Founded in 2016 by Dubai-based curator, researcher, collector, and fashion entrepreneur Behnood Javaherpour, the Behnoode Foundation is an organization dabbling in both charity and art. The non-profit has planted roots in the art market, taking firm steps into the Middle Eastern art world, especially through uplifting up-and-coming Iranian artists and relatedprogramming in the UAE. It recently lent support to Bangladesh Art Week with UAE partners Foundry by Emaar and Gulf Photo Plus, culminating in an exhibition at the latter titled “Undefined Territory”. The Foundation also recently held the show “Identity. Who are you… Today?” at the Foundry.

“Invictus”, the Behnoode Foundation’s latest exhibition, titled after an 1875 poem by William Ernest Henley, was on show from 13-23 December at Jossa by Alserkal – a multidisciplinary space designed by Bauhaus-influenced architect Mario Jossa. The eclectic show, with only an enigmatic poem as its curatorial text, was curated by Italian critic and independent curator Lorenzo Bruni.

“As the new world emerges from a global pandemic and courage overcomes conflict. / The human spirit triumphs undefeated” begins the wall text.What follows is a similarly rousing, even somewhat blindly idealistic view on the power of art to achieve “oneness” and “connection”. Given that we have just been experiencing another rash of global lockdowns amid rising fear and anxiety about going into year three of the pandemic, in the thick of a new variant, this text doesn’t quite successfully provide the balm it attempts at being. “I am a master of my fate. / I am the captain of my soul” it concludes, implying a sense of control over our circumstances – but one is immediately left thinking how much of that is really true, especially while insulated in this shiny, tech-savvy, modern art space.

In an ode to the show’s modernity, there are QR codes accompanying each piece that direct you to install an AI app, that lets you superimpose artworks onto your now simultaneously virtual and physical experience of walking through the exhibition. The first artwork greeting the viewer at the entrance is a large wooden pyramid-like installation by Farshido Larimian that sets the show’s tone: angular, modern, a little spiky. Towards the back are two larger-scale abstract canvases: Love Song (2014) by Casanova Sorella and The Flag (2019) by Mahmood Obaidi. Both are invested in movement, with fluid, dynamic strokes. Sorella’s work in particular is inspired by the temporary euphoria of dancing on stage, that niche, ephemeral sense of flow and adrenaline from performing. The label text cleverly provides just a morsel of description – “Choreography: Andrey Kaydanovskiy” – situating the viewer within the contextual world of ballet.

A more dimly-lit room tucked into the left side of the gallery is filled with works, where there are certain stand-outs. Mojtaba Amini’s 2020 Tear in Town series are gritty collage pieces that patch together Internet-sourced images of masked protestors with sandpaper and unused postal packages. With text in different languages, the works’ calculated chaos of form replicates and reconstructs the connotations of urban protests and the cities they are born in. In more serene contrast then is Iranian painter Negar Orang’s Untitled (2021), an idyllic portrait of a family leisurely sitting on the grass. The pastoral work is the centerpiece of the room and fittingly so.