Open Space #19 Mohammad Alfaraj

As part of its Open Space program, the Foundation invites Saudi artist Mohammad Alfaraj (born 1993, Saudi Arabia) to conceive an in situ work in Gallery 8, on the occasion of his first solo exhibition in a French institution.

Free admission with a ticket to the exhibition "Gustave Fayet, Collector — Creator. Icons of Modern Art"

Download the exhibition brochure

Multidisciplinary artist, Mohammad Alfaraj lives and works from the Al-Ahsa oasis, where he develops a practice that blends writing, video, photography, drawing, and sculpture.

Imbued with Saudi Arabia's oral traditions, Mohammad Alfaraj draws inspiration from social practices, urban or rural architectures, as well as accounts of daily life to explore the relationships between humans and nature. His works often take the form of poetic fables that interrogate contemporary ecological, social and cultural issues.

The exhibition I’d rather be a dragonfly than a lion brings together a set of new video works within an installation composed of objects, photographs and drawings. Nourished by the collective imaginaries of his homeland, his stop-motion animated videos give shape to poetic narratives written and interpreted by the artist himself.

Working with an economy of means that he asserts, Mohammad Alfaraj carries out the entire creative process — writing, shaping the characters and the settings, shooting and animation. Rooted in the cultural context of Al-Ahsa, these stories blend imagination, collective memory and the relation to living beings, finding a universal echo far beyond their original context.

* "I’d rather be a dragonfly than a lion."

### Curators

Claudia Buizza and Ludovic Delalande (Fondation Louis Vuitton).

The exhibition I’d rather be a dragonfly than a lion by Mohammad Alfaraj is presented in partnership with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (Qatar), which will present a solo exhibition of the artist in 2028.

### OPEN SPACE PROGRAM

Open Space is a program dedicated to contemporary creation that offers the possibility of a solo exhibition and the production of a new work.