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Sultan bin Fahad

Rami Farook

Basmah Felemban

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Ahmed Mater

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<h1 style="text-align:center;">GALLERY NEWS</h1>

Muhannad Shono The Ground Day Breaks February 18–May 20, 2024 ATHR Gallery Riyadh JAX District H21, Al Diriyah Al Jadidah Riyadh Saudi Arabia ATHR Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of works by Muhannad Shono, one of Saudi Arabia’s most imaginative artistic voices. On view February 18–May 20, 2024, The Ground Day Breaks is Shono’s first solo show since 2019. Curated by Nat Muller, the exhibition presents an entire new body of work comprised of sculptural pieces, works on paper, mixed media installations and a large-scale site-specific intervention created from over 50,000 kilograms of reclaimed black foundry sand. The new gallery space—ATHR’s third—is located in Riyadh’s JAX District.&nbsp;Produced at a seismic juncture in the region and the world at large, The Ground Day Breaks resonates with many topical ecological, social and political concerns. Shono’s primary material, reclaimed black foundry sand, is a discarded industrial byproduct. Carbonised sand is used in foundries to create moulds and give shape to objects; over time it becomes obscured, coated in layer after layer of residue, the indelible trace of past forms. Ironically, although sand is a defining feature of the Arabian Peninsula, it cannot be employed for construction, and has few practical uses aside from foundry sand. Through a carefully researched and experiential process spanning nearly two years, Shono has developed unique techniques to transform and manipulate this inherently anonymous, mutable substrate, revealing a profound intertwining between material and conceptual practice.&nbsp;The Ground Day Breaks expands on themes central to the artist’s oeuvre: renewal and the tension between the architectural logic of the built environment and that of the natural landscape. The grains of sand in the exhibition, whether shaped into sculptures, broken on paper, or transferred to carbon, exist in a liminal space between being and not being, between demise and rebirth, and between past existence and future speculation.&nbsp;Shono’s work is both physically meticulous and expansive; the titular site-specific installation completely envelopes the space around it with approximately 2,000 individual hand-crafted sculptures. When viewed as a whole, the exhibition captures a fragile and unsettling moment that is fraught with a sense of decay or destruction yet filled with promise: the paradoxical energy of a transformation-in-waiting. For all their ruination, the works exude a poetic beauty. In the face of the world’s ongoing despair and overlapping crises, we are left with hope; even in a parched garden seeds can germinate and ideas can grow.&nbsp;The exhibition inaugurates ATHR Gallery’s Riyadh branch, located in the JAX District, an industrial cultural site for artists and creative industries in Al Diriyah Al Jadidah.&nbsp;Muhannad Shono’s forthcoming monograph Muhannad Shono. Works [2014–2024], edited by Nat Muller, will be published by Kehrer Verlag and launch in mid-2024. The monograph, designed by award-winning graphic designer Edwin van Gelder (Mainstudio), addresses the central drivers of Shono’s practice: myths, lines and regeneration – and features contributions by leading writers and thinkers: Hala Auji, Nat Muller, Todd Reisz and Alison Sperling.&nbsp;Muhannad Shono (b. Riyadh, 1977) represented Saudi Arabia at the 59th Venice Biennale with The Teaching Tree (2022) and has just been appointed Contemporary Art Curator for the 2nd edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale, Jeddah (2025). He has participated in many global biennials including the Sea Art Festival, Busan (2023); Islamic Arts Biennale, Jeddah (2023); Noor Riyadh Festival, Riyadh (2022 and 2023); Lyon Biennale, (2022); Diriyah Biennale, Riyadh, (2021); and Desert X, AlUla (2020). He has exhibited in group and solo shows across the region and internationally, including at Louvre Abu Dhabi (2023); Parcours, Art Basel (2022); the British Museum, London (2021 and 2018); GAM Sculpture Garden, Turin (2019); MACBA, Barcelona (2018); Ithra, Dammam (2019); 21.39 Jeddah Arts, Jeddah (2020 and 2017); and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2017). His work is in collection at the British Museum, London; the Art Jameel Foundation, Dubai; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Ithra Art Centre, Dammam; and Al-Mansouria Foundation, Riyadh. Shono was awarded the 2021-2022 National Cultural Award in Visual Arts, Saudi Arabia.&nbsp;For information and images, contact: Katrina Weber Ashour, Katrina@KRWAconsulting.com / +966-53-140-3070&nbsp;VIP exhibition opening: February 18, 7–11pm Open hours: February 19, 12–10pm Public grand opening: February 20, 7–11pm Regular hours: Sunday–Thursday: 4–11pm / Friday: Closed / Saturday: 12–8pm

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Muhannad Shono solo exhibition inaugurates ATHR Gallery Riyadh

ATHR is opening the opportunity for select worldwide art industry professionals to take residence in their apartment located right opposite of the JAX district in Diriyah, Riyadh. The ETHR program is an extension of ATHR’s mission to foster the art community and to support artists and the art scene in Saudi Arabia, the aim of the program is to integrate artists, curators, musicians, art academics, and other members who make up the art scene into the organic community that has grown into JAX where they can learn, teach inspire, and be inspired by all that the cultural district of Diriyah has to offer. Occupants of the apartments can use this apartment as a headquarters to research an upcoming project or produce an ongoing one. The ETHR programs specifically targets emerging art professionals and established international ones who would otherwise not have access to the resources of JAX.While ETHR is not an art residency, selected applicants will receive a spacious, furnished 2-bedroom apartment free of charge, located in Diriyah right opposite of the JAX district in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The convenient location is accessible through the main artery of the historic Diriyah area, surrounded by popular cafes and essential amenities.The name “ETHR” is a stylized version of the Arabic word “Ethar” which means inspiration, excitation of emotions, and to influence or leave an impression. When anglicized, it communicates the concept of the “Ether,” which is an ancient philosophical and scientific stand-in for quintessence. The Ether was believed to be the material occupying the vacuum of space between planets and stars.Applications for ETHR are open now and are accepted until the 7th of July, 2023. The application is open to all nationalities and all ages over 18 for art professionals with different experience levels across the spectrum. <a href="https://forms.gle/mQyw6vk45CdRZZ979">Apply here.</a> &nbsp;

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ETHR: Community Apartments for Art Professionals by ATHR Gallery

