2025.The exhibition will feature a comprehensive overview of the artist’s sustained creative practice alongside new experimental paintings from the past decade. The exhibition will feature over 40 of Dahoul’s works, including many of his iconic largescale black-and-white portraits, as well as a series of experimental small-scale figurative works from his recent practice. This marks the artist’s first museum-level solo exhibition in China, showcasing his sustained creative efforts over the past decade and his latest experimental paintings. This exhibition marks the 20th case study of the museum’s ongoing “Genealogy Study of Artists” project. Safwan Dahoul, one of the few internationally acclaimed contemporary artists from Syria, is also one of the most important and distinguished artists in the Arab world. He excels at using contrasts of light and shadow to create distorted and abstracted human forms. Over his more than 30-year artistic career, he has blended diverse artistic styles while maintaining his unique artistic qualities and characteristics. His works reflect the influence of Picasso’s Cubism, while also incorporating elements of Assyrian Art and Pharaonic Art. The artist projects his understanding of humanity, society, politics, and history into the context of “dreams,” using large-scale, hyper-close-up portraits to delve into the visual expression of alienation,solitude, and human desire. The “Genealogy Study of Artists” project, initiated by START Museum in 2018, is an ongoing research project. It innovatively establishes a continuous academic research platform focused on the interplay between an artist’s personal genealogy and their artistic creation, utilizing exhibitions, publications, sound documentation, visual materials, and historical literature to systematically explore the artistic evolution of the featured artists.