Sharjah Biennial 9
dal 18/3/2009 al 15/5/2009
Segnalato da
18/3/2009
Sharjah Biennial 9
Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah
The 9th edition: Provisions for the Future. The Sharjah Biennial transcends central themes and pre-cast frameworks, exhibiting instead a wide range of works selected by open invitation. More than 80 artists and performers are participating in the biennial, which since its inauguration in 1993 served to connect artists, institutions and organisations and to foster artistic dialogue and exchange. Sharjah Biennial ranks amongst the most established and prominent cultural events in the Middle East.
Sharjah’s Department of Culture and Information will host the 9th Sharjah Biennial from March 19 until May 16 2009. Under the Patronage of H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, ruler of Sharjah and under the auspices of Biennial Director, HH Sheika Hoor al Qasimi, overseen by renowned Curators Isabel Carlos and Tarek Abou El Fetouh and led by Artistic Director Jack Persekian, the 9th edition of the Sharjah Biennial will transcend central themes and pre-cast frameworks, exhibiting instead a wide range of works selected by open invitation. More than 80 artists and performers are participating in the biennial, which since its inauguration in 1993 served to connect artists, institutions and organisations and to foster artistic dialogue and exchange. Sharjah Biennial ranks amongst the most established and prominent cultural events in the Middle East.
‘The Sharjah Biennial 9, unlike many other Biennials, imposes no geographical classifications on displaying work,’ says Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of the Sharjah Biennial 9. ‘We have also decided not to limit the selection process to a wish-list of participants, but have opted instead to consider work submitted by artists and non-artists alike, who were brave enough to take up the challenge and respond to an open invitation to realise their ideas.’
The SB9 program will comprise the Exhibition titled ‘Provisions For The Future’ curated by Isabel Carlos, and the Performance and Film programme titled ‘Past of the Coming Days’ curated by Tarek Abou El Fetouh in addition to a series of workshops and lectures under the initiative titled ‘The March Meeting’. The entire city of Sharjah will be offered to artists for context-specific work, and other SB9 activities will take place across a wide range of venues including the Sharjah Art Museum, the Heritage Area of Sharjah, Al Qasba, Sharjah National Theatre, Sharjah Old Port, Calligraphy Museum and The Theatre Association.
‘Sharjah is a geographic and cultural meeting place, where the notion of future is permanently evoked,’ comments Isabel Carlos, Curator of the Provisions for the Future exhibition at Sharjah Biennial 9. ‘More than a presentation of a global selection of art works, ’Provisions for the Future’ aims to be a place of production and development of artworks in the context of the city of Sharjah.’
“Past of the Coming Days” seeks to explore the borders between popular cinema, the graphic arts, architecture, the folkloric arts, classical theatre and contemporary art,’ Says Tarek Abou El Fetouh, curator of “Past of the Coming Days” Film and Performance programme. ‘This program hopes to encourage debate on how these art forms and ‘contemporary art’ have exchanged values, ideas, and aesthetics, and the possibilities for exchange between them in the future. ’
‘The Sharjah Biennial has a track record as one of the few art institutions in the region leading a programme of support for artists' productions,’ explains Jack Persekian, Artistic Director of the Sharjah Biennial 9. ‘This support needs to be sensibly extended to artists operating in the region and those working elsewhere who can positively contribute to the crucial dialogue amongst artists and practitioners, the exchange of experience and the progress of knowledge.’
Provisions for the Future
by Isabel Carlos
The pursuit of happiness is an important motivation for humanity to dislocate itself from one place to another. In this dislocation the notions of utopia and future play a major role: a future that is frequently fictionalized through fantasy narratives or chimerical promises.
In today’s world everybody seems to ask constantly for more and more, with an anxious eagerness for status, material goods, physical and social appearance and an obsession for fame, a state of mind described as "affluenza", a neologism created by Oliver James to characterize the psychological disease of the 21st century, a cocktail of "affluence" (richness) and "influenza" (virus).
This is a time in which the 9th Sharjah Biennial aims to propose a pause for reflection and provision storage for the future.
At a crossroads of a world that is disappearing or transforming itself very rapidly and of emerging new economic and cultural conceptions, Sharjah is a geographic and cultural meeting point where the notion of future is permanently evoked. Provisions for the Future aims to be a place of production and development of artworks for the context of Sharjah, more than a selection of works "imported" from all around.
The project will be focused on artists working with concepts like immigration, travel, narrative, fiction, memory and history, escape and exile, but also producing works with a tactile and physical dimension, works of passage from one side to the other, of crossing. On the other hand, in strictly artistic terms, we are looking for works where drift is a key notion, i.e, works initialized by something already existing in order to build some other different thing, works that change the perception and visibility of the starting point "material". Rather then recycling, this is mainly about image dislocation - dislocation and drift from a support to another, from a language to another, from a time to another, from a context to another – and how these induce new significations.
Less artists and more artworks from each one will be another key line: spectators should be able to "dive" more deeply in each artist's universe, as when we store provisions, accumulating and safekeeping whatever we deem to be necessary. Constructing the future depends on sedimentation of the past and the present and, art is a particularly clear case to which this principle applies.
Provisions for the Future aims to be a bridge between cultures, societies and times.