Matter&nbsp;as&nbsp;Actor&nbsp;Allora &amp; Calzadilla | Dana Awartani | Revital Cohen &amp; Tuur Van Balen | D Harding | Irmel Kamp Syowia&nbsp;Kyambi&nbsp;|&nbsp;Richard&nbsp;Long |Otobong&nbsp;Nkanga |&nbsp;Yelena&nbsp;Popova&nbsp;|&nbsp;Lucy&nbsp;Raven&nbsp;|&nbsp;Zhan&nbsp;Wang |&nbsp;Feifei&nbsp;Zhou&nbsp;3&nbsp;May –&nbsp;24&nbsp;June&nbsp;202327&nbsp;Bell&nbsp;Street &amp;&nbsp;67&nbsp;Lisson Street,&nbsp;LondonOpening and&nbsp;performance&nbsp;by&nbsp;Otobong&nbsp;Nkanga: 2&nbsp;May,&nbsp;6&nbsp;–&nbsp;8pm&nbsp;“Artists, across eras and geographies have intuitively or consciously given form to material inter-relationships&nbsp;in&nbsp;a&nbsp;unique way.&nbsp;The artwork&nbsp;is nevera&nbsp;given&nbsp;and&nbsp;never&nbsp;an&nbsp;end&nbsp;point, but an emergence, a&nbsp;moment of&nbsp;becoming,&nbsp;a&nbsp;contingent&nbsp;confluence&nbsp;of the multiple&nbsp;histories of&nbsp;matter.”&nbsp;– Greg Hilty, Lisson Gallery Partner and curator of ‘Matter as Actor’&nbsp;This group exhibition brings together works by artists who present mutable forms of matter – whether embodied in clay, rock, pigment, plastic, metal or organic substances – as active agents in the complex entanglements of humans and&nbsp;the&nbsp;more-than-human&nbsp;world.Moving beyond&nbsp;the idea of&nbsp;natureas raw material&nbsp;abundantly&nbsp;available for&nbsp;humans&nbsp;to&nbsp;use,&nbsp;this&nbsp;exhibition&nbsp;acknowledges&nbsp;the&nbsp;distinctproperties, agencies&nbsp;and&nbsp;historiesof&nbsp;materials,&nbsp;taking heed of their dynamic role in sustaining dense, interwoven relations.&nbsp;These artists come from many parts of the world and critically engage with the materials associated with their respective cultural inheritances. Their work speaks to the challenges as well as the insights of engaging with the material&nbsp;world&nbsp;across,&nbsp;as&nbsp;well as&nbsp;within, distinct&nbsp;cultural frameworks. In&nbsp;givingshape&nbsp;to&nbsp;the&nbsp;conceptual&nbsp;insightsof multiple situated knowledge systems, the artists and artworks in the exhibition, spanning both London galleries but each given their individual space, attest to the pluralistic grounds of contemporary existence.&nbsp;Allora&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;Calzadilla&nbsp;use electromagnetism&nbsp;as&nbsp;subjectand&nbsp;medium.&nbsp;By dropping&nbsp;iron&nbsp;filings&nbsp;on&nbsp;a&nbsp;canvasand placing it above an array of copper cables connected to an electrical breaker, the current forces the particles into an arrangement of patterns governed, not only by the electromagnetic field, but also by the politics related to the generation, ownership, and distribution of electricity that enters their studio in San Juan, Puerto Rico.&nbsp;Dana Awartani&nbsp;saturates naturally dyed silk fabrics, handmade in Kerala, with a multitude of natural herbs and spices that have specific medicinal functions in South Asian and Arab cultures.&nbsp;She also mends rips and tears in the&nbsp;textiles&nbsp;througha process&nbsp;of darning, each hole&nbsp;corresponding to&nbsp;violencedone&nbsp;to&nbsp;buildingsin&nbsp;Arab&nbsp;nations by acts of Islamic fundamentalist violence, suggesting possibilities of collective healing and repair.&nbsp;Revital Cohen &amp; Tuur Van Balen&nbsp;have reversed the manufacture of hard drives to create their installation, B/NdAlTaAu&nbsp;(2015), mining these devices by hand for their&nbsp;natural, precious metals (as listed in the title: neodymium,&nbsp;aluminium, gold&nbsp;and&nbsp;tantalum), in&nbsp;order&nbsp;to&nbsp;createa new, ‘artificial’&nbsp;mineral. Labour&nbsp;also&nbsp;starts&nbsp;in reverse, dissolving the virtual into the fake from the other end of the consumption chain.&nbsp;D Harding’s pigment paintings and site-specific interventions include white ochre pigment transported from Aboriginal lands in Central Queensland and store-bought yellow pigments. The artist uses these to frost the gallery windows up to head height, and flood the skylights with a yellowish hue. Elsewhere, the reality of these materials&nbsp;is&nbsp;represented in&nbsp;a&nbsp;red&nbsp;diptych,one&nbsp;imbued&nbsp;with&nbsp;earth from&nbsp;the&nbsp;artist’s&nbsp;grandmother’s&nbsp;lands&nbsp;(Ghungalu) and the other from their grandfather’s country (Bidjara).&nbsp;Irmel&nbsp;Kamp’s&nbsp;large grouping&nbsp;of&nbsp;photographs, Zink&nbsp;(1978-82)&nbsp;began&nbsp;as&nbsp;a meansof&nbsp;documenting&nbsp;a&nbsp;local&nbsp;building phenomenon in villages between Aachen and Liège and shows facades of rural architecture clad with sheets of<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div>zinc, mined at Kelmis on the German-Belgian border. Her serial and objective approach allows for cultural- historical,&nbsp;as&nbsp;well&nbsp;as&nbsp;sociological readings&nbsp;of&nbsp;the&nbsp;importance&nbsp;of zinc, an&nbsp;element&nbsp;also present&nbsp;in&nbsp;the&nbsp;humanbody.&nbsp;Syowia Kyambi&nbsp;shows a sisal costume from a performance work, Fracture (i)&nbsp;(2011–16), woven using a traditional&nbsp;Kenyan&nbsp;method,conventionally&nbsp;employed&nbsp;for&nbsp;making kiondos(local&nbsp;handwoven&nbsp;bags).The&nbsp;outfit juxtaposes the transgenerational knowledges sedimented in this material with the history of colonial sisal plantations, using&nbsp;the specificity&nbsp;of her gendered&nbsp;body&nbsp;to transmute their&nbsp;reverberations into the present day.&nbsp;Richard Long&nbsp;is creating a new temporary mural for the courtyard, harking back to earlier large-scale examples, such as Red Earth Circle, made for the ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 1989. The result&nbsp;is&nbsp;a&nbsp;dynamic&nbsp;composition&nbsp;that&nbsp;reveals&nbsp;the&nbsp;interaction of multiple,&nbsp;conflicting natural&nbsp;and&nbsp;man-made forces.&nbsp;Otobong Nkanga’s presentation&nbsp;centres around Solid&nbsp;Maneuvers&nbsp;(2015), a manifestation of&nbsp;her&nbsp;encounters with a scarred&nbsp;Namibian&nbsp;landscape.&nbsp;Employing&nbsp;vermiculite, salt,&nbsp;heavy&nbsp;mineral&nbsp;sands&nbsp;and&nbsp;shredded&nbsp;copper,the&nbsp;sculpture serves as a poignant reminder of the ecological implications of capitalist accumulation. Using her body to&nbsp;consider how the mining of these landscapes is informed by physical gestures, Nkanga will perform with the installation on the opening night.&nbsp;Yelena Popova&nbsp;focuses on the prismatic social, political and physical effects of energy, place, elements and monuments. Her visits to decommissioned nuclear sites around the UK inform two tapestry designs for mausoleums&nbsp;around&nbsp;the&nbsp;graphite&nbsp;cores&nbsp;of&nbsp;now&nbsp;defunct&nbsp;Magnox reactors,&nbsp;which&nbsp;cannot&nbsp;be&nbsp;moved for&nbsp;almost a century after their use, due to fear of radioactive contamination.&nbsp;LucyRaven&nbsp;presents&nbsp;a&nbsp;series&nbsp;of&nbsp;silver-gelatin&nbsp;shadowgrams,&nbsp;recording&nbsp;the&nbsp;elemental&nbsp;pressures&nbsp;of&nbsp;air&nbsp;andraw&nbsp;materials&nbsp;from&nbsp;a&nbsp;number of&nbsp;explosive events.&nbsp;Made&nbsp;within a&nbsp;custom-built, black&nbsp;box ona&nbsp;ballistics&nbsp;range&nbsp;in New Mexico, a location typically employed as a test site for&nbsp;industrial mining and by the US Departments of Defense and Energy, the area (named Socorro, which gives its name to the work) is also close to the very first sites of nuclear weapon testing.&nbsp;Zhan Wang’s presentation includes a new body of ink paintings, as well as sculptures from his much-revered series of stainless-steel artificial replicas of the ‘scholar’s rocks’ traditionally found in Chinese gardens. The mirrored&nbsp;surfacesof&nbsp;these previously&nbsp;organic objects&nbsp;are&nbsp;arranged&nbsp;on&nbsp;a&nbsp;tessellating&nbsp;grid&nbsp;of&nbsp;nine&nbsp;plinths&nbsp;that rotate and morph on a weekly basis, in formations that represent light, air, earth/ocean/plant, star, fish/insect, human/animal, and finally, rest. The ink works can similarly be moved around their matrices on the walls.&nbsp;Feifei Zhou&nbsp;uses green mussels&nbsp;to elucidate the toxic pathways and entangled social and environmental injustices of&nbsp;Jakarta’s&nbsp;waterscape.&nbsp;Collaborating&nbsp;with&nbsp;anthropologist&nbsp;KirstenKeller,&nbsp;her&nbsp;drawn&nbsp;map, FlowingToxins&nbsp;(2020), depicts field research of the spread of noxious material waste and immaterial pollutants throughout and beyond&nbsp;the city of Jakarta and the social-ecological impacts urban infrastructures&nbsp;create on more-than-human livelihoods.&nbsp;&nbsp;About&nbsp;Lisson&nbsp;Gallery&nbsp;Lisson Gallery is one of the most influential and longest-running international contemporary art galleries in the world. Today the gallery supports and promotes the work of more than 60 international artists across two spaces in London, two in New York, one in Shanghai and Beijing, as well as a gallery in Los Angeles, opened on 15 April.&nbsp;Established&nbsp;in&nbsp;1967&nbsp;by&nbsp;Nicholas&nbsp;Logsdail,Lisson&nbsp;Gallery&nbsp;pioneeredthe&nbsp;early&nbsp;careersof&nbsp;important&nbsp;Minimal and Conceptual artists, such as Art &amp; Language, Daniel Buren, John Latham, Sol LeWitt and Richard Long among others. In its second decade the gallery introduced significant British sculptors including Tony Cragg, Richard Deacon, Anish Kapoor, Shirazeh Houshiary and Julian Opie. Since 2000, the gallery represents many more international artists&nbsp;such as&nbsp;Marina Abramović, Ai Weiwei, John Akomfrah, Susan Hiller&nbsp;and Sean Scully. It is&nbsp;also responsible for&nbsp;raising the profile&nbsp;of&nbsp;a younger generation&nbsp;of&nbsp;artistsled&nbsp;by Cory&nbsp;Arcangel,&nbsp;Ryan&nbsp;Gander, Van Hanos, Hugh Hayden, Haroon Mirza, Laure Prouvost, Pedro Reyes, Wael&nbsp;Shawky and&nbsp;Cheyney Thompson.&nbsp;For press&nbsp;enquiries,&nbsp;please contact&nbsp;Victoria&nbsp;Mitchell,&nbsp;Head ofCommunications+44 (0)207&nbsp;724&nbsp;2739<a href="mailto:victoria@lissongallery.com">victoria@lissongallery.com</a>

