Hassan Sharif’s decidedly conceptual practice spans four decades of performance, drawing, painting, installation and sculpture. He studied at London’s Byam Shaw School of Art in the 1980s, where he developed an interest in the Fluxus movement’s avant-garde, intervention-based methodologies and the system-based explorations of British Constructivism. Returning to Dubai in 1984, Sharif continued his experiments, documenting Fluxus-inspired performances in the desert which included walking, jumping and throwing stones. Sharif’s sculptural work offers subtle commentary on consumer culture and corporate elitism, often comprising masses of banal products like flip-flops, newspapers and spoons. Through these fermented mounds of consumer detritus, Sharif expresses the sheer physical weight of mass production. A prominent figure in the development of conceptual art practices in the UAE, Sharif helped co-found The Flying House in 2007, which promotes Emirati artists. He has exhibited widely, participating in the Sharjah Biennial 12 and the 56th Venice Biennale UAE Pavilion, both in 2015. Sharjah Art Foundation hosted a major retrospective in 2017.