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7/4/2003

Sharjah International Art Biennial

Sharjah Expo Centre, Sharjah

The Sharjah International Art Biennial has grown rapidly in stature since it first appeared on the world Biennial stage in 1993. Sharjah was the obvious choice to host such an event.

Long acknowledged as the artistic hub of the United Arab Emirates, it was Sharjah which built the country's first dedicated national art gallery. The city is also home to The Emirates Fine Arts Society - and, in 1998, was named the Cultural Capital of the Arab World.

Little wonder then, that on such fertile artistic ground, the Sharjah Art Biennial should have sprouted so quickly from precocious newcomer to respected fixture on the International Biennial Calendar.

In only a decade the Sharjah Biennial has established itself as the single most important artistic event in the UAE - and one of the cultural highspots in the Middle East diary.

With the 6th Biennial approaching fast, the Emirate is actively preparing for an influx of artists from all over the world. Arrangements are in full swing to accommodate the artistic needs of top global artists from many different cultures.

Cultural diversity has always been key to the Sharjah Biennial. This year, thirty-five nationalities from 28 countries will be represented by the 100-plus artists who take part.

Running from April 8 to May 8, the art festival breaks the mould of previous Biennials by focusing on art's 'new practices' - giving centre stage to works of installation, video, photography, performance and web art.

The event will be staged at Sharjah's new Expo Centre and Sharjah Art Museum - but projects will also 'spill out' into the Heritage and Old Town areas as part of the Biennial's determination to interact more closely with the people.

The growing reputation of the Sharjah Biennial is evidenced by the fact that it attracted 2000 applications from artists around the world eager to take part - a huge compliment to a young Biennial taking place in turbulent times.

From April 8, artists, distinguished critics, art academics, researchers, historians and media will all descend on the city - transforming it into the artistic hub of the Middle East for an entire month.

The Biennial incorporates an International Art Symposium from April 9 to 11 when controversial and provocative issues will be embraced by the Theme 'Art In A Changing Horizon'.

'The 6th Sharjah Biennial will be experimental to a great extent', says Chief Curator Peter Lewis. It will push the boundaries. Contemporary art should always be at the forefront of new ideas and practices.'

Sharjah International Biennial 6 will represent 117 artists from 25 countries, as a questioning of the relations that constitute the global sphere of cultural agency.

Curators Hoor Al Qasimi (UAE) and Peter Lewis (Goldsmiths College) have worked with a number of other international curators including Britta Schmitz, (Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin), to select works for the Biennial.

The new Expo Centre will host, with the Sharjah Museum of Art, works of installation, video and photography in a survey of contemporary practices, that have looked at the developments in the UAE and Arab world (recent survey '5 / UAE' at Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen, and of the work of curators, artists and writers that have come to prominence since ' Documenta XI,' such as artist/theorists Tony Chakar, Jalal Toufic and Bilal Kheibz).

The curators have selected works that articulate the multiple, yet general discourses between aesthetics and politics in terms of both a diversification and co-inciding of representations and insurgencies. In the generalised terms of the post-modern/post-colonial conditions that are interrogated, also in view of recent 9/11 consequences, the Biennial aims to address this aesthetic, specifically at an urgent time now.

The Biennial is showing the works in dialogical contexts, as emerging between these dangerous slippages.

Opening simultaneously at Sharjah Expo Centre, and at the Museums of Art, on April 8th it will run until 8 May the event breaks the mould of previous Biennials in representing alternative practices. More attention is given to realising artists" projects.

A retrospective of works by Eduardo Chillida is organised in conjunction to the Biennial at the Museum by Dr. Dorothea van der Koelen.
The catalogue comprises 630 pages, in colour with also a short guide. It is written in Arabic and English and has commissioned essays from writers from UAE, Lebanon, Europe, USA and China.
Prizes at $50,000.

Guest Professor Janis Jefferies (Goldsmiths College) joins writer / artists Tony Chakar, Bilal Khbeiz and Jalal Toufic for the symposium on 9 / 10 /11 April "
Changing Horizons: New Aesthetic Practice' organised by UAE art critic Talal Moualla.
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List of Events

Opening ceremony:

Tuesday 8 April 2003:
10.00: Opening Ceremony - Sharjah Expo Centre.
19.30: Opening Ceremony - Parallel Exhibitions - Art Area
21.30: Official Dinner, Prize Distribution - Sharjah Art Institute - Art Area
Speeches of: Organizing Committee, Honorary, Jury Committee.

Performances:

Tuesday 8 April 2003:
Morning:
Takehito Koganezawa, Expo Centre.
Tatsuo Majima, Expo Centre.
S.Chandrasekaran, Expo Centre.
Tadashi Watanabe, Expo Centre.

Venues:
Sharjah Expo Centre
Sharjah Museum of Art

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