Isabel Carlos
Curator, 9th Sharjah Biennial
Artists list:
Hamra Abbas - Born in Kuwait, 1976. Based in Boston
Haig Aivazian – Born in El Metn, 1980. Based in Dubai
Reem Al Ghaith – Born in Dubai, 1985. Based in Dubai
Diana Al Hadid – Born in Aleppo, 1981. Based in Brooklyn
Jawad Al Malhi – Born in Jerusalem, 1969. Based in Jerusalem
Basma Al-Sharif – Born in Kuwait, 1983. Based in Cairo
Halil Altindere – Born in Mardin, 1971. Based in Istanbul
Juan Araujo – Born in Caracas, 1971. Based in Caracas
Tarek Atoui - Born in Beirut, 1980. Based in Amsterdam
Samira Badran – Born in Tripoli, 1954. Based in Barcelona
Doris Bittar – Born in Baghdad, 1959. Based in San Diego
Melissa Chimera & Adele NeJame - Born in Honolulu, 1972 & New Jersey, 1969. Based in Hawaii
Eugenio Dittborn – Born in Santiago de Chile, 1943. Based in Santiago de Chile
Lili Dujourie – Born in Gent, 1941. Based in Gent
Alberto Duman – Born in Milan, 1966. Based in London
Hala Elkoussy – Born in Cairo, 1974. Based in Amsterdam
Haris Epaminonda – Born in Nicosia, 1980. Based in Berlin
Ayse Erkmen - Born in Istanbul, 1949. Based in Istanbul
Sophie Ernst - Born in Munich, 1972. Based in Bussum
Amir H. Fallah - Born in Teheran, 1978. Based in Los Angeles
Lara Favaretto - Born in Treviso, 1973. Based in Turin
Lamya Gargash - Born in Dubai, 1982. Based in Dubai
Mariam Ghani & Erin Ellen Kelly - Born in Brooklyn, 1978 & St Louis, 1976. Based in Brooklyn
Simryn Gill - Born in Singapore, 1959. Based in Sydney
Sheela Gowda - Born in Bhadravati, 1957. Based in Bangalore
Laurent Grasso - Born in Mulhouse, 1972. Based in Paris
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige - Born in Beirut, 1969. Based in Beirut
N.S. Harsha - Born in Mysore, 1969. Based in Mysore
Doug Henders - Born in Chicago, 1957. Based in New York
Agnes Janich - Born in Lodz, 1985. Based in Warsaw
Lamia Joreige - Born in Beirut, 1972. Based in Beirut
Fernando José Pereira - Born in Porto, 1961. Based in Porto
Narelle Jubelin - Born in Sydney, 1960. Based in Madrid
Nadia Kaabi Linke - Born in Tunis, 1978. Based in Berlin
Hayv Kahraman - Born in Baghdad, 1981. Based in Phoenix
Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen - Born in Aalborg, 1971. Based in London
Maider Lopez - Born in San Sebastian, 1975. Based in San Sebastian
Robert MacPherson - Born in Sydney, 1937. Based in Brisbane
Lani Maestro - Born in Manila, 1957. Based in Caen
Firoz Mahmud - Born in Khulna, 1974. Based in Tokyo
Waheeda Malullah - Born in Manama, 1978. Based in Manama
José Luis Martinat - Born in Lima, 1974. Based in Malmo
Hiroyuki Masuyama - Born in Tsukuba, 1968. Based in Düsseldorf
Gita Meh - Born in Teheran, 1963. Based in Dubai
Giuseppe Moscatello - Born in Botrugno, 1979. Based in Sharjah
Nika Oblak & Primõz Novak - Born in Kranj, 1975 & Murska Sobota, 1973. Based in Ljubljana
Liliana Porter - Born in Buenos Aires, 1941. Based in New York
Karin Sander - Born in Bensberg, 1957. Based in Berlin
Nida Sinnokrot - Born in Algiers, 1971. Based in Madrid
Valeska Soares - Born in Belo Horizonte, 1957. Based in Brooklyn. Also collaborating with
O Grivo composed of Nelson Soares & Marcos Moreira Marcos - Based in Belo Horizonte
David Spriggs - Born in Manchester, 1978. Based in Montreal
Ana Vidigal - Born in Lisbon, 1960. Based in Lisbon
Sharif Waked - Born in Nazareth, 1964. Based in Haifa
Liu Wei - Born in Beijing, 1965. Based in Beijing
Lawrence Weiner - Born in New York, 1942. Based in New York
Jane & Louise Wilson - Born in London, 1967. Based in London
Yonamine - Born in Luanda, 1975. Based in Lisbon
For local press enquiries
Mariam W. Al Dabbagh, Head of Communications
Sharjah Biennial 9 +971 6 568 5050 mariam.aldabbagh@sharjahbiennial.org
For international press enquiries
Klara M. Piza, Brunswick Arts +49 30 20 67 33 68 kpiza@brunswickgroup.com
Maria Marques, Brunswick Arts +44 20 79 36 12 85 mmarques@brunswickgroup.com
Official Inauguration, Thursday 19, 10-13
by H.H Dr.Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi
Sharjah Art Museum
The Sharjah Art Museum, one of the main institutions in the Art Area, was inaugurated during the 3rd Sharjah Biennial in April 1997. The museum is one of the main landmarks of this area, has a total area of 111,000 square metres and is constructed of two stories with underground car parking. It consists of 68 halls of various sizes: 28 halls with an area of 52-56 sq.metres and 40 halls with 41-76 sq.metres.
Just off the Corniche and on the north side of Burj Avenue (Bank Road), the arts area comprises five architecturally acclaimed heritage buildings and a mosque dating back to the end of the eighteenth century. Here you will find Sharjah Art Museum