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THE ART NEWSPAPER
Art Dubai: 16/03/2017
○ Sales Report
Modern surges ahead and
dealers report healthy sales in
contemporary art
Page 2 >>
○ Syrian art at Concrete
○ Rana Begum
○ Dali in The Room
A renewed focus on Syrian art at
Alserkal’s ambitious new OMA-designed
venue reframes the discussion on Syria
The Abraaj Group Art Prize winner
on her award-winning work and
where her practice will go next
Atfal Ahdath’s Dali-inspired
12-course menu is an immersive
dining experience
Page 6 >>
Page 8 >>
Page 4 >>
Modern
Renaissance
One of Art Dubai’s most significant
success stories, now in its third
edition, Art Dubai Modern features
15 galleries, showing solo or group
exhibits of 20th-century art from
across Africa, the Middle East and
South Asia.
Since its inception in 2014, the programme has thrived. Whilst the canon of Western art history is rooted in
a history of millennia, the local scene
emerges from hazier narratives,
often lost in the mists of time and
unknown to many outside academia.
But over the past decade, the boom
in contemporary art across the region
has naturally precipitated interest
amongst local and international
collectors in revisiting lesser-known
names from the past, pioneers and
adventurers, who synthesised European and Arab ideas in search of new
forms of expression.
The work of these artists also
speaks of turbulent times, periods
of profound social and cultural
change, nationalistic identities
and questioning ongoing tensions
with colonialism, domestic power
struggles and deep-rooted issues of
Islamic identity. Many Arab artists in
particular studied abroad during the
1930s and 1940s, absorbing Western
concepts such as surrealism, Cubism
and abstraction and returned home
to marry them with traditional local
forms such as Islamic geometry,
calligraphy and less commonly,
figurative painting.
All these factors retain their
relevance today. As increasing
numbers of collectors are aware, the
market value of names such as Syrian
painter Louay Kayyali, Iranian Sohrab
Sepehri, Egyptian Mahmoud Said and
Turkish Azade Köker, has rocketed
at auctions, with six-figure sales not
an uncommon occurrence. Meanwhile, record-breaking artist Said has
just seen a significant monograph
published by SKIRA.
Drifting around the Art Dubai
Modern’s booths, in its Mina A’Salam
home, is a pleasant and enlightening
Continued on p2
U . A L L E M A N D I & C O . P U B L I S H I N G LT D
○
IMAGE COURTESY CHRISTIES; AGHA KHAN AWARD FOR ARCHITECTURE
Demand is growing for 20th-century art
Issam Fares, Lebanon (2016)
Talking point
Aga Khan mentors
architects in Dubai
Slash (2017) by Thukral & Tagra, on show at Chatterjee and Lal
A detail of Mahmoud Said’s Bergères à Alamein (1959)
The most recent initiative of the
company EngageME is The Young
Architect and Design Program under
the mentorship of the Aga Khan
Award for Architecture (AKAA). Based
between Dubai and Toronto, the
education and culture entity developed
this project to positively encourage the
youth and offer guidance through the
practical and theoretical issues, questions and challenges of architecture
and its implications. With a pop-up
exhibition in Alserkal Avenue (on show
until 14 April) displaying the projects
from the most recent cycle of the international Award (October 2016), The
Young Architect and Design Program
will work to identify and promote
building that considers development,
landscape architecture, urban planning
and historic preservation in relation to
the arts and humanity at large. K.K.
T U R I N / L O N D O N / N E W Y O R K / PA R I S / AT H E N S / M O S C O W / B E I J I N G
2
THE ART NEWSPAPER ART DUBAI DAILY EDITION 16 MARCH 2017
○ Continued from p1
NEWS
16/03/2017
Art Jameel teams up with Metropolitan Museum of Art
A rendering of the Jameel Arts Centre Dubai
The non-profit Saudi-based foundation Art Jameel, the organisation
behind the prestigious Jameel Prize
has announced its intention to expand with a permanent space in the
UAE. The Jameel Arts Centre Dubai is
scheduled to open at the end of 2018.
In the interim, the foundation will
have a presence in the Emirates via
Project Space Art Jameel, a satellite
branch in Alserkal Avenue which
will remain open until the centre is
officially inaugurated.
The announcement comes at a
busy time of expansion at Art Jameel,
which recently welcomed ex-Art
Dubai fair director Antonia Carver
on board as its director. It is also
launching a lucrative new partnership with New York’s Metropolitan
Museum of Art. The collaboration
will see the Met acquire works by
Middle Eastern Modern and contemporary artists for its permanent
collection. To date, these include
video and photographic works by the
Egyptian artist Maha Maamoun.
“Dubai has become known as the
regional art market centre and is
home to the leading fair, but to date
has not had a complementary not-forprofit contemporary arts institution,”
Carver tells The Art Newspaper. “This
comes at an exciting time for Art
Jameel, as we strengthen our wider
mandate across the arts, heritage and
education, and our programmes
grow in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt
and elsewhere.”
The Jameel Arts Centre, designed
by Serie Architects from the UK, will
encompass 10,000 sq. m across three
floors. The multi-disciplinary space
will house an open-access research
centre and library, events space, and
an outdoor sculpture area as well as
various F&B outlets and a bookshop.