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Matter as Actor : Dana Awartani in Lisson Gallery

ATHR Gallery is delighted to showcase a major solo presentation by Rami Farook, during our participation at the 2023 edition of Art Dubai from the 1st – 5th of March. Rami Farook began his self-taught practice in 2007, as an art &amp; design curator. As such, his booth “16 years later: the show goes on - the end is near” is an ode to his roots, a homecoming retrospective for Farook, and a reflection on his career in the arts. The works displayed are indicative of the progression of his practice throughout the years, and relationship with his local art fair. The pieces included are a testament to Rami’s versatility, to work across various mediums and subjects; the booth features large &amp; tiny mixed media works such as: “Enlightened” (2020) and “resting” 2020. The booth itself acts as an exploration of the potential of what an art fair booth can be. Farook rethinks the materials and utility that compromise a booth as new ways of seeing; incorporating unconventional materials and furnishings to alter its ambiance. Rami acts as both curator and artist, repurposing the space into its own self-contained gallery, storage, studio and gathering space. Throughout Farook’s career, an overarching theme of emotional &amp; impulsiveness, self &amp; social, portraits &amp; landscapes, have been the constant thread. Within each, a deeper dissection can be seen, in particular that of relationships, release, freedom and journaling. Thus, Farook’s Art Dubai booth can be seen as a journey throughout his career, depicted through his body of works. The works on display are both for sale and complimentary, to aid the narrative of this participation. ATHR Gallery is proud to announce their representation of Rami Farook as he has had a longstanding relationship with the gallery as a frequent collaborator. Farook and ATHR founders Mohammed Hafiz and Hamza Serafi crossed paths in Art Dubai since 2009, bonding over the emerging contemporary scene in Saudi Arabia at the time. Farook went on to curate Edge of Arabia Berlin, a pivotal exhibition that the ATHR founders were heavily involved in which brought them even closer. The works will be on display at Booth B10.

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ATHR Gallery Features Solo Presentation at Art Dubai

ATHR Gallery is starting the new year with three novel solo shows, the launch of a new exhibition space, and substantial participation in the 2023 Diriyah Islamic Arts Biennale.&nbsp;On the evening of the 23rd, ATHR is opening 3 solo shows: “And Make Me Light” by Farah Behbehani, “Fantasia A World Between Reality and Imagination” by Asma Bahmim, and “Keep Smiling” by Daniah Al Saleh. Behbehani’s exhibit, curated by Saudi curator Jumana Ghouth, is a journey in faith through modern lenses, exploring various manifestations of light and how it affects objects to create a spiritual, illuminative narrative. Bahmim’s exhibit, curated by Yasmeen Tukan, carries the ancient tradition of storytelling via animal characters, and delves into that fantastic world between states of consciousness to tell contemporary tales that deliver us lessons in morality, philosophy, and society. Bahmim uses techniques found in book-making and illustration to tell her stories, emulating traditional art practices with a contemporary rendition. Al Saleh’s exhibit, curated by Jerome Neuters, is a study of the linguistic phenomenon emojis have fostered in how we communicate and express ourselves, using both illustration and AI computing to showcase that transformation.&nbsp;The opening of the exhibits is followed by a rooftop dinner that features a wide selection of vendors local to the Jeddah food scene, cafes, and live music by Wall of Sound.&nbsp;In an effort to respond to the growing need for a space for experimental contemporary art practices, ATHR Gallery is proud to present AKTHR on January 25 2023. An exhibition space which is spread across two floors, located in Hayy Jameel, Jeddah, fostering artists working with new and exciting mediums. AKTHR’s focus will be on commissioning, curating, and exhibiting experimental works with an emphasis on employing new technologies and providing multi-sensorial experiences for audiences of all ages. The exhibition features two installations by the postdigital art group Random International, led by founders Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass. The group has a studio in London and comprises a global team of complimentary talent. The exhibition, which is on view from January 2023 to March 2023, features the newly commissioned work Banners. The second work featured is Future Self (2012), which presents viewers with their full-length body image, three-dimensionally distributed as tiny points of light.&nbsp;A selection of artists from ATHR’s roster are featured in the 2023 Diriyah Islamic Arts Biennale. The Biennale, titled “Awwal Bait” (First house), is hosted in the iconic Hajj Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, debuting to the public on the 23rd of January. ATHR artists participating are: Farah Behbehani, Sultan bin Fahad, Basmah Felemban, Ahmed Mater, Muhannad Shono, and Ayman Yosri Daydban.

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ATHR Gallery Debuts 3 Solo Shows, Launch of AKTHR Space, and in Islamic Arts Biennale 2023

In an essay, British writer Tim Mackintosh-Smith, said: “The Kaaba is magnet and centrifuge: going away, going back home, is the last rite of pilgrimage.”Mater said: “I think it’s very important after the coronavirus pandemic that things come back to life. I spent more than four to five years attending Hajj as a photographer and researcher, and really, it’s one of the most beautiful scenes when you hear all of the people with one sound. And you feel it. It really cannot be described by words.”

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‘Magnetic attraction’ of Makkah inspires work of Saudi visual artist Ahmed Mater

Major artists have signed up to exhibit their artwork in Saudi Arabia’s AlUla following the launch of the Arts Valley Project.The Royal Commission of AlUla announced the launch of the 25-square-mile project on Tuesday, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.Major artists including James Turrell and Michael Heizer will be among the artists who will permanently install their pieces in the northwestern desert area over the next couple of years, the Wall Street Journal reported late Monday.Turrell told WSJ in an interview that the Kingdom’s “diplomatic or nationalistic tendencies” could be propelling the timing and backing of Wadi al-Fann, which translates to the Valley of the Arts in English.“I have shown in Moscow, Shanghai, Beijing – places where I doubt I could show today. It is possible for art to bridge large cultural gaps,” he added.Saudi officials have also enlisted Iwona Blazwick, former director of London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery, to curate the project and chair the RCU’s panel of art experts.In addition to Turrell and Michael Heizer, conceptual artist Agnes Denes and Saudi artists Manal al-Dowayan and Ahmed Mater will install massive pieces at the arts valley. More artists will eventually be added to the valley’s programming, Blazwick said.“I don’t think there’s anywhere else in the world featuring all these titans,” she said. “It’s going to be remarkable to see them in these surroundings.”&nbsp;About the artistsTurrell is an American artist best known for his work that explored the relationship between light and space. A pioneer of the 1960s Light and Space movement, Turrell is renowned for creating colorful rooms with ceilings that contain cut-outs of geometrical shapes, allowing visitors to peer up into the open sky.For the arts valley project, Turrell plans to create several pieces, including a tunnel and a quartet of so-called “Skyspaces,” WSJ reported.American land art pioneer Michael Heizer specializes in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. He is best known for his work in the Nevada desert entitled ‘City.’ It took him almost 50 years to complete the $25 million project which opened to the public in 2020. For the valley project, Heizer plans to carve a series of geometric indentations high in the sandstone rock facades of AlUla into shapes that alter as people pass by.Hungarian-born New York-based artist Agnes Denes, best known for planting a two-acre wheatfield in lower Manhattan in the 1980s, the conceptual artist plans to carve her own series of pyramid shapes into rocks surrounding the valley.Ahmed Mater is one of Saudi Arabia’s most influential contemporary artists. The physician turned artist from Riyadh plans to create ‘Ashab al-Lal,’ a complex piece with subterranean elements and will include mirrors to create optical illusions on the desert valley floor.Saudi contemporary artist Manal al-Dowayan is best known for her art installation ‘Suspended Together’ from the Home Ground Exhibition in the UAE in 2011 and her recent temporary installation ‘Now You See Me, Now You Don’t’ at AlUla which comprised of puddle-like pieces that symbolized a “humble puddle” in the Saudi desert.Al-Dowayan’s piece for the valley, ‘Oasis of Stories’ will pay homage to the mud-brick houses scattered all over AlUla’s Old Town.&nbsp;AlUla growing in popularityExecutive director of arts and creative industries at the RCU Nora al-Dabal said that the arts valley was part of a years-long campaign to attract more cultural tourists.AlUla has been growing in popularity over the years. In a recent interview with Al Arabiya English, the RCU’s Director of Destination Marketing, Melanie De Souza, said that the ancient city welcomed 146,000 visitors in 2021 alone, with more visitors expected in 2022 as airline and hotel capacity continue to grow.

