Sara Abdu

Sarah Abu Abdallah

Ahaad Al Amoudi

Mohammad Alfaraj

Zahrah Alghamdi

Daniah Al Saleh

Dana Awartani

Asma Bahmim

Ayman Yossri Daydban

Sultan bin Fahad

Rami Farook

Basmah Felemban

Random International

Ahmed Mater

Muhannad Shono

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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

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