The foundation hopes to work with
“close colleagues in the GCC and
wider Middle East, to pool ideas and
resources, and to nurture audiences
and appreciation for artists, writers,
curators and their work,” says Carver.
Anna Wallace-Thompson
voyage of discovery, unearthing
long-forgotten histories and
stories, offering visitors an unprecedented history of art from
the region.
Furthermore, the introduction
of the Art Dubai Modern Symposium, taking place across Alserkal
Avenue and Art Dubai Modern
(13-18 March) includes speakers
such as HRH Dr Princess Wijdan
Al Hashemi and Dr Venetia Porter,
among others.
Seeking not to saturate the
market with work, but rather
create another dimension
of discovery and understanding,
fair director Myrna Ayad posits
Art Dubai Modern as a key component of the revitalised
Art Dubai.
“I really encourage people to
ask gallerists to narrate the stories of the works,” she says. “They
are so rich and layered and offer
incredible insights into the
region and its recent past.”
Arsalan Mohammad
Fair opening sales
COURTESY ART JAMEEL
Sales signal healthy interest in Modern market and some contemporary booths clean up
Dealers in the contemporary sections
of Art Dubai have reported fairly
brisk sales at the fair this week,
with local and regional private
collectors buying up works in a
variety of media across a wide range
of price points. A spokesman for
the London-based gallery Victoria
Miro, which is showing works by
artists such as Idris Khan and Alex
Hartley, says that “the entire booth
had almost sold out” (works across
the stand range in price from $20,000
to $800,000). The local gallery The
Third Line has a solo booth dedicated to the 2017 Abraaj Group Art Prize
winner Rana Begum. Almost all of
the pieces by the Bangladeshi artist
had sold on the first day of the fair
(price range of £6,000-£25,000).
Selma Feriani Gallery sold a
series of 16 works on paper by the
Algerian artist Yazid Oulab to a
regional private collection ($48,000);
Vigo Gallery’s pen and ink on paper
by Modern master Ibrahim El Salahi
(Untitled, 1964) sold for £22,000 to a
Dubai private collector; three monochromatic works (N.D.-n.d.) by Mario
Garcia Torres, priced at €8,500 each,
with Galleria Franco Noero were
bought by a private regional collector, a US collector and a regional institution. A lenticular print by Rafael
Rozendaal (Into Time, 16 09 01; 2016)
with Upstream Gallery was sold to a
Saudi private collector for $14,000.
African artist Omar Ba is making
waves at Galerie Daniel Templon;
three works by the Senegal-born
practitioner were sold including
Dust Storm in Kidal (2013; €30,000).
Kristin Hjellegjerde also witnessed
interest in African art with sales
of three works by Dawit Abebe for
$15,000 each.
Sales at Art Dubai Modern were
encouraging with strong general
interest, and a fairly even split
between known and new clients. At
time of going to press on Wednesday
evening, Cairo’s Art Talks reported
sales of two Ghaleb Khater and two
Yamdouh Ammak oils to new and
existing clients. London’s Grosvenor
has a solo exhibit of work by Indian
master S.H. Raza, of which five had
sold, two to institutions and three to
private collectors. Elmarsa gallery
of Tunisia and Dubai basked in the
glow of “many sales” of works by Abdelkader Guermaz, including Dunes
Perverses (1978) at $75,000. Elmarsa
also confirmed sales of Aly Ben Salem’s The Woman And The Falconer
to a new collector for approximately
$60,000 whilst Woman Resting And
Peacock went to an existing client for
around $60,000. Ramallah’s Gallery
One, presenting work by Sliman
Mansour, saw healthy sales to new
clients, including On The Edge (1985)
for $60,000, Sisters ($20,000), Sad
Tunes I ($7,000) Sad Tunes II ($14,000)
and Harvest ($12,000).
Jeddah’s Hafez Gallery reported
three significant sales, including Mohammed Ghaleb Khater’s The March
(1970s) at $75,000, and Stamp Of Nation (1970) for around $80,000 while
sculptor Abdel Hadi Al Weshahi’s
The Oud Player (1990) was sold for
around $45,000.
Gareth Harris and Arsalan Mohammad
Untitled (1964) by Ibrahim El Salahi
4
THE ART NEWSPAPER ART DUBAI DAILY EDITION 16 MARCH 2017
FEATURE
Spotlight
PHOTOS: MAIN IMAGE MOHAMED SOMJI, COURTESY ALSERKAL AVENUE. BOX IMAGE COURTESY ATASSI FOUNDATION
Let there be
LIGHT
The UAE’s first OMA-designed space
launches with a survey of Syrian art
By Tim Cornwell
F
The exterior of Concrete, Alserkal Avenue’s new anchor space
Syria: Into the Light
This new exhibition takes an apolitical approach
to a Syrian art history mired in political turbulence since
the First World War. It is curated by Mouna Atassi, who,
with her late sister Mayla, passionately promoted Syrian art
for decades.
The works on display range from paintings, drawings
and etchings to sculpture, photography and video; the
subjects ranging from ordinary people to the elite. The
exhibition includes the work of Tawfik Tarek (1875-1940)
and Michael Kurcheh (1900-73), both of whom studied in
Paris. Elias Zayyat, regarded a living father of modernism,
also launches a monograph in Dubai this year.
