A presentation by the Pakistani artist Rashid Rana on show at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar (5-7 February; preview days 3-4 February) will directly confront the assault on Gaza by Israel. Black Square (2025) is a large wall-based photomontage grid, formed of hundreds of stills from an open-sourced CCTV camera in Gaza, which documents a night of bombardment by Israeli forces in the spring of 2025. The work shows squares of a mostly black night sky that are punctuated by strips of white and red and brief flashes of orange, as Israeli rockets fire into Palestine and explode. <\/p>\n
The work, priced at $30,000, has been brought to the fair by the Mumbai gallery Chemould Prescott Road, and all proceeds will go towards Gaza relief funds, chosen by the gallery\u2019s director, Shireen Gandhy, in consultation with Palestine community workers. The gallery debuted the work in June 2025 in an exhibition of Rana\u2019s work at Frieze’s No 9 Cork Street exhibition space in London. <\/p>\n
Rana notes the \u201cpotential risk in aestheticising horrific incidents, like the atrocities taking place in Gaza\u201d but asserts that \u201cwhen stories take the form of art they become more noticeable\u201d. His use of the CCTV emphasises how “readily available” evidence of Israel\u2019s brutality is, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s right there for anyone to witness.\u201d <\/p>\n
Israel-Qatar relations have been a hot button issue in the run up to Art Basel Qatar, especially after Iran’s deadly crackdown on widespread protests<\/a> have flared geopolitical tensions within the region. In the past week, numerous flag carriers\u2014including British Airways, Air France and American Airlines\u2014have suspended their flights to the Middle East<\/a> and some UK and US personnel were withdrawn from their Qatar air bases last month<\/a>. In September 2025, Israel launched a missile strike in Doha targeting Hamas leadership<\/a>\u2014its first in Qatar\u2014which killed six people. Qatar condemned the strike as a terrorist attack. <\/p>\n Since Hamas\u2019s attack on 7 October 2023, which killed more than 1,200 Israelis and in which more than 250 people were taken hostage, more than 71,000 Palestinians are estimated to have been killed in Gaza in total, many of the victims women and children, according to the local heath authority.<\/p>\n