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Saudi Arabia: Major artists to exhibit art installations at AlUla’s Arts Valley

The work also begins conceptually from the idea of the line, or the black graphic mark, which Shono interprets both as a symbol of artistic creativity and a personal reference to his past. He started his art career at the back of the classroom, drawing black-ink comics in his notebooks. The line is now fundamental to his practice, appearing across his installations. Here, he says, it creates a narrative: from being a symbol of restriction, as in his youth when his creativity was discouraged, to today, where art is becoming an agent of change.“The work is an embodiment of the living imagination,” he says. “It's an act of creative resistance. Who's in control of our narratives or stories? Is the black line being used to redact and restrict the word and the image? Or are we using it to feed the imagination?”For Shono, one of the most active members of the growing Saudi art scene, it also responds to the changes that the country is undergoing. Though Shono is not nostalgic about the past, he believes there is a connection between the social restrictions experienced by his generation and the immense creativity among that age group in the country today.“Restrictions and limitations — they actually create more fertile grounds and stronger forms of expression,” says the Riyadh artist. "If you live in a society that's equitable and fair, that's nice. But what happens to art and expression? It diminishes because there's nothing to push against."This work, and me being here, is a statement. It's a timeline, a journey, not only my story, but a collective, irrepressible kind of expression that's happening now in Saudi being reborn.”In Shono's case, this is not only to do with the kingdom's support of the arts but also of Shono himself — his parents were immigrants to the country, and now he finds himself representing it on the world stage.<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">Saudi Arabia in the Biennale</h2>The Teaching Tree's orientation towards the future positions the pavilion at odds with the bulk of the biennial, particularly Cecilia Alemani’s curated exhibition The Milk of Dreams. Installed elsewhere in the Arsenale and in the Giardini’s International Pavilion, this exhibition is by turns recuperative and market-oriented, with a number of talented, older artists from so-called marginal places whose work has previously been ignored.Other rooms seem more influenced by market trends in New York, where the Italian curator is based. In the national pavilions, too, such as the strong presentations of Estonia and France, the past is something to be mined and reframed. Archival works and deconstructions dominate alongside Alemani’s reclamation of artists, mostly female or from non-Nato countries.The increased representation is to be celebrated, and the number of women and black artists at the biennial have been the subject of numerous headlines. But Shono’s trajectory suggests an alternative path: he is still working largely outside of the market, with most of his commissions granted by the growing, Saudi Arabia's state-backed infrastructure.The activity in Saudi Arabia, and the financial resources being given to the arts there, keeps the focus on what’s coming rather than a sifting of what’s come before. Shono was given access to a warehouse in the expansive new JAX cultural district, in the <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/art/2021/12/12/the-first-diriyah-biennale-marks-saudi-arabia-as-significant-player-in-contemporary-art/">Diriyah area</a>, to make his mammoth work.The presentation of the National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia, for the third time in the art biennial, also forms part of this push to bring the country on to the world stage, and Shono is upfront about the way that Saudi Arabia is internationally received. Here, The Teaching Tree operates as a “misunderstood monster,” he says, that reflects how “we are often in Saudi lumped up as stereotype or an editorial headline”."But once you enter into the [proverbial] forest, and start to really appreciate the leaves and the trees, you realise that there's more connected lines between us and others," he says. "That's where understanding can happen. Because each line here is individual."The symbolic installation underlines how this Saudi orientation towards the future affects the language of the work itself, privileging abstractions over archives and paintings that might represent the affairs of the past.As Shono continues his practice, balancing its origins in his comic narratives against single installations, his artworks seem to both contract into one, single idea (one material, repeated, scaled up) as well as expanding into multiple sensorial vectors, incorporating smells and machinery, or elsewhere, smoke and fire, as if they want to break free.The Teaching Tree is no exception. Viscerally charged, it is an enigmatic beast, drawing its power not so much from the stories it tells, but from its effect on the viewer in the present.The Teaching Tree is on view at the National Pavilion of Saudi Arabia in the Arsenale, in Venice, until November 27, 2022.

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Saudi Arabia's Muhannad Shono introduces his 'monster' at the Venice Biennale

Shono is a Riyadh-based artist whose multidisciplinary style includes ink on paper, large-scale sculptural work, robotic, and technological installations. He expressed how honored he was to take part in the prestigious exhibition.“I am honored to represent Saudi Arabia at La Biennale di Venezia, not only as myself but carrying with me the irrepressible creative spirit of Saudi Arabia and to be working with the entire team of the National Pavilion.”

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Local artists to reflect Saudi Arabia’s evolving creative scene at Venice Biennale

Trained in architecture, Shono has garnered attention in recent years for his large-scale installations that tackle philosophical subjects with references to Saudi Arabia’s political history and culture. At the open studios of the AlUla Art Residency program in 2022, for instance, his installation in a palm grove On This Sacred Day (2022) comprises a black structure resembling a catafalque in which palm materials were burned, referencing agricultural practices and suggesting a process of mourning for the natural environment. Several of his recently large-scale projects have incorporated long strands of PVC pipe including Streams, dreams and flow states (2019), which the artist described as “a sculptural freehand sketch of a post-oil future” and was installed in the Khuzam Palace in Jeddah, where Saudi Arabia and the United States signed the first oil exploration agreement in 1933.

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Saudi Arabia Announces Venice Biennale Pavilion

This year’s program was curated by Venetia Porter under the title “Amakin.”&nbsp;It was inspired by a lyric from the popular Saudi singer Mohamed Abdo: “Al-amakin kullaha mushtaqah lak” or “all the places long for you.”Porter asked contributing artists to take visitors into their “makan, a place you love … somewhere real or in your imagination.”

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A place called home: Artists reveal their favorite places at 21,39 Jeddah Arts

The striking location in North-West Saudi Arabia covers 22,561km² and plays host to a lush oasis valley, towering sandstone mountains, and ancient cultural heritage sites dating back thousands of years, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra. This 52-hectare ancient city was once the principal southern city to the Nabataean Kingdom and served as an outpost to the Roman Empire. Now, the city serves as a wonder and inspiration to historians, artists, and the curious.&nbsp;The exploration of the exhibition in the middle of the desert adds to the experience. Visitors can wander freely through the juxtaposition of art and nature, oftentimes having to look closely to find where nature ends and art begins, such as artist Dana Awartani’s sculpture.&nbsp;

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Desert X AlUla; The International Art Exhibition Is Back And Exploring Ideas Of Mirage And Oasis

One major change to the selection for galleries, first instituted for Art Basel’s Miami Beach fair last December, is that it relaxed “the minimum number of exhibitions a gallery must hold per year, the need to have a permanent exhibition space, and the number of years the gallery must have been in operation,” according to a press release. The move was in part meant to diversify the exhibitor list.Another change this year comes in the fair’s Unlimited section, which focuses on large-scale artworks. That section opens the day before the main fair as a preview. For this edition, the section, organized by Giovanni Carmine, the director of the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen in Switzerland, will now also include a dedicated “Unlimited Night” on Thursday, June 16. The fair will also continue to host an online viewing room in tandem with the physical fair.

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Art Basel Names 289 Exhibitors for Marquee Swiss Fair This June

Organized by the Saudi Art Council and supported by the Ministry of Culture’s Museums Commission, the exhibition will take place annually to promote the medium of photography in the country. Curated by editor and photographic consultant, Zelda Cheatle, the presentation includes works by leading picture takers from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Arab world along with those of established Saudi artists such as Manal Al-Dowayan, Mohammed Al-Faraj, Marwah Al-Mugait, Moath Alofi, and Fahad bin Naif.

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New Saudi arts exhibition project opens to promote photography in Kingdom

Other artworks selected include a 10-meter high selection from Adel Al Quraishi’s Vast Land Vast Faces with a striking image of a grave-digger. And from pervious Cortona on the Move editions in Italy, topics deal with future, aging and nostalgia, as in Alejandro Chaskielberg’s Ostuchi Future Memories, and Phillip Toledano’s Maybe. The weekend launch events included an in conversation with three of the artists and a series of workshops for the public. Public guided tours of the exhibition will be available on Fridays from Feb. 25 to March 25 at 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. and for families on Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Both available in English and Arabic.