In one sense, the war has helped drive something of a
revolt against Modernist painting, through poster art, video
and digital photography. Newer and younger highlighted
artists include Jaber Al Azmeh, Ghylan Safadi and Mounif
Ajaj, Syrian-born but trained in Belarus. Nour Asalia in
Paris produces faces and body parts in clay and resin, and
Hiba Ansari works in Berlin in mixed media, including veils
shaped into faces decorated with sequins and glitter. The
award-winning Mohamad Omran meanwhile focuses on
video art. T.C.
Michael Kurcheh, Badawiyeh (undated)
or decades Syrian art
was underrepresented
internationally in fairs and
exhibitions, with few books
or specialist curators and no
collector base to match that of
the Turkish or Iranian market.
Now, the horrific tragedy of
the Syrian civil war has seen a mass exodus of
the country’s younger artists, and one sad result
is that treasured works by Modernist masters
like Louay Kayyali and Fateh Moudarres are
being sold by families desperate for money,
according to the London-based curator Nour
Wali.
The growing exposure of Syrian work is
underlined this year during Art Dubai, as the
non-profit Atassi Foundation has rolled out a
survey of Syrian portraiture from its impressive
collection. The result, Syria: Into the Light (until
3 April), is the inaugural exhibition in Alserkal
Avenue’s new Concrete venue, with 60 works
by more than 40 artists, from Modernist to
contemporary, dating back to 1924.
While entities such as Ayyam Gallery, a major
commercial promoter of Syrian work, have
long flown the flag for the country’s art (with
spaces at one time or another in cities including
Beirut, Dubai, London and Jeddah), the Atassi
Foundation is aiming to raise its academic
profile, with a new book of essays planned
this year. Elsewhere, the Shubbak Festival of
contemporary Arab culture in London in July
will offer a new platform for recent Syrian work
collected by the British Museum. “Syrian art is very badly represented,” says
the foundation’s Shireen Atassi. There are
patrons in the wealthy Iranian diaspora, she
points out, not-for-profit spaces for Turkish art
in Istanbul, and the Ruya Foundation promotes
Iraqi art and culture, including at the Venice
Biennale, yet there isn’t even a serious reference
work for Syrian art. As such, Into the Light aims
to celebrate Syria’s art, culture and history,
but from “a society [that] politically, socially
and artistically has never been as open to the
international market,” says Atassi. As a case in point, the greatest Modern Syrian
name is arguably the Damascus-born Marwan
Kassab-Bachi, who died in October last year. He
studied in the same studio as Hans Trier with
Georg Baselitz, and his work has commanded
nearly $400,000 at auction (though far less than
Baselitz). Yet, after more than 50 years in Berlin,
Marwan was regarded almost as a German
artist, observes Venetia Porter, of the British
Museum. “But because there is [now] more of a
focus on Middle Eastern art, Marwan has come
out of the German context and become very
prominent in the way people look at Syrian
Modernism,” she says.
Younger artists with a similarly international
profile include Syrian-American Diana Al Hadid,
born in 1981 in Aleppo and represented in New
York City by Marianne Boesky Gallery (showing
at Art Dubai), with works in the Whitney
Museum of American Art and other collections.
Elsewhere, top works by Modernists such
as Moudarres (1922-99) and Kayyali (1934-78)
have sold in the $200,000 to $400,000 range at
auction. While prices like these have driven
Syrian families to sell, this has prompted dealers
to look out for fakes. The war has created a Western diaspora,
a new generation of the country’s brightest
talents centred in Berlin, Paris and Canada,
while Dubai is the closest hub for a showcase,
says Atassi. “We are not working on the
emotional aspect of being refugees,” she
explains. “We are trying to improve the
representation of Syrian art, to bring it out to
the surface, to show people what Syrian art is.”
The British Museum already has the work of
Issam Kourbaj, who was taught by Moudarres
and created Syrian refugee camps in miniature
for the 2015 Shubbak Festival. Other artists
collected more recently by museums include
veteran Youssef Abdelke, with his powerful stilllifes, and the deeply political work of the young
Berlin-based Sulafa Hijazi. The established
artist Fadi Yazigi is also highly regarded for his
striking, Picasso-esque faces. In Dubai, the 600 sq. m Concrete comprises
four warehouses with rotating and movable
internal walls, eight and a half metres high,
that can create exhibition, concert and cinema
spaces. Skylights in the roof introduce natural
light, while a cladding of concrete is wrapped
in embedded mirrored chips. “Most of the
complex structural equipment was produced in
the UAE in close discussion with thinkers and
manufacturers,” says Rem Koolhaas, “which
represents a maturity.”
This is the first UAE project for the Dutch
firm OMA (the Koolhaas co-founded Office of
Metropolitan Architecture). Its partner, Iyad
Alsaka, is himself a Syrian national who studied
in Aleppo. It is a “very nice coincidence” that
this new anchor space, intended to attract more
visitors to Alserkal with headline events, is
opening with a Syrian show, he says.
