Sharjah Art Foundation mixes old and new in its autumn programme
Sharjah was lauded as one of the five most creative cities in the world in a BBC report published last week. The accolade is in no small part due to the efforts of the Sharjah Art Foundation, which for the past 10 years has been supporting contemporary art by artists of the Menasa region, both in new commissions and retrospectives.
The foundation’s autumn programme, announced last week, conforms to this mix, with historical surveys by established artists such as Egyptian sculptor Adam Henein, as well as shows of younger producers such as Akram Zaatari, Bani Abidi, Farah Al Qasimi and Filwa Nazer.
The shows are staggered throughout the season, starting from September 21. The flagship show for the season is sure to be the retrospective of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, who died in April at the age of 96. Though Farmanfarmaian’s works have been seen regularly in the UAE and elsewhere, the show Sunset, Sunrise will offer a substantial exploration of
the artist’s practice, composing about 70 works stretching over six decades.
Farmanfarmaian, who studied in New York at the height of abstract expressionism in the 1960s, brought her knowledge of western abstraction to joyful patterned and mirrored expressions of Islamic geography and traditional craftwork. In addition to her famous reflective works, this show also brings together her drawings, jewellery and previously unseen collages from the 1980s.
Other solo shows this autumn include a retrospective of Lebanese artist Zaatari, whose Arab Image Foundation, which he co-founded in Beirut in 1997, became the fulcrum of the Lebanese art scene. Zaatari’s work, both within the foundation and in his solo practice, examines the history of the Lebanese Civil War, using the uncertainty around that era as a springboard for more fundamental questions of fiction, memory, and document, a discourse that has only gained in importance in the digital age of proliferating imagery.
Sharjah Art Foundation also shows a survey by Henein, whose sculptures draw on traditional Egyptian symbology, as well as more recent iconography, such as Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, whom he immortalised in 2003.
Other solo shows include a survey of young Pakistani artist Abidi (with two new commissions) and Lebanese artist Marwan Rechmaoui, who won the prestigious Bonnefanten Prize this year.
The foundation will also show the culmination of residency and commissioning projects that support up-and-coming artists and curators. The 2019 results of the March Projects, Sharjah’s annual series of commissions, go on view, with works by Emirati artists Al Qasimi, Asma Belhamar, May Rashed and Saeed Al Madani, as well as by Saudi artist Nazer and Colombian Mario Santanilla.
Also on show this autumn is the second exhibition in the Air Arabia partnership, in which a young curator puts together a show emphasising pathways of the Global South. This year South African researcher Bhavisha Panchia looks at the First Congress of Arab Music, held in Cairo in 1932.
As usual, many of the Sharjah Art Foundation shows are put together in partnership with other institutions, and have toured or will tour further abroad.
The 2019 results of the March Projects go on view, with works by Emirati artists Farah Al Qasimi, May Rashed and Saeed Al Madani