Mission Statement
The purpose of the Foundation is to preserve the legacy of the Jerusalem-born artist Kamal Boullata. Cultivating his legacy will stimulate new work and fresh dialogues concerned with themes of aesthetics, language, cultural identity and spiritual crosspollination that inform his oeuvre. By making Boullata’s visual work and writings accessible to artists, researchers and the general public, the Foundation aims to promote education about contemporary visual art, diverse Arab identities and Christian-Muslim artistic interaction, as well as encourage curatorial innovation and advance pertinent interdisciplinary research across the Arts and Humanities.
Preserving the legacy of the Jerusalem-born artist Kamal Boullata.
Archives
Boullata was a major and highly original innovator whose Collection, including his archive, contains materials that show the trajectory of his personal journey from mimetic realism of the 1950s through calligraphic art to a concern with geometry, structure and light. The drawings and studies preserved in the Foundation are traces of process, potential sources of inspiration for current and future generations of visual artists. Boullata’s work engages both word and image, literary and visual traditions. This was nowhere more beautifully and dramatically expressed than in his collaboration with poets such as Adonis, Mahmoud Darwish or Abdellatif Laabi. Taking Boullata’s legacy as stimulus, the Foundation will be a place for dialogue between contemporary artists, art historians, poets and those working across media. His archive will draw international attention as both an archive in a historical sense and an active, living, resource.
Boullata engages both word and image, and literary and visual traditions. His work brought together key figures, creating culture through a collaborative exchange. This was nowhere more beautifully and dramatically expressed than in his friendship with poets such as Adonis, Mahmoud Darwish or Abdellatif Laabi.
This is both an archive in a historical sense and an active, living, resource for all.
Upon his arrival to the US, Boullata contributed designs to various initiatives by friends, student groups and American and Arab American cultural institutions. He designed logos as well as major mass campaigns promoting Palestinian national rights and cultural identity, including Chairman’s Arafat visit to the U.N., New York (1974); Land Day, USA (1978, 1983); International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, USA (1979, 1988); Save Lebanon Campaign, Washington DC (1982); Intifada, USA (1987); Printemps Palestinien, Paris (1997); and Festival of Palestinian Poetry, Grenoble (2002).