Art Düsseldorf 2026
17-19 April 2026
Areal Böhler
Booth J08
Artists
Tammam Azzam
Simin Jalilian
Tamara Kvesitadze
Navid Mashouf
Alireza Shojaian
Etsu Egami
Opening Times
VIP Preview (Thursday, 16 April 2026): 12 noon – 4 pm
Thursday, 16 April 2026: 4 pm – 8 pm
Friday, 17 April 2026: 12 noon – 7 pm
Saturday, 18 April 2026: 11 am – 7 pm
Sunday, 19 April 2026: 11 am – 6 pm
Image Spaces of Exile and Self Determination
Images begin where words end. In a present shaped by wars, social unrest, and forced migration, the image becomes the most precise language: it stores loss and hope in layers, lines, and surfaces, making the experiential spaces of exile visible. Image Spaces of Exile and Self Determination understands art not as illustration but as a space for thinking and resonance, a place where identity is renegotiated and belonging can emerge beyond fixed borders. Exile is not only an individual fate, but also a source of creative force – a stance that transforms uncertainty into form.
From this perspective, Tammam Azzam condenses urban fragments into collages and paintings whose relief like surfaces literally carry memory; destruction is not described but inscribed into the material itself. His works refer to Syria, his country of origin, shaped by war and profound social upheaval, and more broadly to places around the world caught between destruction, transition, and reconstruction. His images make wounding visible while opening spaces for possible new beginnings.
The Afghan artist Navid Mashouf draws on the tradition of miniature painting to preserve the cultural heritage and personal history of Afghanistan in the face of loss and exile. He paints “so that history will bear witness” – his meticulously detailed works become an act of holding on, a visual archive against forgetting.
Simin Jalilian shifts the dynamics of looking and being seen through her figurative practice: the body becomes a site where identity is negotiated, a painterly rebuttal without words. At the same time, she reflects the human experience embedded in today’s mediated imagery, highlighting the paradox between power and powerlessness. Her works show how representation itself becomes a field of negotiation.
Tamara Kvesitadze translates states of transition into sculptural, at times kinetic movement. Forms approach, separate, and overlap: migration appears as a rhythm in space. Her works also point to the realities faced by women in Georgia, proximity and distance, restriction and self determination, making their often invisible tensions physically palpable.
With large scale painting, Alireza Shojaian employs visibility as an act of political imagery. Drawing from the realities of queer individuals in Iran, his country of origin, his visual language weaves together tenderness and directness into a grammar of dignity in which vulnerability becomes strength. For him, the image becomes a space of protection and resonance.
Etsu Egami, in turn, explores the fragility of language through her abstract visual vocabulary. Layered bands of color create zones of productive misunderstanding, giving rise to images that are felt more than read.
Together, these artistic positions sketch a poetics of exile. PANIC ATTACK stands here for the urgency of our time and for the capacity of art to make the unspeakable visible and to shape from it an attitude of self determination.