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‘AlUla a place with narrative at its heart with every landscape telling a story — of continuity’

Desert X AlUla has revealed the artist list for its second edition, set to open in Saudi Arabia this February. Site-specific works by international and local artists will again be scattered across the ancient desert landscape—a sprawl of sandstone mountains and valleys—in the northwest of the kingdom.The biennial, which also holds an edition in California’s Coachella Valley, held its first exhibition there in 2020. Desert X’s AlUla exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Royal Commission for AlUla, which is led by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.This iteration will be situated in a new complex and is organized by the founding Desert X director Neville Wakefield, co-artistic director Raneem Farsi, and curatorial advisor Reem Fadda. Newly commissioned works by 15 artists will explore the theme of Sarab, meaning “mirage” in Arabic. Drawing on the landscape’s history, the works will examine illusions and myths, as well as the dichotomy between the natural and the manmade.“The desert concepts of mirage and oasis have long been tied to ideas of survival, perseverance, desire and wealth,” Fadda said in a statement. “The oasis pertains to ideas of finding prosperity or heaven, while the mirage is a universal symbol of the mysteries of imagination and reality. Under the theme of ‘Sarab’, the artists presented in the exhibition—all of whom have spent time in the AlUla region—have developed ambitious and strikingly innovative, site-specific responses, all of which address profound issues, that emerge from the local context but also resonate with audiences the world-over.”The commissions include interactive sculptures by Zeinab AlHashemi which arrange discarded camel hides into an abstract architectural structures that together resemble an undulating mountain range; Abdullah AlOthman’s stainless steel plinths that interact with the light, radiating and obscuring the space like far-off mirage; Monika Sosnowska’s sculptural exploration of memory using heritage rails from the Hejaz railway, which once ran from Damascus to Medina; a recreation of an orchard of olive trees, which represents those displaced from their indigenous land, by Khalil Rabah; and Ayman Zedani’s soundscape installation in a rocky cavern comprising sculptural wires and an audio projection of human voices, music, and footsteps.“Having worked for many years on the development and representation of the Saudi art scene, I can see that today Saudi artists are getting more attention and opportunities than ever before, both locally and internationally,” Farsi said in a statement. “Desert X AlUla plays a very important part in a vast wave of art and culture initiatives that is shaping the ecosystem for creativity in Saudi Arabia.”The AlUla project is part of a vast cultural masterplan for the region that includes art events such as the Diriyah Biennale, which is currently staging its first edition. The investment aims to create a more progressive image of the country in line with the government’s “Vision 2030” plan. AlUla includes the kingdom’s first UNESCO World Heritage site. Government officials estimate that, by 2035, the region will welcome 2 million visitors annually, around 40 percent will be international tourists.The artist list for the second edition of Desert X AlUla follows below.The exhibiting artists are:Shadia Alem (b. Saudi Arabia, based in Paris) Dana Awartani (b. 1987, Saudi Arabia, based in Jeddah) Serge Attukwei Clottey (b. 1985, Ghana, based in Accra) Claudia Comte (b. 1983, Switzerland, based in Basel) Shezad Dawood (b. 1974, United Kingdom, based in London) Jim Denevan (b. 1961, United States, based in Santa Cruz) Stephanie Deumer (b. 1989, Canada, based in Los Angeles) Sultan Bin Fahad (b. 1971, Saudi Arabia, based in Los Angeles) Zeinab AlHashemi (b. 1985, United Arab Emirates, based in Dubai) Alicja Kwade (b. 1979, Poland, based in Berlin) Shaikha AlMazrou (b. 1988, United Arab Emirates, based in Dubai) Abdullah AlOthman, b. 1985, Saudi Arabia, based in Riyadh. Khalil Rabah (1961, Palestine, based in Ramallah) Monika Sosnowska (b. 1972, Poland, based in Warsaw) Ayman Zedani (b. 1984, Saudi Arabia, based in Riyadh)

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Desert X AlUla Reveals Artist List for Second Edition

In the ancient desert lands of AlUla, now one of Saudi Arabia’s top tourist attractions, six artists have spent the last three months creating works as part of the area’s first art residency program.Under the theme “The Oasis Reborn,” the cohort hailing from the Kingdom, Syria, the UAE, France, and Algeria, has, since the start of November, been immersed in AlUla’s ancient sites, natural oasis, and varied landscapes of lush valleys, sandstone mountains, red-rock cliffs, canyons, and velvety sand dunes.Their mission has been to create art that marries the rich cultural heritage of the area with its bountiful natural environment.They have been working in collaboration with technical, scientific, and archaeological experts developing the natural oasis into a 50-square-kilometer hospitality, heritage, and cultural venture. The artists also linked up with local community artisans and cultural practitioners to learn about AlUla’s rich heritage.The residency initiative was the brainchild of officials from the Royal Commission for AlUla, and the French Agency for AlUla Development, and was operated by Manifesto, a French creative agency set up to help companies with artistic projects.Laure Confavreux-Colliex, executive director at Manifesto, told Arab News: “The goal of this residency program was to work with the six artists chosen from different backgrounds and practices to be involved through art in the development and regeneration of AlUla.<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/laura_sellies_peuple_de_feuilles_qui_bougent_populated_by_moving_leaves_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_4_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_948d3abc75.jpg" alt="laura_sellies_peuple_de_feuilles_qui_bougent_populated_by_moving_leaves_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_4_-_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_laura_sellies_peuple_de_feuilles_qui_bougent_populated_by_moving_leaves_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_4_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_948d3abc75.jpg 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_laura_sellies_peuple_de_feuilles_qui_bougent_populated_by_moving_leaves_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_4_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_948d3abc75.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_laura_sellies_peuple_de_feuilles_qui_bougent_populated_by_moving_leaves_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_4_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_948d3abc75.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_laura_sellies_peuple_de_feuilles_qui_bougent_populated_by_moving_leaves_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_4_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_948d3abc75.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Laura Sellies, Peuplé de feuilles qui bougent (“Populated by Moving Leaves”), 2022, Mabiti AlUla, The Oasis Reborn Art residency 4. (Supplied)“The theme dedicated to ‘The Oasis Reborn’ means we are digging into those issues of what is in the oasis, what has been in the oasis, and how to bring to light the history and heritage of the oasis so that AlUla can be regenerated.“Our goal at Manifesto was to create those links between the artists and the local AlUla community.”The first edition took place in Mabiti AlUla, a palm grove and guest house in the heart of AlUla’s oasis. The next edition will be held at Madrasat AdDeera, an arts and design center set to become a key space in the future Arts District of AlUla, a cluster of education and art programs aimed at providing an active and vibrant destination for communities, students, artists, and visitors.The first cohort of artists-in-residence began collaborations with local artisans through the programs held at Madrasat AdDeera.<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/sara_favriau_ruban_de_mobius_mobius_strip_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_a3ab5e4489.jpg" alt="sara_favriau_ruban_de_mobius_mobius_strip_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_-_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_sara_favriau_ruban_de_mobius_mobius_strip_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_a3ab5e4489.jpg 208w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_sara_favriau_ruban_de_mobius_mobius_strip_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_a3ab5e4489.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_sara_favriau_ruban_de_mobius_mobius_strip_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_a3ab5e4489.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_sara_favriau_ruban_de_mobius_mobius_strip_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_a3ab5e4489.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Sara Favriau, Ruban de Möbius (“Möbius Strip”), 2022, Mabiti AlUla, The Oasis Reborn Art residency 1. (Supplied)Suspended over a pool of water and positioned in between a grove of palm trees, Saudi artist Rashed Al-Shashai’s installation, “Thuraya,” draws links between modern science and the ancient past.Created using natural materials from the oasis, it is colored red with golden lanterns on either side that at night cast reflections on the water and illuminate the area.Al-Shashai told Arab News that his piece had been inspired by the importance of the stars to the lives of farmers.He said: “My grandfather used to take me with him to perform the Fajr prayer. I remember the path we used to walk together. When he was talking to me, he was always looking at the sky, at the star, at the Thuraya and its position in the sky. Farmers have always been guided by its location in the sky to start planting or harvesting. It was the start of my inspiration for my installation.”<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_group_picture_at_the_occasion_of_the_closing_courtesy_of_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c2d97428a.jpg" alt="the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_-_group_picture_at_the_occasion_of_the_closing_-_courtesy_of_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_group_picture_at_the_occasion_of_the_closing_courtesy_of_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c2d97428a.jpg 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_group_picture_at_the_occasion_of_the_closing_courtesy_of_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c2d97428a.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_group_picture_at_the_occasion_of_the_closing_courtesy_of_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c2d97428a.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_group_picture_at_the_occasion_of_the_closing_courtesy_of_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c2d97428a.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">The artists spent the last three months creating works as part of the area’s first art residency program. (Supplied)The cycle of death and renewal in the oasis was the focus of Muhannad Shono’s work, “On This Sacred Day,” with the smoke rising from the installation representing the stories of comings and goings, loss, and remembrance.He said: “It is a ceremonial piece that transcribes the journey of plant, ash, smoke, and sky, in other words, a cycle of death and renewal unfolding inside a living oasis. It also questions purposeful change, transformation, and impacts to guard against fires that may seek to reduce the world to ash.”French artist Sara Favriau’s artwork, titled “The Oasis is a Wadi Raised to the Sky,” takes three forms and three distinct steps corresponding to three related moments: Small sculptures called “Trifles and Trinkets,” a filmed performance titled “A Never-Ending Day,” and an installation named “Mobius Strip.” The artist created the trio of forms to question the notion of a garden of the desert and, more specifically, of the oasis, envisioning the planet as an expansive garden with the human and animal realms united as one.<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/sofiane_si_merabet_the_confused_artist_its_not_early_anymore_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_5455e87d5b.webp" alt="sofiane_si_merabet_the_confused_artist_its_not_early_anymore_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_-_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu.webp" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_sofiane_si_merabet_the_confused_artist_its_not_early_anymore_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_5455e87d5b.webp 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_sofiane_si_merabet_the_confused_artist_its_not_early_anymore_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_5455e87d5b.webp 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_sofiane_si_merabet_the_confused_artist_its_not_early_anymore_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_5455e87d5b.webp 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_sofiane_si_merabet_the_confused_artist_its_not_early_anymore_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_5455e87d5b.webp 1000w," sizes="100vw">Sofiane Si Merabet (The Confused Artist), It’s Not Early Anymore, 2022, Mabiti AlUla, The Oasis Reborn Art residency 1. (Supplied)French-Algerian artist Sofiane si Merabet looked at the oasis as a “motherly environment” that had nurtured humans throughout time.Titled “It’s Not Early Anymore,” his work reflects on the recent development of the oasis of AlUla and the excitement surrounding wedding celebrations. Located in a small, one-story building on an oasis farm, he has produced a multimedia installation capturing the Saudi traditions of the Tagagat, or female wedding singers, and regional elements documenting urban signs and shops referring to weddings.Si Merabet told Arab News that AlUla was also known as the “bride of the mountains.”He said: “Working closely with Nujood, the only Tagaga of AlUla, is a very powerful way of documenting the sociology of the oasis, the current dynamic of change, and how both are linked to spaces.<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/talin_hazbar_earth_readings_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c964da9af.jpg" alt="talin_hazbar_earth_readings_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_-_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_talin_hazbar_earth_readings_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c964da9af.jpg 104w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_talin_hazbar_earth_readings_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c964da9af.jpg 333w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_talin_hazbar_earth_readings_2022_mabiti_alula_the_oasis_reborn_art_residency_1_courtesy_of_the_artist_and_the_royal_commission_for_alula_rcu_2c964da9af.jpg 500w," sizes="100vw">Talin Hazbar, Earth Readings, 2022, Mabiti AlUla, The Oasis Reborn Art residency 1. (Supplied)“The oasis as a motherly space, nourishing, full of greenery, and the desert, it reminds me of the dichotomy that you can find during weddings: A mirror of how interactions between genders or different social groups occur.“This work searches for the permanence of local traditions and questions the meaning of preservation and authenticity and how they can be reinvented,” he added.Talin Hazbar, an artist born in Syria and based in the UAE, created “Earth Readings,” a piece exploring the myriad of relationships between the past and the present, the imperceptible and the material. The work delves into the meaning of the land through “mark-making and map-making narratives.”She said: “I worked with a living material which can be reshaped, remolded, reconstructed, and that constantly adapts, and evolves. It becomes a trace of its lifetime and of its space while also becoming a key to understand AlUla in its own elements, stories, and practices.”In a powerful nod to the expansive and varied landscape of the AlUla oasis, French artist Laura Sellies’ “Populated by Moving Leaves” showcases an installation made up of sculptures, sounds, and texts. She said it invoked a “palace of memories” whereby metal structures invite visitors to listen to the voices of the oasis — both real and fictional —including women, men, birds, camels, winds, water, rocks, and sand.The artists’ works were presented to the public over three days of open studios in January and will be on display during AlUla Arts festival taking place from Feb. 13 to 26.

