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Sharjah enters the eye of the art storm By Antonia Carver |
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The links within the text lead to the artists' pages or to information in other sections of Universes in Universe. |
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"It's all quite strange," one Emirati student confided.
"But I think I like it." This turned out to be a typical reaction
to the highly contemporary sixth Sharjah International Biennial.
The efforts of Biennial director Hoor Al Qasimi, the support
of her ruling family, and the work of London-based curator Peter Lewis
had paid off: this was without doubt the most ambitious contemporary
art event ever staged in the Gulf, possibly the Arab world. Against
the backdrop of war in Iraq, and a sea of event cancellations in the
Gulf, the month-long show brought together work by 117 artists from
25 countries. Incredibly, around 100 artists arrived for the openings
on April 8 in the cavernous new Expo Centre and traditional Art Museum. |
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Sharjah is the most conservative of the UAE’s federation
of seven emirates, dominated by oil-rich Abu Dhabi; in this, and its
enthusiasm for art and culture, the city is a sharp contrast to the
rampant commercialism and shiny high-rises of neighbouring Dubai, the
tourism and business hub. Sharjah’s five previous Biennials have
tended to concentrate on local and traditional artforms, especially
painting. There are few public spaces to show art in the UAE, and artists
often resort to exhibiting in shopping malls and offices. The few commercial
galleries tend to feature tourist-oriented watercolour or oil landscapes.
Within the Middle East, Bahrain and Amman are emerging, Beirut and Tehran
have burgeoning art scenes, and Cairo an occasional biennial, but otherwise,
the opportunities for contemporary artists to show ‘at home’
is limited.
All in all, the determination of Hoor Al Qasimi to reposition
Sharjah alongside new contemporary art capitals such as Havana
and Gwangju Gwangju
is remarkable. ‘My inspiration was actually Documenta’
said the 23-year-old daughter of Sharjah’s ruler, ‘but I
just didn’t expect to the [Sharjah] Biennial to be on the scale
it is, I can’t quite believe what we’ve done here.’ |
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Moving slightly further afield, Wejdan
Salem Almannai's canvasses packed with pins definitely bore out
her desire to make ‘a concentrated sphere of slow pain’.
She is one to watch. Pakistani artist
Zain Mustafa was lucky enough to have his clothes line of 21 kurtas
signed by Sharjah’s emir. The art-loving Dr Sheikh Sultan bin
Mohammed Al Qasimi added ‘Silence the canons’ to the peace
graffiti covering the torn traditional clothes.
Despite the plethora of artistic and political influences, it is possible
to pull out a number of thematic strands. As befits shifts within the
international art world, the Biennial had a strong Asian presence, spearheaded
by the highly intelligent and engaging art of Tatsuo
Majima. |
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London-based Zineb
Sedira's exhibition included a poignant, subtle set of photographs
of her grandmother’s house in Algeria, accompanied by the immediacy
of a three-part video piece. On separate screens, grandmother, mother
and daughter spoke to each other in Arabic, French and English respectively,
unflinchingly never seeming to understand one another. ‘That’s
our lives!’ exclaimed a Dubai-based Jordanian-Palestinian colleague.
Simply, directly, movingly, Sedira encapsulated the émigré
experience. Among the many other artists examining ideas of nationhood
and diaspora, Briton Beth Derbyshire’s installation ‘Babel’
also stood out as warm and thought-provoking. |
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Beirut’s artist-theorists Jalal
Toufic and Tony
Chakar added intellectual weight to proceedings at the exhibition
and symposium, where some fascinating papers grounded the work in the
context of the Arab world. Unfortunately the debates were not widely
publicised and attendance was low.
Against all this up-and-coming talent from the Middle East and its
diaspora, the inclusion of time-honoured artists such as Christo and
Jeanne-Claude – represented by photographs of famous site-specific
projects from the 1980s – seemed almost redundant.
Despite the overwhelmingly enthusiasm from the visiting artists, a
few gripes emerged. For some, installing work turned out to be a traumatic
process, and on opening day, a few pieces remained unfinished. The curators’
theme of ‘new aesthetics, new practices’ was underdeveloped
in parts. But these points are minor. |
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Sharjah Biennial has the capacity to build on its reputation
for grand forward-thinking and become the preeminent showcase for art
in the Middle East, even if the centres of creation remain Cairo, Beirut,
Tehran and – for diaspora artists – London and Paris. If
the Biennial can cement its status as the pacemaker of Middle Eastern
art, it could distinguish itself from other artfests and become a one-stop-shop
for curators interested in the Middle East. Cynical or not, current
political events have created a new thirst for complex visions of the
region; many of the artists highlighted in the Biennial tell an alternative
story to that of bombastic news reports. Perhaps spring 2003 will be
remembered as the launch of a new era in contemporary art in the Gulf.
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