March is the Emirates’ art and culture month

Casa Árabe visited the Festival of Abu Dhabi, the fair Art Dubai, the Sharjah Biennial and other cultural and artistic events held throughout the month of March.

Holding all of these events in conjunction with each other makes it clear that the UAE has achieved a worldwide position within this field. We highlight the most important of them.

Abu Dhabi Festival

Throughout the month of March, the emirate of Abu Dhabi is hosting an important Art and Music Festival (www.abudhabifestival.ae) organized by the entity Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF www.admaf.org), with which Casa Árabe has had a close relationship of cooperation for quite a long time. This institution’s founder and the heart and soul of the activities which it has been putting on in recent years is its benefactor Hoda Al-Khamis-Kanoo, who has managed to bring together the best from the international music scene every year, with figures of the stature of Juan Diego Flórez, Naseer Shamma, Sergio Méndez and Ricardo Mutti.  More specifically, the presence of Iraq’s acclaimed Arabic oud player Naseer Shamma at two concerts in Spain during the Festival of Granada and the Cordoba Guitar Festival in 2014 was closely linked to the relationship of cultural cooperation existing between ADMAF and Casa Árabe. The Reina Sofía Music School has also given shape to its cooperation with the ADMAF by organizing a concert last March 3, also as part of the Abu Dhabi Festival.

Along with this musical section, the cultural gathering in Abu Dhabi included a very important exhibition in 2015, “View from Inside,” officially opened at the Emirates Palace on March 20. It is a major exhibition of photography and video, with works by the most important Arab artists, and forms an extension of the well-known FotoFest photography festival presented in Houston, Texas in 2014, thanks to the work of curator Karin Adrian von Roques and FotoFest co-founder Wendy Watriss.

Art Dubai 2015 and Global Art Forum

Art Dubai was created in the year of 2007, and since then it has become an essential meeting point for art professionals (gallery owners, artists, curators, institution planners etc.) with an interest in the art world in Arab and Muslim countries, year after year. At the fair, 92 galleries from 30 different countries have presented more than 500 well-known and emerging artists, most coming from these regions. A complete list of the galleries and artists taking part can be found at www.artdubai.ae. It should be pointed out that the only Spanish gallery participating in the fair was Sabrina Amrani, back for its second year in a row. At this edition, it presented Brazilian artist Marlon de Azambuja, in accordance with the spotlight being placed on Latin America during the year 2015 show, through the Marker program. This parallel program places a focus on certain regions which have received little representation at Art Dubai up to now (which is the same as saying they had a low profile in the Gulf region). At prior editions, this section has focused on Indonesia, Central Asia, the Caucuses and West Africa.

In addition to the main objective of promoting contemporary art, Art Dubai also has an element of distinction which has to do with the widespread effort in the region to increase the visibility of twentieth-century art from the Middle East and North Africa and to contribute to restoring the place which it should hold in universal Art History. Through the section Art Dubai Modern, the fair hosts galleries which present twentieth-century artists (from the forties to eighties) with a proven influence on their era or later generations. A committee of historians and curators (Savita Apte, Catherine David, Kristine Khouri, Nada Shabout and Bisi Silva) who are knowledgeable about modern art in the region make the selection and also offer guided tours of this section as part of the fair program. At the same time as the galleries program, the Art Dubai Commissions and A.i.R Dubai Residency Projects sections are also held. They are devoted to commissioned works and performances, and at this edition they were curated by Palestine’s Lara Khaldi, with a selection of works by 11 different artists and groups. Also notable is the educational program held at the height of the fair, under the name of Campus Art Dubai. It is intended for children and youths, artists, curators, writers, etc., who reside in the UAE.

Without a doubt, the most important complementary event of the fair is the Global Art Forum, an international forum for debate which was held for the ninth time this year. With the title “Download Update?,” the year 2015 edition of the forum, co-directed by Turi Munthe, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi and Shumon Basar, focused on the use of new technologies and their impact on the worlds of culture and art. The fact that the forum was held in two different cities, first in Kuwait City (at the headquarters of the Dar al-Islamiyyah Museum) and then in Dubai (at the Art Dubai fair space), demonstrates the interest of its organizers in promoting cooperation amongst entities in the region (prior editions of the Global Art Forum were shared with the Mathaf Museum of Doha in Qatar). This forum, along with Sharjah’s March Meeting, has become one of the references amongst events, bringing together significant figures from the worlds of creativity, research, curating and art criticism for just a few important days. A quick review of the contents of all nine editions held up to now will allow you to become familiar with the current concerns and topics of debate within the field of art in this region: http://artdubai.ae/global-art-forum