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Six artists visually transform AlUla oasis for first art residency

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At Diriyah Biennale, Chinese History Meets a Saudi Future

<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/Marwa_Al_Mugait_This_Sea_is_Mine_performance_shot_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_13cf3f8c46.jpg" alt="Marwa-AlMugaitThis-Sea-is-Mine-performance-shot-courtesy-Canvas-and-Diriyah-Biennale-Foundation-1024x683.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_Marwa_Al_Mugait_This_Sea_is_Mine_performance_shot_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_13cf3f8c46.jpg 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_Marwa_Al_Mugait_This_Sea_is_Mine_performance_shot_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_13cf3f8c46.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_Marwa_Al_Mugait_This_Sea_is_Mine_performance_shot_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_13cf3f8c46.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_Marwa_Al_Mugait_This_Sea_is_Mine_performance_shot_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_13cf3f8c46.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Marwah AlMugait,&nbsp;This Sea is Mine&nbsp;performance view. Courtesy Canvas and Diriyah Biennale Foundation.A dozen Riyadh-based dancers in cream-colored clothes moved to the blended guttural sounds of a South African Xhosa song, a Sufi chant, and a Fijiri folk song from the Arabian Gulf. Their asynchronous movements carried the explosive intensity of a simmering pot. Behind them stood a video installation of their bodies in aerial view. Marwah AlMugait, the artist who made this piece, called&nbsp;This Sea is Mine,&nbsp;looked around intrepidly at the hundreds gathered for Saudi Arabia’s inaugural Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale. People seemed compelled not just by the visceral choreography of women performing live, but by the act of witnessing this historic moment in the artistic life of a country.Attention to the plight of women was also a strong theme at the adjacent Tuwaiq International Sculpture Symposium, one of the government-backed programs of Riyadh Art. New Zealand artist Anna Korver’s abstract&nbsp;sculpture evoking draped female figures won an award on December 10 and her work is a part of the city’s first public initiative to build 1,000 permanent urban sculptures.These were paradigm-shifting moments as the art world congregated in Saudi Arabia for the inaugural biennial, called “Feeling the Stones”&nbsp;and the adjacent symposium in Riyadh, as well as Misk Art Week. Meanwhile, in Jeddah, a new art space Hayy Jameel has opened.A sense of urgent transformation can be felt in the Middle Eastern nation, which was culturally&nbsp;insulated from the world until Prince Mohammed Bin Salman&nbsp;laid out Vision 2030’s social and economic reforms five years ago. Through its cultural endeavors, the newly formed ministry of culture has been articulating a position focused on enriching local cultural contexts while participating in the global art discourse.<h4 style="margin-left:0px;">A New Center for Art</h4>The biennial, which is on view until March 11, 2022, spans six warehouses in the JAX district in the industrial part of Diriyah on the northwest fringes of Riyadh, an area that will be refurbished into an arts hub in the coming years.The show title—“Feeling the Stones”—comes from&nbsp;a saying about crossing a river that Chinese revolutionary leader Deng Xiaoping used frequently during the 1980s. “He used it as a way of talking about economic and cultural reform, the platforms of his decade and a half in power,” said Philip Tinari, head of the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing and curator of the Diriyah Biennale alongside Wejdan Reda, Shixuan Luan, and Neil Zhang. “It was a time when China was reassessing its system and opening up to the world.”The saying was actually first coined in 1980 by Chen Yun, a leader of the Chinese Communist Party, in relation to garnering economic stability (it later became associated with&nbsp;Deng as he&nbsp;helped China become an economic powerhouse). “I felt like [the expression] has resonances with where things are in Saudi today in the aftermath of massive changes and big dreams on the horizon,” said Tinari. “It’s an abstract way of thinking about artistic experimentation and practice.”<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/Installation_view_Diriyah_Contemporary_Art_Biennale_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_be444b05e0.jpg" alt="Installation-view-Diriyah-Contemporary-Art-Biennale-2021-courtesy-Canvas-and-Diriyah-Biennale-Foundation-1024x683.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_Installation_view_Diriyah_Contemporary_Art_Biennale_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_be444b05e0.jpg 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_Installation_view_Diriyah_Contemporary_Art_Biennale_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_be444b05e0.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_Installation_view_Diriyah_Contemporary_Art_Biennale_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_be444b05e0.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_Installation_view_Diriyah_Contemporary_Art_Biennale_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_be444b05e0.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Installation view, Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2021. Courtesy Canvas and Diriyah Biennale FoundationHe added that many artists included in the exhibition work with a method “that’s iterative yet experimental, tentative yet directed, going from one side to the other by charting the course as it is traveled.” He noted that the biennial came together in a similar way, by putting in place “structures and processes at the same time as doing them.”This approach has allowed for magical&nbsp;encounters within the show itself such as Zahra Al Ghamdi’s sculpture&nbsp;Birth of a Place&nbsp;(2021), which was inspired by the ruins of mud-houses in Diriyah and which appears as a clever 3D extension of Xu Bing’s lightbox&nbsp;Background Story: Streams and Mountains Without End&nbsp;(2014), which itself mimics a traditional landscape painting though it is actually sculpted from newspaper and plant detritus.The rules of engagement for the cultural scene in what is an extremely conservative nation are still unclear. Tinari was likely tapped for his experience in running a museum in China, which requires the fine art of dealing with the People’s Republic and censorship.“What’s become clear to me is that any context has things that can and can’t be said,” said Tinari. “I always look back to working on ‘Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World’&nbsp;at the Guggenheim [in 2017] and finding ourselves&nbsp;on the wrong side of animal rights, having to&nbsp;deactivate the presentations of three artists&nbsp;in New York City…The question is less what is censorship and more what is respect for cultural mores in a context that’s not your own?”<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/Abdullah_Al_Othman_Manifesto_The_Language_City_2021_1024x683_78f8a8d14b.jpg" alt="Abdullah-Al-Othman-Manifesto-The-Language-City-2021-1024x683.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_Abdullah_Al_Othman_Manifesto_The_Language_City_2021_1024x683_78f8a8d14b.jpg 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_Abdullah_Al_Othman_Manifesto_The_Language_City_2021_1024x683_78f8a8d14b.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_Abdullah_Al_Othman_Manifesto_The_Language_City_2021_1024x683_78f8a8d14b.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_Abdullah_Al_Othman_Manifesto_The_Language_City_2021_1024x683_78f8a8d14b.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Abdullah Al Othman,&nbsp;Manifesto, The Language &amp; City&nbsp;(2021). Image courtesy Diriyah Biennale Foundation and the artist.