Art season makes a creative comeback a year after being cancelled owing to Covid-19
▶ Alexandra Chaves rounds up the highlights, from Galleries Night to Louvre Abu Dhabi’s latest exhibition
Many around the world will remember March 2020 as a time when the Covid-19 pandemic took hold and affected millions in a multitude of ways. For the local art scene, this month typically marks the start of a new season of exhibitions and programmes, most of which were postponed or cancelled last year.
Now, the scene hopes to bounce back with the return of Art Dubai in its physical form (last year’s went online); a series of events at Alserkal Avenue as part of Galleries Night and Art Week; the opening of new spaces, including Foundry in Downtown Dubai; and major shows at Sharjah Art Foundation, which recently wrapped up its March Meeting series of talks.
Here are a few highlights to look out for.
Galleries Night at Alserkal Avenue
Alserkal Avenue’s Art Week began with Galleries Night yesterday, with new shows and guest projects opening across the arts cluster in Al Quoz. Those visiting Gulf Photo Plus can see The Sacred Space Oddity by Tanya Habjouqa. The show, which premiered at BredaPhoto in the Netherlands last year, features the award-winning JordanianTexan photographer’s quirky and layered series Occupied Pleasures, on everyday life in Israel and Palestine, particularly the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza.
Habjouqa employs Surrealist elements in her imagery to “challenge the simplifying mythologies that emerge in regions of conflict, both about ‘the other side’ and which populations tell themselves about who they are and who they seek to be”. Her photos capture characters that the photographer describes as “co-authors” of the project – a priest posing next to superhero mannequins, for example, or women practising yoga in the outskirts of Bethlehem. The show is on view until Sunday, May 30.
Over at 1x1 Art Gallery, Indian artist Simrin Mehra Agarwal is presenting Hortus Arcanus, a solo exhibition of largescale drawings of overlapping organic forms that appear as tentacles, coral, kelp and plant life.
Through the work Agarwal produces her own hybrids as she examines ideas of growth and decay in nature. She also references the landscape of her childhood in the state of West Bengal in India, specifically the forested district of Jhargram. This link to nature is referenced in the show’s title, which is Latin for “secret garden”. The show is on view until Tuesday, April 30.
At Grey Noise, Lebanese artist Charbel-joseph H Boutros has unveiled The Work and its Periphery, a new project that looks at the reshaping of the art world in the midst of the pandemic. H Boutros, who splits his time between Beirut and Paris, is known for his sculpture and installation works that reflect on political histories.
For this installation, however, he turns towards issues such as exhibition-making and what the gallery describes as “the fragile role of the gallerist’s personage trying constantly to channel an algorithmic art market empire”. The show is on view until Saturday, May 22. Galleries Night opened yesterday, and runs at various locations across Alserkal Avenue, Dubai; www.alserkalavenue.ae
The Lebanon Works
A pioneering figure in modern Arab art, Iraqi painter Dia Azzawi is known for incorporating Arabic calligraphy and symbols from Iraqi history into his works. However, his latest paintings, which are the focus of this new show at Meem Gallery in Dubai, bring in elements drawn from the coastal town of Chekka in Lebanon, where Azzawi recently opened a studio.
The three large-scale works, produced in 2019, feature Azzawi’s bold use of colour, rendering elements of land and sky, and explore themes of exile and loss through symbolic human figures referencing Sumerian visual art.
On view from tomorrow until Thursday, June 24; www.meemgallery.com
Art Dubai
The event has been scaled down for this year, owing to the pandemic, and has been moved from Madinat Jumeirah to the outdoor plaza under the Dubai International Financial Centre’s Gate Building. Fair dates have also been extended from three days to six, and booths will be housed in purpose-built structures outdoors for better ventilation.
A total of 50 galleries from the region and beyond are participating, and Art Dubai will introduce “remote booths”, which will allow galleries from outside the UAE to put up works while the fair’s staff deal with collectors on the ground.
While the Ithra Art Prize winner will not be announced at Art Dubai this year, the work of Fahad bin Naif, who won last year, will be shown. A section of the event will be dedicated to video works by various artists, and Campus Art Dubai will return with the exhibition that was initially slated for last year.
On view from Monday, March 29, until Saturday, April 3; www.artdubai.ae
Line as a Universe: Between the Past and the Future
New art space Foundry in Downtown Dubai is showing four exhibitions, including a solo presentation by Russian-Kazakh artist Adil Aubekerov. Organised by curator Dina Baitassova, the show features Aubekerov’s expressive and complex paintings that fuse petroglyphs with symbols from Kazakhstan’s visual culture. His works are an amalgam of styles, from cave painting figures to modern graffiti and graphic design.
The artist intertwines creatures and characters through seemingly unbroken lines, resulting in intricate compositions that unravel new elements with each view. He produces his works in a “free flow of consciousness”, drawing from his imagination.
On view until Saturday, April 17; foundry.downtowndubai.ae
Kn-bkhair
In this solo exhibition at Tashkeel, Emirati artist Hamdan Buti Al Shamsi explores the self – from the conscious and subconscious sides to the concept of the soul – through a body of work developed over the past year.
The show is a culmination of the artist’s research at Tashkeel’s Critical Practice Programme 2020, where Al Shamsi was mentored by Emirati artist and curator Hind bin Demaithan Al Qemzi.
Al Shamsi’s first solo exhibition includes prints, video, installation and handwritten poetry that takes viewers on a journey into the artist’s world, but also raises questions about identity.
On view until Saturday, April 24; www.tashkeel.org
Abstraction and Calligraphy – Towards a Universal Language
Louvre Abu Dhabi’s latest exhibition examines how artists in the early 20th century sought to establish a universal visual vocabulary, and traces the influences of Asian and Islamic calligraphy in their works. Hieroglyphics, Kufic script and Zen calligraphy were among the writing systems that artists such as Paul Klee, Joan Miro, Andre Masson and Wassily Kandinsky studied to create paintings that exemplify the shift towards abstraction in western art history.
The exhibition also includes two new commissions by French-Tunisian street artist eL Seed and Pakistani street artist Sanki King.
On view until Saturday, June 12; www.louvreabudhabi.ae
Rayyane Tabet: Exquisite Corpse
Rayyane Tabet’s latest exhibition in Al Mureijah Square of Sharjah Art Foundation includes works from his ongoing Fragments project, as well as newly commissioned works, including a digital archive of historical records that is open to the public.
Since 2016, Tabet has been expanding Fragments, a project that uses German archaeologist Baron Max von Oppenheim’s excavation at Tell Halaf in north-east Syria as its starting point. Years ago, Tabet discovered that his great-grandfather, Faek Borkhoche, worked as the historian’s translator for six months. The artist’s work digs into this personal history, weaving it with larger stories in the region.
On view until Tuesday, June 15; www.sharjahart.org
Lasting Impressions: Baya Mahieddine
The latest major retrospective at Sharjah Art Museum puts a spotlight on Baya, the self-taught Algerian artist who found herself launched into artistic renown at the age of 16.
The exhibition, part of the museum’s Lasting Impression series, which highlights established Arab artists throughout the ages, includes more than 70 artworks by Baya, with loans from private collectors and institutions around the world.
Curators Alya Al Mulla and Suheyla Takesh present unique research, including an interview between the artist and Salwa Mikdadi, an academic and curator.
On view until Saturday, July 31; www.sharjahartmuseum.ae