The Syrian conflict has exiled a generation of
artists, with just a handful staying behind. Many
of the most gifted are unlikely to return.
6
THE ART NEWSPAPER ART DUBAI DAILY EDITION 16 MARCH 2017
INTERVIEW
Artist
FIELDS OF
PORTRAIT: PHILIP WHITE, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST. INSTALLATION IMAGES: PHOTO SOLUTIONS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND ABRAAJ GROUP ART PRIZE
LIGHT AND
COLOUR
Rana Begum wins this year’s Abraaj prize
with a floating geometric celebration of
hues, textures and form
By Arsalan Mohammad
I
t was her show at London’s Parasol
Unit that provided Rana Begum with
the impetus to begin the journey
that culminated this week with the
unveiling of her Abraaj Group Art
Prize (AGAP)-winning installation at
Art Dubai, No. 695 (2017).
The London-based Bangladeshi
artist, an alum of Chelsea College of Art &
Design and the Slade School of Fine Art,
was awarded the coveted prize last October,
receiving a bursary of $100,000 to realise a
site-specific project at Art Dubai, working with
curator Omar Berrada. And the prize-winning
work, which was unveiled near the Abraaj
lounge on Tuesday night, demonstrates a clear
progression in Begum’s creative evolution and
a high point in a career spanning over 15 years.
No. 695 is an approximately 10m by 11m
installation of geometrically organised
coloured, triangular glass panels, embedded
into a floating base. On encountering it for
the first time, it appears to be, almost literally,
a colour field. Walk around it, gaze down its
length, squint along its width, peer through
its diagonals. As sunlight moves inexorably
overhead, reflecting the surrounding waterway,
the work constantly offers the viewer a unique
visual moment, a poem of colour and texture.
The Art Newspaper: Congratulations on
winning the Abraaj Prize. How did your
application come about?
Rana Begum: I was asked by the galleries and
a few other people to apply, especially because
of my [September 2016] show at Parasol Unit,
which allowed people to see an overall picture
of how my work has developed over the last 15
years. At that show were MDF panel paintings,
a series I had started in 2011. I had been craving
getting into painting and exploring the idea of
overlapping colours, how one colour affects the
other. I felt I had been losing focus a little bit
recently and I wanted to get back into that.
So this is where you were at that time and
you knew where you wanted to go to next,
exploring paint, which isn’t something you’ve
done in the past.
I don’t use paint often, I’m not confident with
it. But when I applied for AGAP that’s where I
felt the direction of the work was going. And
the show at Parasol showed me how these
different series connect. I knew I could take
that leap with the Abraaj Prize and take
that risk.
So that led directly to the piece we see here
this week?
Yes, it was taking those paintings and
simplifying them a bit – almost imagining
them on the floor. Imagining these planes,
rising up from the floor and being able to walk
around and seeing how the light changes the
colours, filtering through these panes of glass.
I love how in your work the vantage point
creates a unique view.
For me, normally, it takes a long time to
get to that stage. A series of works will be
developed over a number of years and it takes a
long time to get to that stage where a viewer
can physically walk around a work and
understand it.
Did the work’s setting in Dubai have a
significant effect?
I got slightly carried away with scale – I think
it’s one of the largest pieces AGAP would have
and it’s certainly one of the largest things I
have made! One of the reasons I proposed this
for Dubai, was that I was thinking about the
light, the yellowish warm light. I wanted to
use light, and this proposal fitted quite well
with showing outside in Dubai. These three
elements of light, colour and form come
together and you make the experience
with the three, to reflect the light, the
landscape and the urban environment, the
city itself.
The scope of the local landscape covers the
city and the desert…
You’ll see that, depending on the viewpoint,
the piece becomes quite landscape-like, almost
like mountains. At certain points, as you
shift position, you get this incredibly bold,
geometric shape, shards, sticking out of the
base. As you shift your position in relation to
the work, it reminded me of the sand, and
the sandy landscape. With the other images,
depending on your position, it becomes
incredibly architectural, so I thought this
was interesting.
Abraaj Artists
In a show curated by Omar Berrada these are the
runners-up for the 2017 AGAP.
Raha Raissnia
From top: Rana Begum; the winning work No. 695 on
display on a floating platform outside Art Dubai 2017; and a
detail of the installation
It ventures into a lot of themes your work
has explored in the past, colour, texture
and environment and takes it all to a
new level…
I hope so. I wanted to invest it back into
pushing my work, pushing further and further
and still continue to explore some of the areas
I have not drained yet. I am still excited by my
older bar pieces. It’s great to be able to push
those works through this installation.
The Brooklyn-based Iranian artist’s work at the AGAP
exhibition includes paintings from her Series in Fugue, and
drawings from the series Alluvius.
Sarah Abu Abdallah
Saudi Arabian artist Sarah Abu Abdallah is an artist and
puzzle-maker, whose Mornings Of Hope (2017) is a videoprojection onto wooden circle panels.
Doa Aly
Egyptian artist Doa Aly is represented by Gypsum
Gallery, Cairo. Her work, spanning video, drawing and
performance, has been exhibited internationally.
At the AGAP exhibition, she is showing House of Rumor,
a four channel audio-visual installation, with 18k gold
necklace and drawings. A.M.
