Feb 07 2020

Highlights from 21,39 Jeddah Arts 2020

by Paul Laster

Saudi architect, urban designers, curators, and artists ALAA TARABZOUNI and FAHAD BIN NAIF’s multi-disciplinary project Al-Manakh, You Will Be Missed (2019) employs photography, video, and shrink-wrapped found objects to comment on the closing of a beloved but environmentally damaging cement company in Riyadh, at 21,39 Jeddah Arts 2020. Photo by Paul Laster for ArtAsiaPacific.

With a focus on the environment, the seventh edition of 21,39 Jeddah Arts, presented by the Saudi Arts Council and on view through April 18, addressed the global climate emergency through the commissioned work of 21 regional and international artists participating in the exhibition “I Love You, Urgently.” Smartly curated by Maya El-Khahlil, a Beirut-born independent curator and former director of the Jeddah-based Athr Gallery, the show explored ideas of biomimicry, adaptability, and specificity through a wide range of media—including painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation—at two locations in Jeddah, the Saudi Art Council’s semi-raw space in the heart of the city and a newly renovated exhibition space in Al-Balad, the historic center of Jeddah.

Complementing “I Love You, Urgently” was the exhibition “Architecture of Tomorrow: Frei Otto’s Legacy in Saudi Arabia,” which functioned as an inspirational platform for the artists’ works in the main exhibition, while presenting the possibilities of renewed creative experimentation in the Kingdom. Curated by Maya El-Khalil and George Vrachliotis, professor of architecture theory and director of the architecture collection at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the show presented drawings, models, photographs and other documentation of the Pritzker Architecture Prize winning architect’s tent-like buildings, several of which were constructed in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Rounding out the program during the opening week were a series of talks and panel discussions with artists, architects, scientists, and scholars. Two satellite exhibitions—“Propositions for a Poetic Ecosystem,” which paired Saudi and Swiss artists with ecological research scientists for a residency exchange, and “Sculpting Spaces – Architectural Desert Dwellings for AlUla,” which planned to bring contemporary dwellings to the desert but was not open yet due to shipping delays—had savvy visitors declaring Jeddah as the next developing art world spot to watch.

Here are some of the highlights from 21,39 Jeddah Arts 2020:

Entrance to 21,39 Jeddah Arts with signage for the exhibition “I Love You, Urgently.” All photos by Paul Laster for ArtAsiaPacific.

Lebanese architect and sculptor MAHA NASRALLAH’s table-top installation of overturned trash bins and burnt rubber tires, titled Thawra (2018 –19), offers a miniaturized view of how people protest mismanagement of the social infrastructure in Beirut. Flanking her installation of lifelike ceramics were Italian-born, Beirut and Dubai-based artist CRISTIANA DE MARCHI’s series of embroidered canvases Black (Aarhus Convention) (2019), which translates the document granting public participation in environmental matters into braille, highlighting the blind eye that has been given to these issues.

Saudi multi-disciplinary artist MUHANNAD SHONO dyed strips of canvas with black ink to illustrate the power of thought in The Last Garden of Al Khidr (2020), which references the mythological “green man,” who possessed great wisdom. The piece abstractly presents a beheading of knowledge and its rebirth, allowing for the return of creativity and independent thinking.

Saudi artist MARWAH AL-MUGAIT’s video I lived once (2020) offers a choreographed dance of a mixed group of women who become one with the earth as they defend and protect it and one another through expressive, communal actions and movement.

Saudi multi-disciplinary artist SULTAN BIN FAHD’s installation Al Hida’a (2019) incorporates the sound of a herdsman calling his camels with melted plastic sculptural assemblages made from water bottles that he gathered in the desert. The camels make another presence in the form of a traditional rug woven from the animal’s recycled hair, and decoratively marked with branding irons.

Kuwaiti artist and designer FARAH K. BEHBEHANI’s sculptural installation Rahal (2020) employs a massive sheet of folded paper that has been perforated with a seafarer’s song in Arabic text. The piece becomes visible when a moving light passes through the holes. Displayed on a suspended piece of fabric, the text is repeated below on the floor in bits of colored plastic that symbolize the pollution in the seas.

Saudi artist MANAL AL-DOWAYAN constructs a metaphorical desert rose in her hanging fabric sculpture Ephemeral Witness (2019), which was sewn in sections to recreate the petals of the flower, and printed with instructions detailing how women should behave in public. The artist uses the symbol to show that as dependency on oil wanes, the role of women in society needs to change, too.

Saudi artist and illustrator OBADAH AL-JEFRI created cartoon advertisements that comment on the continuous pollution of the environment from everyday consumer products, such as plastic spoons, in his hand-painted poster-like drawings, Non-perishables (2020).

Saudi artist and architectural scholar ZAHRAH AL-GHAMDI references the traditional materials used in the ancient architecture of her homeland in her sprawling installation Ashgan Village (2020), made from mud and dried thorns.

British-born, Jeddah-based artist FILWA NAZER mimics the ability of an insect to camouflage itself in the desert in her hanging fabric sculpture In the Fold (2019), which has a cocoon-like structure that the visitor can seemingly enter and hide in, while being protected from the outer forces of the world.

In his Sound of Light (2019) series of paintings, Emirati conceptual artist MOHAMMED KAZEM examines construction sites of buildings that sit idle after having been abandoned or left uncompleted, while portraying the light in the spaces as if it conveys a symphonic sound.

Saudi artist DANIAH AL-SALEH constructs a network of hanging framed paper and fabric sculptures in her installation Delicate (2019), which uses fractal patterns found in the natural world to comment on the imbalanced nature of social inequalities.

Saudi artist and architect NOJOUD AL-SUDAIRI employed traditional textile techniques for a woven wall hanging and rug that reference the oases and fertile farmland once at the heart of Riyadh, the nation’s now-bustling and overbuilt capital.

An installation view of “Architecture of Tomorrow: Frei Otto’s Legacy in Saudi Arabia,” an overview of the Pritzker Architecture Prize winning architect’s tent-like structures that were built in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Paul Laster is a New York desk editor of ArtAsiaPacific.

21,39 Jeddah Arts is on view at various venues at Jeddah until April 18, 2020.

To read more of ArtAsiaPacific’s articles, visit our Digital Library.

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