Since the year of 2009, the Dubai Art Fair has also been the showcase for awarding the prestigious Abraaj Group Art Prize, whose winner receives 100,000 dollars. At each edition, the fair provides a space for displaying the work commissioned to the winner, which is displayed along with works by the other three finalists. At the year 2015 edition, the prize selection was curated by Omar Kholeif, and the work by the winning artists, Morocco’s Yto Barrada, was displayed, along with works by the other finalists, Sarnath Banerjee, Setareh Shahbazi and Mounira Al Solh.  www.abraajgroupartprize.com

Other initiatives in Dubai
 
Taking advantage of the momentum created by a fair as important as Art Dubai, the city is holding other important events at the same time, including Design Days, an annual gathering for design lovers from the Gulf, Middle East and Asia regions, in addition to presenting exhibitors of a commercial nature. It is complemented by a schedule of conferences and seminars on the topic. The entity Dubai Culture & Arts Authority is this initiative’s strategic partner, in addition to other private sponsors. Likewise, a parallel art fair is held, known as the SIKKA Art Fair, which displays works by young artists who have completed commissioned projects in the old quarter of Dubai. All of these initiatives form part of what is known as the Dubai Art Season, promoted by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), the emirate’s entity devoted to art, culture and heritage, started up in 2014 as the city’s umbrella entity for involving the local community, making public spaces more dynamic with open-air projects and putting on an endless list of activities designed for the local and international public. This initiative highlights the emirate’s strategic vision, which it is using to attempt to place the city of Dubai on the world’s cultural map, all as a complement to the city’s strategy for holding the World Expo of 2020.

In this sense, it is well-known that there is a convergence of public and private goals in the fields of cultural and artistic development. Proof of this includes the development of an important art district, which is very lively throughout the year, even when the Art Dubai Fair itself is not on. This is the Al-Serkal Avenue district in the industrial area of Al Quoz. At the initiative of the Al Serkal family, this hub has increased in popularity after eight years and it now brings together more than 20 very prestigious art galleries from the region in its industrial warehouses and workshops converted into functional exhibition spaces: www.alserkalavenue.ae

Sharjah Biennial, Barjeel Art Foundation and Maraya Art Center

The emirate of Sharjah is hosting the other major art event in the UAE, the Art Biennial (www.sharjahart.org), which is presenting its twelfth edition this year with the title “The Past, Present and Possible,” curated by Eungie Joo, hosting more than fifty guest artists. The official opening event took place on March 5, and the exhibit will remain open until June 5, using various spaces within the city: from the Museum in the historical center to industrial hangars in the port zone and public squares. At this edition of the Biennial, four artists received awards, and amongst them was Spain’s Asunción Molinos Gordo, for her work on the World Agriculture Museum (WAW), inspired by the Museum of Agriculture in Cairo. The Spanish artist’s installation, included among the works put on display during the Biennial, reproduces the atmosphere and colonial look of the museum and questions the hegemonic narrative about world food. Casa Árabe had the opportunity to present this project at a conference held at our Madrid headquarters on June 12 of last year. A video of that presentation can be seen by following this link. 

The Biennial’s organization is the responsibility of the Sharjah Art Foundation, an entity presided over by Sheikha Hoor al Qasimi, one of the most important names in the region’s art world, and also an artist and curator educated at the Royal College of Art in London.  Since the first Biennial in 1993, this foundation has managed to turn the Biennial into another of the major points of reference for those professionals interested in the Arab and Asian art worlds. As a complementary event to the Biennial, every year the March Meeting is held. Like the Global Art Forum of Dubai, it provides an excellent opportunity to get a feel for the current debate and reflection taking place on contemporary art and culture in the region. As an exception, in 2015 this forum will be held in the month of May. It will be directed by curators Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti.  For further information on the March Meetings, please click here.

If you are in Sharjah, you must not miss a visit to the Maraya Art Center (www.maraya.ae), an open, dynamic space designed for the young community of local artists with permanent work spaces, bibliographic consultation, workshops, seminars, etc. This center’s building also houses another important entity, the Barjeel Art Foundation, created around a very important collection of modern and contemporary art owned by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, the foundation’s president. At present, these exhibition halls are hosting a temporary show with just a part of the collection, presented under the title “Aide Mémoire.” (www.barjeelartfoundation.org).