8
THE ART NEWSPAPER ART DUBAI DAILY EDITION 16 MARCH 2017
IN PICTURES
Cooking Liberty
Beirut-based art collective Atfal Ahdath (Vartan Avakian, Hatem Imam and Raed
Yassin) have created an immersive gala dinner experience at The Room, Art Dubai
S
The dramatic yet intimate
dining hall (main picture)
and the dessert, entitled
Resurrection Douce (inset)
PHOTOGRAPHY BY NAT MULLER; MOSH LAFUENTE
alvador Dali’s cookbook
Les Diners de Gala,
published recently by
Taschen, is the inspiration
for this year’s edition of
The Room. The dinner
takes place in opulent halls in the
Mina A’Salam hotel, complete with
flocks of peacock feathers dangling
from the ceiling. While a self-playing
piano provides the soundtrack to the
cocktail area, diners are invited to
sip tongue-numbing arak aperitifs
before a dramatic (and slightly
mysterious) voice suddenly booms
from speakers, inviting diners to be
seated for the sensorial experience
they are about to undergo.
The entire evening is unmistakably
Dali-esque (if simplified) with the
implementation of the artist’s iconic,
familiar motifs. There are peacockadorned gold centrepieces and red
velvet curtains lining the dining hall.
Guests file in in various states of
anticipation; some are disorientated by
the seating arrangements and intimate
space, others seem in awe of the menu
item titles (more of that in a minute),
while others seemed delighted by the
choreographed and attentive service
from an army of white-gloved servers.
Briskly paced, 12 courses are split
into five sections with evocative
titles (such as Glass or Shell), each
accompanied by interventions in the
form of a man spouting philosophical
culinary musings (mostly about
spinach). Dishes include The Elegant
Anatomy of A Naked Pocket (seaweed
and crushed pistachio powder in an
edible plastic bag on a bed of dried
wakame and edible flowers that
desperately needed the accompanying
miso soup shot), The Instant Charm of
the Bourgeoisie (consommé in green
gelatine form) or Sun-Dried Mermaid
(seabass, quail legs with feet and
sardines with violent-looking tomato
dust). The highlight, however, is
perhaps the finale; a fist-sized gold leaftopped white chocolate egg filled with
chocolate mousse, mango puree (the
yolk) and a bittersweet chocolate nest.
The gala dinners run through
the duration of the fair and include
performances by Tarek Yamani and
Raed Yassin.
Katrina Kufer
10
THE ART NEWSPAPER ART DUBAI DAILY EDITION 16 MARCH 2017
CALENDAR
Dubai: March 2017
Grey Noise
Listings are arranged
alphabetically by category
ABU DHABI
Abu Dhabi Art Hub
Mussafah
Artist in Residence: Women’s Art Month
UNTIL 3 APRIL
Abu Dhabi Festival
Emirates Palace and The Arts Center NYUAD
UNTIL 18 MARCH
Etihad Modern Art Gallery
Al Falah Street, Bateen
Travelling Light
UNTIL 30 MARCH
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi
Saadiyat Cultural District
The Creative Act: Performance,
Process, Presence
UNTIL 29 JULY
Warehouse421
Mina Zayed Port
U.A.E. Unlimited: Bayn: the In-Between
ONGOING
Film Screening: We Are Just Fine
Like This (Mehdi M Barsaoui)
& A Present From The Past
(Kawthar Younis)
22 MARCH
Lest We Forget: Emirati Adornment
UNTIL 27 AUGUST
DUCTAC
The Empty Quarter
Alserkal Avenue
Artists Run New York: The Seventies
UNTIL 30 JUNE
Mall of the Emirates
Is Old Gold?
UNTIL 7 APRIL
DIFC
Sequences
UNTIL 30 APRIL
La Galerie Nationale
Thejamjar
XVA
Alserkal Avenue
Fred Kleinberg: Face to Face 2
UNTIL 10 SEPTEMBER
Alserkal Avenue
Open Studio: DIY Painting
UNTIL 18 MARCH
OCCUPY
UNTIL 12 APRIL
Current artist in residence: Dina Saadi
Bastakiya/Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood
Samira Abbassy: Redemptive
Narratives and Migrating Patterns
UNTIL 25 MAY
But We Cannot See Them: Tracing
a UAE Underground, 1988–2008
Gulf Photo Plus
Until 25 May
NYUAD Art Gallery, NYU, Saadiyat
Cultural District
www.nyuad-artgallery.org
○
This exhibition is NYUAD
Art Gallery’s first historical
show. It reveals a recent history
within the UAE by surveying an
artistic community that forged
a more radical and conceptual
cultural development in the
Emirates from the late 1980s until
2008. The exhibition examines
how the community flourished
at a time when there were few
exhibition opportunities and
even fewer institutions. While
individual highlights include the
reviving of a major installation by
Hussain Sharif, the real benefit
is witnessing works displayed
together as they would have been
originally, providing an invaluable
historical perspective. K.K.
