In place

Two permanent halls
in one city.

في مكانها

Almost no living artist anywhere is given one. He has two, and a third body of work standing in gardens and on hillsides where anybody can walk up to it.

Installing a bronze and stone work outdoors. Amman. Fourteen seconds, silent.

The only moving image on this site. Documentary footage from the artist’s own archive, published with his permission. Not generated, and shown at the resolution it exists at.

5 January 2025

Al-Hussein Gardens Cultural Village.

The invitation carries a line above his own name: برعاية الفنان ضياء العزاوي — under the patronage of the artist Dia al-Azzawi. Azzawi is the most significant living Arab artist. He put his name on the door.

The hall full of people on the evening it opened.
The hall on the evening it opened, 5 January 2025.
The printed invitation to the opening, in Arabic, showing the line naming Dia al-Azzawi as patron.
The invitation. Six in the evening, Sunday 5 January 2025. Al-Hussein Gardens Cultural Village.
A bronze figure holding a gilded cube above its head as visitors gather.
A figure holds a gilded cube above its head while the room fills.
Artists standing together in the hall on the opening night.
Artists at the opening. Amman, 5 January 2025.
The hall with the bronze olive tree at its centre.
The hall, with the bronze olive tree at its centre. Amman, 2025.
2020

InterContinental Jordan, Amman.

The first permanent hall. Five years before the second one opened across the city.

The artist standing beside a large bronze head in a hotel hall.
With a bronze head, InterContinental Jordan.
A gilded bronze die on a plinth in a gallery hung with work.
Gilded die, installed. Bronze.
Outdoors

Stone that anybody can walk up to.

A stone and bronze work standing above the hills at Jerash.
Stone and bronze, commissioned for a project in Jerash, 2024.
A standing limestone figure roughly two metres tall in a park.
Standing figure. Al-Hussein Gardens, Amman.
Standing in public buildings

Single works, permanently placed.

Across Jordan his work stands one piece at a time — in banks, hotels, institutions and public buildings. Most of it has never been listed anywhere.

—
Central Bank of Jordan, Amman · أبجدية الزمن · Alphabet of Time — bronze
—
Sheraton, Amman · Ceramic mural, 200 × 250 cm
—
Nofa House, Jabal Amman · One work, permanently installed
Walk the rooms
Permanent hall · 360° tourAl-Hussein Gardens Cultural VillageOpens in a new windowPermanent hall · 360° tourInterContinental JordanOpens in a new windowVirtual galleryShowroom oneOpens in a new windowVirtual galleryShowroom twoOpens in a new windowVirtual galleryShowroom threeOpens in a new windowOne work, permanently installedNofa House, Jabal AmmanOpens in a new window

Locations, commissioning bodies and installation dates are being confirmed one by one. Where a work is in private hands it is listed only with the owner’s agreement.

Standing outside

One oryx on its feet, one lying down, on a block of basalt.

Almost everything else he makes is a figure reduced to its idea. This is an animal, observed — the shoulder, the fold of the leg, the long ribbed horns — set on raw stone in a courtyard where people walk past it.

المها, the Arabian oryx. It is in the record at 150 × 40 × 140 cm, from his own caption. This is the first photograph of it.

Two bronze Arabian oryx on a block of dark basalt in a landscaped courtyard, one standing with long ribbed horns raised, one lying beside it.
المها — The Oryx. Bronze. 150 × 40 × 140 cm.