<h4 style="margin-left:0px;">A Bridge to the West and East</h4>More than half of the 64 artworks are by Saudi or Chinese artists—and nearly half the works are newly commissioned. The works are divided into six “chapters” that flow via pathways and ramps that link each of the thematic sections of a warehouse (designed by Saudi architecture studio Bricklab). The color of the rooms reflects the natural landscape beyond the show, and walls are punctured, letting in natural light and views of Wadi Hanifah. It is a thoughtful and considered showcase that does not sensationalize the seismic shift Saudi Arabia is experiencing but instead pushes on boundaries without breaking them.South African artist William Kentridge’s&nbsp;More Sweetly Play the Dance&nbsp;(2015), in which celebratory music is played by shadow projections, heralds the first chapter, “Crossing the River.” Here, one will also find Maha Malluh’s wall-sized&nbsp;World Map&nbsp;(2021) of 3,840 cassette tapes bearing religious sermons remain,&nbsp;silent relics of an analog world of conservative Islam. It lies adjacent to Richard Long’s&nbsp;Red Earth Circle&nbsp;(1989/2021) made from red clay from Saudi Arabia that was first created in 1989 for Centre Pompidou’s groundbreaking “Magicians de Terre,” considered the first exhibition of global contemporary art.The biennial often juxtaposes the 1980s Chinese avant-garde with the historical emergence of art in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. Yet Tinari emphasizes that there are important differences between these moments in the two nations. “A lot of artistic production in Saudi isn’t actually just about the question of nationhood or national identity, in a way that I think burdened the artistic production in China for a long time,” he said. He added that Saudi Arabia was more connected to the global scene than China during its transformation, “for better or worse.”<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/Sarah_Abu_Abdallah_and_Ghada_Al_Hassan_Horizontal_Dimensions_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_b7461dc32f.jpg" alt="Sarah-Abu-Abdallah-and-Ghada-Al-Hassan-Horizontal-Dimensions-2021-courtesy-Canvas-and-Diriyah-Biennale-Foundation-1024x683.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_Sarah_Abu_Abdallah_and_Ghada_Al_Hassan_Horizontal_Dimensions_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_b7461dc32f.jpg 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_Sarah_Abu_Abdallah_and_Ghada_Al_Hassan_Horizontal_Dimensions_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_b7461dc32f.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_Sarah_Abu_Abdallah_and_Ghada_Al_Hassan_Horizontal_Dimensions_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_b7461dc32f.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_Sarah_Abu_Abdallah_and_Ghada_Al_Hassan_Horizontal_Dimensions_2021_courtesy_Canvas_and_Diriyah_Biennale_Foundation_1024x683_b7461dc32f.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Sarah Abu Abdallah and Ghada Al Hassan, ‘Horizontal Dimensions’, 2021, courtesy Canvas and Diriyah Biennale FoundationElsewhere, unexpected threads unfold: prominent Chinese artist Wang Luyan’s miniature humanoid sculptures converse with Ayman Yossri Daydban’s paintings of alienated figures from the 1990s. There are conversations between Saudi artists as well—Ahmed Mater’s video installation of life before and after the oil boom in&nbsp;Desert Meeting&nbsp;(2021) is installed nearby Mohammed Al Saleem’s modernist ode to arid topography,&nbsp;Desert Spring&nbsp;(1987).Comments on the family unit, which in Saudi Arabia extends to the larger tribe and is traced through patrilineality, manifest in Daniah Al Saleh’s&nbsp;That Which Remains&nbsp;(2021), which blurs computer-generated archival portraits with personal footage mixing official&nbsp;and personal narratives. It is set against Japan’s Koki Tanaka’s provocative&nbsp;Abstracted/Family&nbsp;(2020), which stages a mock nuclear family and comments on estrangement and minority politics.&nbsp;Manal Al Dowayan’s brass leaf installation of matrilineal lines, on the other hand, through the drawings and recordings of 300 women from Dammam, Riyadh, and Jeddah in&nbsp;Tree of Guardians&nbsp;(2014), brings invisible histories to light.But one of the most riveting sections was “Brave New Worlds,” which focused on our planet’s apocalyptic present of nearly extinct species, uprooted plant life and solitary automatons. A film by Ando Wekua focuses on a burning palm tree overlaid with screeching sounds and Ayman Zedani’s recorded intonations of the endangered Arabian Sea humpback whales laments a collective environmental demise. Muhannad Shono’s tired mark-making robotic sculpture and Lawrence Lek’s envisioning of an automated hotel depict a world without humans. Also on view was Sarah Brahim’s video performance&nbsp;Soft Machines/Far Away Engines&nbsp;(2021) which&nbsp;traces dancers who multiply, heave, and touch, providing a bit of solace in this grim setting.<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/Sarah_Ibrahim_Soft_Machines_Far_Away_Engines_courtesy_of_the_artist_1024x576_d4986ed2c5.jpeg" alt="Sarah-Ibrahim-Soft-MachinesFar-Away-Engines-courtesy-of-the-artist-1024x576.jpeg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_Sarah_Ibrahim_Soft_Machines_Far_Away_Engines_courtesy_of_the_artist_1024x576_d4986ed2c5.jpeg 245w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_Sarah_Ibrahim_Soft_Machines_Far_Away_Engines_courtesy_of_the_artist_1024x576_d4986ed2c5.jpeg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_Sarah_Ibrahim_Soft_Machines_Far_Away_Engines_courtesy_of_the_artist_1024x576_d4986ed2c5.jpeg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_Sarah_Ibrahim_Soft_Machines_Far_Away_Engines_courtesy_of_the_artist_1024x576_d4986ed2c5.jpeg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Sarah Brahim&nbsp;Soft Machines/Far Away Engines. Image courtesy Diriyah Biennale Foundation and the artist.<h4 style="margin-left:0px;">A Dizzying Transformation</h4>Despite the curatorial prowess of the show, it would be a mistake to consider this biennial as completely unprecedented. Although there is now a shining focus on the capital Riyadh, Jeddah has enjoyed a thriving art scene for decades, which began underground with the independent collective Edge of Arabia in 2003 and continued with the private philanthropy of the Saudi Art Council in 2014. What is new, however, is the openness to developing deeply collaborative curatorial models at an international level. In addition to the biennial, which brought on Beijing-based Tinari and other UCCA curators from China, Hayy Jameel co-curated an exhibition on food futures called “Staple: What’s on your plate” together with the U.K.-based Delfina Foundation.That show was bustling like the biennial, with 1,650 visitors attending its opening on December 6. “Jeddah is a cosmopolitan city, a gateway for pilgrims,” said Antonia Carver, director of Art Jameel. She added that the exhibition, which includes artists from South Asia, Barbados, Bangladesh, and the Congo is “less about a nation-to-nation” discourse and more about “the city’s connections to elsewhere.” The history of Jeddah, she said, is “intertwined with other places, defying the stereotype as a place that’s closed off.”<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/Xu_Bing_Background_Story_Streams_and_Mountains_Without_End_2013_1024x683_831bdd8a35.jpg" alt="Xu-Bing-Background-Story_-Streams-and-Mountains-Without-End-2013-1024x683.jpg" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_Xu_Bing_Background_Story_Streams_and_Mountains_Without_End_2013_1024x683_831bdd8a35.jpg 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_Xu_Bing_Background_Story_Streams_and_Mountains_Without_End_2013_1024x683_831bdd8a35.jpg 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_Xu_Bing_Background_Story_Streams_and_Mountains_Without_End_2013_1024x683_831bdd8a35.jpg 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_Xu_Bing_Background_Story_Streams_and_Mountains_Without_End_2013_1024x683_831bdd8a35.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw">Xu Bing,&nbsp;Background Story Streams and Mountains Without End&nbsp;(2013). Image courtesy Diriyah Biennale Foundation and the artist.These dramatic moves in bringing both Riyadh and Jeddah onto the world stage are somewhat dizzying. While the biennial has most certainly become a catalyst for the Kingdom’s role in the region’s artistic landscape, a major question looms about the extent to which cultural production will be grounded by local government bodies and infrastructures of power as this&nbsp;art scene attempts to situate itself within the globalized art world.Rashed Al Shashai’s contribution to the biennial,&nbsp;Cultural Wall&nbsp;(2021), a spiraling sculpture of wicker and steel, alludes to the structural problems implicated in such moments of progress. Even as a local, he says the future shape of Saudi Arabia’s culture scene is anything but clear: “It’s like trying to make sense of hazy shapes out from a fast-moving car.” What is sure, in any case, is that this indeterminate&nbsp;present is a new starting point for Saudi Arabia, one that will usher in an artistic era that is not seen as a counterpart to the Global North but which is very much coming into its own.The Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale is on view in Riyadh until March 11, 2022.