Lawrie Shabibi
Alserkal Avenue
Mounir Fatmi: Inside The Fire Circle
UNTIL 27 APRIL
Leila Heller Gallery
Alserkal Avenue
Rashid Rana
UNTIL 22 APRIL
Bill Viola: The Vast: Mirrors of the Mind
UNTIL 22 APRIL
Hadie Shafie
UNTIL 22 APRIL
Carbon 12
Alserkal Avenue
Sara Rahbar: Salvation
UNTIL 25 APRIL
Salwa Zeidan Gallery
St Regis, Saadiyat Island
Hussein Sharif: Before and After
UNTIL 27 MARCH
Jean-Paul Najar Foundation
Going Under
NYUAD Art Gallery
NYU, Saadiyat Cultural District
But We Cannot See Them: Tracing a UAE
Underground, 1988–2008
UNTIL 25 MAY
Artspace
Alserkal Avenue
Alia Ali: People of Pattern
UNTIL 22 APRIL
Exhibition: Woven Heritage
UNTIL 18 MARCH
Exhibition: Future Perfect Future
UNTIL 18 MARCH
Exhibition: Art Book
UNTIL 27 MARCH
Exhibition: 2016 Aga Khan
Award for Architecture
UNTIL 14 APRIL
Alserkal Avenue
Lala Rukh: Sagar
UNTIL 13 MAY
Alserkal Avenue
Damien Beneteau: Optical Variations
UNTIL 26 APRIL
Cinema Akil
Alserkal Avenue
Film Screening: Taste of Cherry
(Abbas Kiarostami)
17 MARCH
Film Screening: Salam Neighbour
(Zach Ingrasci/Chris Temple)
24 MARCH
Film Screening: Pina (Wim Wenders)
31 MARCH
Salsali Private Museum
Alserkal Avenue
SCULPTURE
UNTIL 13 SEPTEMBER
Satellite
Alserkal Avenue
DiMoDA 2.0: Morphe Presence
UNTIL 20 MARCH
Concrete
Showcase Gallery
Alserkal Avenue
Atassi Foundation:
Syria: Into the Light
UNTIL 3 APRIL
Alserkal Avenue
Helen Teede: Unhomed
UNTIL 12 MAY
Cuadro Fine Art Gallery
DIFC
Aidan Salakhova & Ammar Al Attar: B/W
UNTIL 13 APRIL
SHARJAH
Meem Art Gallery
Umm Suqeim Street, Al Quoz
Sohrab Sepehri
UNTIL 20 MAY
Barjeel Art Foundation
Al Qasba, Al Taawun Road
Beloved Bodies II
UNTIL 4 OCTOBER
Citizen E Gallery
D3
Leena Al Ayoobi: Brainchild
UNTIL 6 APRIL
D3
MB and F M.A.D. Gallery
DIFC
Nasser Al Aswadi
UNTIL MID-MARCH
Tashkeel/Ruben Sanchez: Lucid Dream
ONGOING
Tashkeel
Nad Al Shiba Road
Mind The Gap
UNTIL 6 APRIL
Maraya Art Center
Al Qasba, Al Taawun Road
Artist in Residence: Fari
Bradley & Chris Weaver
UNTIL 28 MARCH
Artist in Residence: Jung Chan Boo
UNTIL 18 MARCH
Sadik Kwaish Alfraji: Once
Upon A Time: Hadiqat
Al Umma
UNTIL 6 MAY
Sharjah Art Foundation
Andakulyova Gallery
DIFC
Said Atabekov: 66 Lbs
UNTIL 12 MAY
Al Mareija, Al Shuwaihaen
Ahmed Morsi: A Dialogic Imagination
UNTIL 3 JUNE
Sharjah Biennial
Art Sawa
DIFC
Mustafa Ali
UNTIL 24 MARCH
Al Mareija, Al Shuwaihaen *Across Dakar,
Istanbul, Ramallah, Sharjah and Beirut
Tamawuj
UNTIL 12 JUNE
COMPILED BY KATRINA KUFER
SVENM
Custot Gallery
DUBAI
1 x 1 Art Gallery
Alserkal Avenue
Sleepless Constellation
UNTIL 30 APRIL
Art Jameel
Alserkal Avenue
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme:
And yet my mask is powerful
UNTIL 9 APRIL
Alserkal Avenue
Black, White…
UNTIL 31 MAY
Alserkal Avenue
Everyday Masterpieces: The Art
of Buildings Sculpture
UNTIL 18 MARCH
Elmarsa Gallery
The Third Line
Alserkal Avenue
Khaled Ben Slimane: Ya Latif
UNTIL 8 APRIL
Alserkal Avenue
Sophia Al Maria: Everything Must Go
UNTIL 1 APRIL
FN Designs
Alserkal Avenue
Alserkal Avenue
Joshua Watts: Emergent Momenta
UNTIL MAY
Commission: Ammar Al Attar: Plaza Cinema
UNTIL 29 APRIL
Commission: Karim Sultan: Different Air
UNTIL 29 APRIL
Commission: Farah Al Qasimi:
It’s Not Easy Being Seen
UNTIL 29 APRIL
Commission: Raja’a Khalid: Change Your Life
UNTIL 29 APRIL
Performances:
15–18 MARCH
Performance: Fari Bradley and Chris
Weaver: Circular Landscapes
17 MARCH
Ayyam Gallery
Alserkal Avenue
Samia Halaby: Documentary Drawings
of the Kafr Qasem Massacre
UNTIL 27 APRIL
Alserkal Avenue
Samia Halaby: Illuminated Space
UNTIL 17 JUNE
DIFC
Afshin Pirhashemi
UNTIL 25 MAY
Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde
Alserkal Avenue
Vikram Divecha: Minor Work
UNTIL 11 MAY
Green Art Gallery
Alserkal Avenue
Hera Buyuktsciyan: Write Injuries on
Sand and Kindness in Marble
UNTIL 29 APRIL
The artist exploring time,
history and memory through
aquamorphology
Hera Büyüktaşçiyan: Write Injuries on
Sand and Kindness in Marble
Until 6 May
Green Art Gallery, Alserkal Avenue
www.gagallery.com
solo exhibition sees the
○ This
artist draw from Green Art
Gallery’s former life as a marble
factory as a basis for her exploration
Hera Büyüktaşçiyan, Reconstructors I (2017)
into memory. The layers of memory,
embedded within the history of
a place, encourage viewers to consider how the properties of marble and
water act as divisive and connective currents between people, geographies
and histories. K.K.
