Mar 16 2016

Highlights from Art Dubai 2016

by Sylvia Tsai

Happy Birthday Art Dubai! To celebrate its 10th year, the leading art fair of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia brought together the largest and most diverse roster of participants with 94 galleries from 40 countries—new to the fair are galleries from Georgia, Ghana, Lithuania, Oman, Palestine, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. From Art Dubai Modern to Art Dubai Contemporary, viewers get the opportunity to see works by 500 artists who represent 70 nations. During the press conference, fair director Antonia Carver also highlighted that, for this edition, 45 percent of the participating artists are female, a testament to the “strong role women are playing in the arts in the region” over the past few years—much of which, according to Carver, can be attributed to an increase in higher education for women in the Gulf region, beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

For Art Dubai’s Marker section—a focus gallery program that looks at particular geographic sectors and their relation to the Gulf region and the Arab world—the spotlight was turned toward the Philippines, a country who has roughly 700,000 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) living in the UAE, with 450,000 residing in Dubai. Curated by artist and researcher Ringo Bunoan, the Philippines’s first showcase at an international art fair casts a look at four new artist-run spaces in Manila—98B, Post Gallery, Project 20 and Thousandfold—all who have been active within the past five years. The alternative spaces are represented in Marker by 15 young and emerging artists, who work across various media ranging from videos to photographs, works on paper, soft sculpture and textiles. Bunoan explained that she wanted to present artists who “create works that go against institutional and commercial expectations” and also show practices that extend beyond figurative painting, a genre commonly found in contemporary art production in the Philippines. Here, the Philippine focus also pays tribute to Filipino conceptual artist, teacher and curator Robert Chabet (1937–2013), who, starting from the 1970s up until his death, was a strong supporter of young artists and alternative practices in Manila.

Among the tightly-packed programming at Art Dubai 2016, visitors will see projects by Art Dubai Commissioned Artists scattered throughout the fair’s venue at Madinat Jumeirah. Also not to be missed is the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2016 exhibition, “Syntax and Society,” guest-curated by Nav Haq, featuring artist-duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme. Their new 10-minute video Only the Beloved Keeps Our Secrets (2016), commissioned for the prize, incorporates footage from an Israeli military surveillance camera. The exhibition additionally includes works by the three other shortlisted artists: Dina Danish, Mahmoud Khaled and Basir Mahmood. Running throughout the course of the fair is the 10th edition of the Global Art Forum—a program of performances and live talks—which will have a slight sci-fi leaning, with speakers that include a space archaeologist, an economist and artists discussing the future through the lens of the past in a series entitled “The Future Was.”

Here’s a look at Art Dubai 2016 on preview day. The fair runs from March 16 to 19, 2016, at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai.

Madinat Jumeirah, the resort complex that is home to Art Dubai. All photos by Sylvia Tsai for ArtAsiaPacific.

Preview evening of Art Dubai Modern on March 14.

The late Palestinian artist MALIHEH AFNAN (1935–2016) had a solo presentation at the booth of Dubai’s Lawrie Shabibi gallery, which featured the artist’s works from the late 1960s to 1980s. Afnan is known for her work with paper that draws from ancient scrolls and tablets, oftentimes creating compositions that allude to landscapes. Seen here is Omen, 1978, consisting of mixed media and collage on torched, corrugated cardboard.

Jordanian artist SAMIA TAKTAK ZARU’s oil on wood piece, Experiments and Investigations I, 1958, at Wadi Finan Art Gallery.

Intricate, small-scale drawings on paper from the established Lebanese artist and poet LAURE GHORAYEB, at the booth of Beirut’s Galerie Janine Rubeiz. These drawings, from the 1960s and ’70s, denote Ghorayeb’s obsession with communicating the horrors she witnessed during the Lebanese Civil War.

Along one of the booth walls of London’s Grosvenor Gallery is a suite of 22 lithographs by the late Pakistani calligrapher and painter SYED SADEQUAIN (1923–1987).

Over at the Art Dubai Contemporary hall, Agial Art Gallery presented a collection of young sculptors from Beirut and paired them alongside one wood piece by modernist figure SALOUA RAOUDA CHOUCAIR.

Turkish artist MURAT PALTA’s print Street Fighter, 2016, at the booth of x-ist gallery from Istanbul.

New York’s Marianne Boesky Gallery had a solo booth of Syrian artist DIANA AL-HADID, who recently opened an exhibition at NYUAD Art Gallery in Abu Dhabi.

Jeddah’s Athr Gallery had a mixed-artist booth at Art Dubai, with works ranging from a geometric print by NASSER AL-SALEM, print collages by HAZEM HARB, readapted posters by AYAM YOSSRI DAYDBAN, and light boxes by POKLONG ANADING, among others.

Athr also presented smaller works in an adjacent display space.

Oman’s Gallery Sarah had a solo booth of mixed-media works by RADHIKA KHIMJI, speaking to a sense of displacement, movement and flux.

In its first participation at Art Dubai, Manila’s Silverlens Gallery brought the minimalist works of MARIA TANIGUCHI.

Galerie Krinzinger from Vienna displayed ABDULNASSER GHAREM‘s light box Detour, 2010; ALFRED TARAZI’s mixed media on paper Left and Right, 2015; and MAHA MALLUH’s old copper pots, entitled Food For Thought-Tethkar, 2016.

The local Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde’s mixed-artist booth.

Art Dubai’s Marker booth, which focused on the Philippines this year.

Detail of ROBERTO CHABET’s plywood installation at Marker section of Art Dubai 2016.

RINGO BUNOAN, curator of the Philippine-focused Marker section at Art Dubai 2016.

Outside of the halls was land artist MOZA ALMATROOSHI‘s Markings I, 2016, which consist of flags that were used to rub rock and sand formations in Mleiha, an archaeological site in the nearby emirate of Sharjah. This project was part of Art Dubai’s Artists-in-Residency program.

Video still from Only the Beloved Keeps Our Secrets, 2016, by Abraaj Group Art Prize 2016 winners BASEL ABBAS and RUANNE ABOU-RAHME, as part of the exhibition “Syntax and Society.”

Official opening of the 8th Abraaj Group Art Prize exhibition on March 15. (From left to right) BASIR MAHMOOD; committee chair DANA FAROUKI; RUANNE ABOU-RAHME; BASEL ABBAS; MAHMOUD KHALED; and exhibition curator NAV HAQ.

The venue for Global Art Forum, which takes place at Fort Island, Madinat Jumeirah, starting March 16 through 19.

Sylvia Tsai is associate editor at ArtAsiaPacific.