A TRIO OF ART AT 2015 ABU DHABI FESTIVAL
- Mar 1, 2015
- 5 min read
The 2015 Abu Dhabi Festival commissions FotoFest International to make its Middle East debut at the Festival's 12th edition, announcing a trio of dynamic visual Arts Exhibitions as part of its main programme:
‘View From Inside: Contemporary Arab Photography,
Video & Mixed Media Art’
'Emirati Insights’
‘The 2015 Abu Dhabi Festival Commissions'
This year, the Abu Dhabi Festival presents a packed visual arts programme at the Emirates Palace, featuring a trio of exhibitions: View From Inside: Contemporary Arab Photography, Video and Mixed Media Art, the 2015 Festival Commissions and Emirati Insights. The presentations will be accompanied by two commemorative, limited edition publications, ‘View From Inside’ and ‘Art of the Emirates’.
About View From Inside
Abu Dhabi Festival 2015 will host the Middle East debut of the internationally acclaimed FotoFest International with an exhibition specially curated for the Festival, View From Inside: Contemporary Arab Photography, Video and Mixed Art. With in excess of 140 works by over 35 leading Arab artists from 12 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, View From Inside will take place at the Emirates Palace Gallery in Abu Dhabi.
View From Inside is based on FotoFest’s presentation of leading Arab photo and media artists originally created for FotoFest’s 15th international Biennial in Houston, Texas. A series of public talks, curator-led and guided tours, workshops and a colloquium with New York University Abu Dhabi on April 15th from 10.30 am to 5.00 pm will accompany the exhibition.
View From Inside showcases a diverse and stimulating selection of photography, video and mixed media art by leading contemporary Arab artists. The presentation of this exhibition affirms Abu Dhabi Festival’s role as a leading cultural event in the region.
Organised by FotoFest International, View From Inside brings together one of the world’s leading curators of contemporary Arab art, Karin Adrian von Roques, with FotoFest’s co-founder and expert on the international photographic arts, Wendy Watriss.
“This exhibition focuses on the works and the voices of artists who are important and pioneering figures in the use of photography and media-related arts in the Arab world,” says lead curator Karin von Roques. “The range and quality of their work vividly reveal the inter-relationships between tradition and change, both regional and global, and how these inter-connections are central to the way contemporary artists engage with the world around them.”
The exhibition features video animations and three-dimensional works alongside vivid photojournalistic images of recent news events and personal reflections on contemporary Arab culture. Many of the works address issues related to the diverse and shifting identities of people and place in Arab life today. The artists examine societal and environmental changes in the Middle East, the speed at which they are occurring and how they affect traditional relationships to family, “homeland”, gender, diaspora and displacement.
Artist: Sawsan Al Bahar
Collectively, these artworks reveal the complexity and beauty of life in the Middle East and North Africa. Reflective, critical and often humorous, the artists show a deep engagement with Arab life today. Participating artists include Tarek Al Ghoussein, Camille Zakharia, Sadik Al Fraji, Lalla Essaydi, Samer Mohdad, Hassan Hajjaj, Mohammed Kazem, Manal Al Dowayan, Tammam Azzam, Reem Al Faisal, Ahmed Mater and Boushra Al Mutawakel.
Wendy Watriss, Co-Founder of FotoFest International comments: “The artworks reveal strong connections between contemporary experiences and the histories of the cultures from which they come - their relationship to Arab society today and the world beyond. With passion, irony and anxiety, they address issues and the transformation of their social and physical environment. It is about their voice.”
The exhibition will be accompanied by a limited edition
commemorative book.
About Emirati Insights & The Festival Commissions
Each year, the Abu Dhabi Festival commission’s new work by leading visual artists, creating a legacy of artistic expression rooted in the culture of the United Arab Emirates. Previously commissioned artists have been Jalal Luqman, Mattar Bin Lahej, Mohammed Kazem and Bill Fontana.
The 2015 Abu Dhabi Festival commissions include the work on canvas and wood Perfume of the Earth by the Italy-based, Emirati artist Fatma Lootah. Lootah’s subjects are very often people from the UAE, real or imagined. In Ode to the Bouquets by Noor Al Suwaidi is a celebration of the return to the simple beauties that nature offers: It is as if Al Suwaidi is asking us to stop and smell the roses. Both Al Suwaidi and Lootah’s works will be on display in the Emirates Palace Gallery. On view in the Emirates Palace Auditorium Foyer will be a specially commissioned installation by Sawsan Al Bahar entitled Wra’a il Zaman – Leaves of Time. Wra’a Il Zaman is a metaphor; a calendar of selected days carried away on the wind as time passes by. The installation is a depiction of the state of suspension in which Palestinian refugees live. Inspired by the old printed Arabic calendars (Roznama, or Book of Days), it consists of suspended 3D sculptural pieces; each piece is a page from the Roznama carrying key dates in the past 70 years since the Nakba of 1948. The work resembles sheets of paper blowing in the breeze and captures a frozen moment in time. Wra’a Il Zaman was shortlisted for the 2015 Christo & Jeanne-Claude Award.
Emirati Insights, Abu Dhabi Festival’s bespoke group exhibition of works from some of today’s most dynamic practitioners, testifies to the creativity of the Emirati contemporary arts community. It features photography, video and mixed media art by 12 artists: Sheikha Fatima Bint Hazza Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ammar Al Attar, Yousif Al Harmoudi, Farah Al Qasimi, Alia Al Shamsi, Hamdan Buti Al Shamsi, Afra Bin Dhaher, Maitha Demithan, Reem Falaknaz, Saeed Khalifa, Lateefa Bint Maktoum and Shamma Al Amri. Emirati Insights explores the cultural identity of a nation through the self-perceptions of its artists. By using photography, video and mixed media, the works express the concerns and challenges of today’s society. Some deal with altered means of communication in the digital age, while others question rural heritage versus urban modernity.
A public talk featuring participating Emirati Insights artists Ammar Al Attar and Reem Falaknaz, moderated by Noor Al Suwaidi, will take place at The Emirates Palace Gallery on 1 April at 6.30pm.
To register, email education@admaf.org
Emirati Insights coincides with the release of Art of the Emirates, a major publication by the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) which presents an inspirational snapshot of today’s Emirati visual arts scene. Profiling over 40 Emirati artists, galleries, foundations, universities and colleges, Art of the Emirates goes behind the scenes to explore the motivation, passion and vision of some of the leading protagonists driving the development of national artistic expression across the United Arab Emirates. It will be available in all good bookstores across the Arabian Gulf from 15th April.
View From Inside, Emirati Insights and the Abu Dhabi Festival Commissions will be open to the public from 21 March to 20 April 2015 at Emirates Palace Gallery (Sunday - Thursday: 12:00pm - 8:00pm; Friday - Saturday: 10:00am - 10:00pm). Admission is free.
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