12
THE ART NEWSPAPER ART DUBAI DAILY EDITION 16 MARCH 2017
PICK ’N’ MIX
At the fair
Hi-tech art dazzles at Art Dubai
IMAGES COURTESY TEAMLAB AND RESPECTIVE GALLERIES; HAFEZ GALLERY
The popular artist collective teamLab is using technology to bring us closer to nature
One of the fair’s biggest talking
points this year is a joint
presentation of multi-channel
digital works by art collective
teamLab. In a shared booth by
Ikkan Art International, Pace
Art+Technology and Martin
Browne Contemporary, a series of
immersive panels feature changing
seasons and natural phenomena.
The collective comprises a diverse
mix of artists, programmers,
engineers, CG animators,
architects, web and print graphic
designers, and more.
“Interest in teamLab has
exploded worldwide in the
last two to three years,” says
Martin Browne, director of the
eponymous gallery. “However,
it has never been shown in the
Middle East before. This part of
the world is looking forward –
through architecture and design,
it is planning for the future and
teamLab is at the forefront of what
art and technology can be.”
The works range from $45,000
for the single channel Black
Waves (2016) to $100,000 for the
six-channel Flowers and People
– Dark (2015). Each channel
appears as a panel, reminiscent
of the traditional folding screens
found in Southeast Asia. In fact,
some feature a subtle grid-like
background that appears to
shimmer in the light, a nod to
the use of beaten gold and silver
gilded panels on such screens.
There are interactive elements
too. A case in point is the sixchannel work Four Seasons, a
Mathematics (1973), showing at Hafez Gallery, Art Dubai Modern
Talking point
Blunt honesty
Ghaleb Khater (b. 1922), associated with the ‘Third Generation’ of Egyptian artists, was one
of the most outspoken voices of the 1960s and 70s, critiquing social and political issues of
his native Cairo. Works such as Mathematics (1973) reveal just how relevant these themes
are in the current climate. Khater’s interest in socio-political issues is illustrated in stark, clean
imagery and metaphor. He often depicted intellectuals as having surrendered to dictators,
their freedom of expression shackled, becoming like animals, unable to protest. A.M.
Four Seasons, a 1000 Years, Terraced Fields – Tashibunosho
1000 Years, Terraced Rice Fields
– Tashibunosho, which draws on
the titular location to synchronise,
in real time and over the internet,
with the weather patterns of
Tashibunosho over the period
of a year. This is reflected in the
wind in the rice fields, the glow
of a sunrise or even snow-covered
trees. Meanwhile, in Flowers and
People – Dark, the closer one gets,
Flowers And People – Dark
the more flowers blossom and
emerge. One step too close, and
they explode in a soft miasma
of petals.
Comparing teamLab’s screens
to the boom in virtual reality
works currently taking place in
the wider art sphere (think Shezad
Dawood and Mat Collishaw) may
be tempting, but Browne points
out teamLab are on a completely
different trajectory. “There
are so many people working
in virtual reality, yet the
essence of teamLab is
different,” he says. “Virtual
reality is all about the new
and the future of technology,
but what we have here is
an impulse to reconnect us
in a digital society with the
natural world.”
Anna Wallace-Thompson
Listening in...
“But we are going to be talking about
an issue that is seldom raised in public
forums, so this will be just between us.
We will be talking about culture ties,
commercial ties and what my esteemed
panelist Neha Vora calls, ‘the original
freezone’ … gold smuggling, between the
Gulf and India.”
- Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, speaking at the Global Art Forum panel
GOLD!: Mumbai to Dubai
14
THE ART NEWSPAPER ART DUBAI DAILY EDITION 16 MARCH 2017
PROGRAMMING
THE ART NEWSPAPER
Art Dubai daily editions
EDITORIAL AND PRODUCTION
Editor (The Art Newspaper): Javier Pes
Co-editors (Art Dubai fair papers):
Anna Wallace-Thompson, Arsalan Mohammad
Managing editor: Ria Hopkinson
Chief contributing editor: Gareth Harris
Editorial assistant: Katrina Kufer
Sub-editor: Catherine Harper
Designer: Leena Saoub Saunders
Photographer: Mosh Lafuente
Contributors: Tim Cornwell, Aimee Dawson,
Laura Egerton, Kevin Jones, Leanne Wierzba
Design and production (commercial):
Daniela Hathaway
App: Daniela Hathaway, Stephanie Ollivier
Dubai: Fair highlights
FAIRS
Art Book Fair
Alserkal Avenue
UNTIL 18 MARCH
Design Days Dubai
D3
14-17 MARCH
SIKKA
Bastakiya/Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood
11-21 MARCH
3.15-4.15PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM: ROUTE!:
INVISIBLE INFRASTRUCTURES
SPEAKERS: SLAVS AND TATARS
AND TREVOR PAGLEN
HOSTS: WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
AND SHUMON BASAR
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
3.30-4PM
TOUR: ART DUBAI MODERN
(Art Dubai Modern Lounge, Mina A’Salam)
OPEN TO ALL
KING ABDULAZIZ CENTRE FOR WORLD
CULTURE, A SAUDI ARAMCO INITIATIVE
(Art Dubai Modern Lounge, Mina A’Salam)
OPEN TO ALL
4.45-5.45PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM:
DISCUSSION - B€LI€V€! :
TWO SAUDI CITIES
SPEAKER: HAMZA SERAFI, MAHMOUD
SABBAGH, AHMED MATER
HOST: CLARE DAVIES
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
ART DUBAI PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS
THURSDAY MARCH 16
4-9.30PM
ART DUBAI GALLERY HALLS:
CONTEMPORARY, MODERN, ART DUBAI
PROGRAMME, THE ABRAAJ GROUP ART
PRIZE, SHEIKHA MANAL LITTLE ARTISTS
PROGRAMME
OPEN TO ALL
2.30-2.45PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM: WELCOME &
INTRODUCTION - TRADING PLAC€$
SPEAKERS: SHUMON BASAR, ANTONIA
CARVER AND OSCAR GUARDIOLA-RIVERA
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
PHOTO © MOSH LAFUENTE
2.45-3.15PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM: RAID! :
THE EAST INDIAN COMPANY
SPEAKER: WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
3-3.30PM
COOKING LIBERTY:
PERFORMANCE WITH
TAREK YAMANI
(The Room, Mina A’Salam)
OPEN TO ALL
4-9.30PM
SPECIAL PROJECTS: GHARIBA
(Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
4-5PM
BOOK LAUNCH: RASHID RANA CATALOGUE
(Leila Heller Gallery,
Booth A8, Hall 1,
Madinat Jumeirah)
OPEN TO ALL
4-5PM
PERFORMANCE: ART DUBAI
COMMISSIONS: LANA FAHMI, WHAT
MODERNITY?
(Art Dubai Modern, Mina A’Salam)
OPEN TO ALL
4-7PM
THE ROOM: COOKING LIBERTY
(Mina A’Salam)
OPEN TO ALL
4.15-4.30PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM: $OLD! PACK! $€ND!
SPEAKERS: IFTIKHAR DADI
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
4.30-5.30PM
SAUDI ARTISTS OPEN CALL ANNOUNCEMENT
5-5.30PM
TOUR: ART DUBAI COMMISSIONS
(Meet at Art Dubai Programme Booth,
Foyer 2, Madinat Jumeirah)
OPEN TO ALL
5-5.30PM
BOOK LAUNCH: ARDESHIR:
STORMY WINDS AND FEREYDOUN AVE:
THE DESIGNER
(Dastan’s Basement,
Booth C4, Hall 1,
Madinat Jumeirah)
OPEN TO ALL
5.30-8.30
ON-GOING ACTION: ART DUBAI COMMISSIONS:
MANUEL PELMUS, PRIVATE COLLECTION
(Art Dubai Modern, Mina A’Salam)
OPEN TO ALL
5.45-6.15PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM: LECTURE - BR€AK!
SPEAKER: JANE ANNA GORDON
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
6.15-6.30PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM: $OLD! PACK! $€ND!
SPEAKER: KRISTINE KHOURI
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
Works by Rasheed Araeen at Aicon Gallery
6.30-7PM
GLOBAL ART FORUM: PERFORMANCE - FUNK!
SPEAKER: TISHANI DOSHI AND OSCAR GUARDIOLA-RIVERA
(Global Art Forum, Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
7.30-8PM
PERFORMANCE: ART DUBAI COMMISSIONS:
EGLE BUDVYTYTE PERFORMANCE, SOFT
VOICE, HARSH MELODY
(Foyer 1, Madinat Jumeirah)
OPEN TO ALL
8-8.30PM
SHEIKHA MANAL LITTLE ARTISTS
PROGRAMME: DROP-IN WORKSHOP
(Children’s Area)
OPEN TO ALL
8-9PM
BOOK LAUNCH: 3RD GLOBAL ART MEETING
(Perve Galeria, Booth M9, Hall 3, Mina A’Salam)
OPEN TO ALL
9PM-2AM
ART DUBAI BAR
(Fort Island)
OPEN TO ALL
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Chief executive: James Hewes
Management accountant: Evgenia Spellman
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