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Saudi Arabia’s Art World Has Long Been an Outlier. With Its First-Ever Homegrown Biennial, It’s Looking to Usher in a New Chapter

<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/c47da3edfd6de50d640affce3af52e54a8f97e5d_1134x756_33f54542c4.webp" alt="c47da3edfd6de50d640affce3af52e54a8f97e5d-1134x756.webp" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_c47da3edfd6de50d640affce3af52e54a8f97e5d_1134x756_33f54542c4.webp 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_c47da3edfd6de50d640affce3af52e54a8f97e5d_1134x756_33f54542c4.webp 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_c47da3edfd6de50d640affce3af52e54a8f97e5d_1134x756_33f54542c4.webp 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_c47da3edfd6de50d640affce3af52e54a8f97e5d_1134x756_33f54542c4.webp 1000w," sizes="100vw">Sarah Abu Abdallah and Ghada Al Hassan, Horizontal Dimensions (2021)Image: courtesy of Canvas and Diriyah Biennale Foundation“I wanted to think about the emerging Saudi ecology in a global context,” says Philip Tinari, the Beijing-based curator of the inaugural Diriyah Biennale in Riyadh (until 11 March), which contrasted contemporary Saudi Arabia with China in the 1980s, when the country faced a similar relaxation of social&nbsp;and legal restrictions.“First, to avoid terms like ‘catching up’ or ‘borrowing from’. Comparing this moment with that of China provides a different way into some of these questions. China is another country that’s quite different from the Western reality, and that’s prone to misunderstanding. How do you think about or contextualise the very specific and very precious energy of this moment of optimism and openness?”.The framework was a punt for Tinari: China’s internal detente quickly seized up after 1989. And the biennial overall was a punt for Saudi’s ministry of culture, the behemoth-like organisation that only opened two years ago and which oversees the Diriyah Biennale Foundation; a specifically international exhibition for a country that has been shunned internationally. (The biennial was endlessly tagged as the “first Saudi biennial”—ignoring, perhaps,&nbsp;Desert X Al Ula, whose roll-out two years ago did not go nearly so well.)<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/b689eb10dc369c4ef0c6baf2ee097223a790325d_1134x756_b209625ee0.webp" alt="b689eb10dc369c4ef0c6baf2ee097223a790325d-1134x756.webp" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_b689eb10dc369c4ef0c6baf2ee097223a790325d_1134x756_b209625ee0.webp 234w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_b689eb10dc369c4ef0c6baf2ee097223a790325d_1134x756_b209625ee0.webp 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_b689eb10dc369c4ef0c6baf2ee097223a790325d_1134x756_b209625ee0.webp 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_b689eb10dc369c4ef0c6baf2ee097223a790325d_1134x756_b209625ee0.webp 1000w," sizes="100vw">Maha Malluh, Food for Thought, WORLD MAP (2021)Image: courtesy of Canvas and Diriyah Biennale FoundationBut it landed. While the choice of Tinari—the head of the UCCA in Beijing—might reflect the country’s economic and political shift towards China, it also allowed the biennial to join a lineage of biennials in the 1970s and 80s across the Arab region and South and East Asia, and latterly the Sharjah Biennial, in which Western art was the exception rather than the rule. Working with the curators Wejdan Reda, Shixuan Luan and Neil Zhang, Tinari delivered an exhibition that felt rooted in a Saudi context while also opening it up towards parallels in other countries, not just China but also African countries like Morocco, Kenya, and Egypt, for whom art served different means of defining a modern identity.And while the dusty Riyadh air was thick with pronouncements of “game-changing” and even “world-changing,” the hyperbole was not far off. For the relatively isolated Saudi art scene, 2021/22 will be a moment of decisive shift.Over the past two weeks, Saudi’s main cities of Jeddah and Riyadh disgorged a ludicrous amount of programming: the Diriyah Biennale, the highly important opening of Hayy Jameel, the Tuwaiq sculpture commissions for public art in Riyadh; Misk Art Week’s exhibitions and discursive programmes; the Jeddah edition of the roving Bienal Del Sur; the Red Sea International Film Festival; various pop-up events; and—last but not least—an art fair, Shara Art + Design. And the second edition of Desert X Al Ula, in February, is right around the corner.<h4 style="margin-left:0px;">Coming out of isolation</h4>Saudi artists are calling it “the escape from the Dark Ages”, as the explosion of infrastructural growth finally matches the enthusiasm and activity that has been on the ground in Saudi over the past decade.What is important is not just the amount but the international orientation. Saudi’s cultural policy has had three main priorities, explains Rakan Ibrahim Al-Touq, the general supervisor of strategy and international relations at the ministry of culture. The first is access to culture locally and the second is culture as a mode of economic growth. These have predominated so far, in programmes engineered towards raising Saudi quality of life, such as Riyadh Art, or in giving opportunities to the young population, such as Misk’s and the Red Sea International Film Festival’s grants. But now internationalism is on the make.“The best thing about the biennial is for the local artists to get a better understanding and sense of international artists who are working at a high standard,” says the Jeddah artist Dana Awartani, whose re-creation of the destroyed floor of the Great Mosque of Aleppo was a standout of the biennial. “A lot of artists here are used to producing and selling at galleries or art fairs. We’ve not had a not-for-profit space, besides the Saudi Art Council. For me, the biennial is mostly educational—we need the whole infrastructure of education, from schools to universities, to spaces like Hayy that will give you stimulating workshops and talks and programming.”<img src="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/7aa6923756e2c4f9ce7551b96c1c60d00a2a30fb_1134x709_737dd5f36b.webp" alt="7aa6923756e2c4f9ce7551b96c1c60d00a2a30fb-1134x709.webp" srcset="https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/thumbnail_7aa6923756e2c4f9ce7551b96c1c60d00a2a30fb_1134x709_737dd5f36b.webp 245w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/small_7aa6923756e2c4f9ce7551b96c1c60d00a2a30fb_1134x709_737dd5f36b.webp 500w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/medium_7aa6923756e2c4f9ce7551b96c1c60d00a2a30fb_1134x709_737dd5f36b.webp 750w,https://api.athrart.otakoyi.com.ua/uploads/large_7aa6923756e2c4f9ce7551b96c1c60d00a2a30fb_1134x709_737dd5f36b.webp 1000w," sizes="100vw">Dana Awartani, Standing on the Ruins of Aleppo (2021)© Diriyah Biennale Foundation and the artist<h4 style="margin-left:0px;">&nbsp;</h4>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

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