The halls of Manarat Al Saadiyat have been repopulated with artists, gallerists, curators and visitors as Abu Dhabi Art returns to a physical format this year.

More than 600 artworks are on display in booths across three galleries in Manarat Al Saadiyat. 

Among the standout booths is Athr Gallery from Jeddah, showcasing ink on paper works by Yemeni artist Sara Abdu, collages by Saudi artist Mohammed Al Faraj and mixed media pieces by Lebanese-British artist Aya Haidar.

Is Art Basel’s Noah Horowitz a glutton for punishment? Ten years ago, he was the director of the first ever online art fair, called the VIP Art Fair, an ambitious initiative that crashed on launch and left scepticism of online art platforms in its wake. Now Horowitz, director of Art Basel Americas, finds himself also overseeing the fair group’s virtual showings — known as Online Viewing Rooms (OVRs) — which must seem uncannily familiar. This week sees the opening of OVR: Portals (June 16-19), the second of three standalone, online-only fairs planned for this year.

Highlights include works by the Los Angeles sculptor Karon Davis, who references the US government’s violent prosecution of the Black Panther Party members (shown by Jeffrey Deitch) and two Saudi Arabian artists — Ahaad Al Amoudi and Mohammad Al Faraj — who look at the future of their country from a millennial generation’s perspective

DUBAI – In the age of Instagram and all digital outlets, it is so  important to see art and appreciate the artist’s work in person. In its 14th iteration, Art Dubai was one of the first institutions in the world to provide the opportunity of attending a physical art fair since the coronavirus outbreak in March 2019.

My name is Stephany Sanossian and I attended this year’s Art Dubai and brought to artmejo my favourite picks from the fair! After seeing over 100 works by artists from all over the globe, I was truly inspired by each and it was tough to pick and choose! Out of everything, here are my highlights of Art Dubai 2021:

What makes you stop and stare at a particular artwork?

For me, it is two things. One, the uniqueness of the work. Two, the artist’s ability to take me inside their thoughts and own world using a simple piece of work.

ATHR Art is a Saudi Arabian contemporary art gallery with a spectacular booth at Art Dubai. Curated by Alaa Tarabzouni, the gallery was representing artists Sara Abu Abdallah, Mohammad Alfaraj and Ahaad Al Amoudi.

As the world slowly begins to emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia seeks to reengage its population with cultural activities. Noor Riyadh - which translates from Arabic to "Light of Riyadh" - is a citywide light and art festival illuminating the Saudi capital of Riyadh for the next three months.

Due to the global pandemic, 2020 was hardly characterized by cultural events or communal gatherings. But globally, society has gradually begun to emerge from a state of self-preservation, lockdowns and solitude, and begun a return to normalcy. As the Saudi public re-integrates into post-pandemic society, the Noor Riyadh festival aims to transform urban spaces into art that immerses and engages the community.

The second half of the festival, which takes the theme "Light Upon Light," is a retrospective exhibition tracking light art from the 1960s to the present. It runs until June 12 in the King Abdullah Financial District Conference Center.

Saudis are eager to leave the challenges of 2020 behind and look to a "brighter future," according to Director of Riyadh Art Khaled Al-Hazani. The festival, "a celebration of light and art on an unparalleled scale," has already proven popular with Saudis, who have flocked to see the exhibitions on display. Lulwah Al Homoud, one of the Saudi artists exhibiting her work, considers the inaugural festival as the beginning of a "golden age of Saudi art," she says.

The artworks, which encompass a range of media, including music, sculpture and performance, can be found in two main areas: The King Abdul Aziz Historical Center and the King Abdullah Financial District, where visitors can also view “Light Upon Light,” an exhibition of light art from the 1960s to the present, which is on view until June 12.
While the global art community will have to view the artworks virtually, Saudis have already been flocking to the venues in record numbers.
“One of the most critical aspects of Vision 2030 is the flourishing of the Saudi creative economy, which we are trying to foster, and this is one of the main highlights of Noor Riyadh as a program,” Anas Najmi, adviser to the Royal Commission for Riyadh City, told Arab News. “Despite all of the challenges of the pandemic, we managed to give the experience to 15,000 visitors in just one day. Secondly, over 1,200 jobs were created as part of the Noor Riyadh festival, half of which are for Saudis.”

RIYADH — The “Light Upon Light” Exhibition, which is being held at the King Abdullah Financial District as part of the first edition of Noor Riyadh, is the largest group art exhibition that monitors the artistic movement in the lighting arts since 1960s until todate.

It includes 30 masterworks of light art divided into four sectional “rays” that survey light as an artistic medium: “Perceiving Light,” “Experiencing Light,” “Projecting Light,” and “Environmental Light.” Each ray blends time and unites established artists of diverse geographic origin.

From immersive installation to video and sculpture, visitors to “Light Upon Light” will experience a richly illuminated exhibition in all its spatial and sensory phenomena. This historical presentation of light art is a groundbreaking event for culture in Saudi Arabia. Noor Riyadh, one of the world’s most exciting festivals of light and art combining the highest quality of light artworks across the city, began on March 18 and will run through until April 3. Filled with spectacular installations, the fest will light up the night sky of the capital city of Riyadh.

The “Projecting Light,” pavilion presents artworks that use the transmission of light to create the work instead of focusing on light as a medium. In 2019, Saudi artist Sultan Bin Fahd worked on the art piece titled “Once he was a ruler”, which is a collection of photographs, in which ancient sculptures depicting the kings of the ancient Lihyan Kingdom in Northern Arabia are shown, where he modified them by placing layers of X-ray images, and these images were collected, superimposed in illuminated light boxes at the event.

Through his abstract drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations, the artist tackled cultural issues related to his homeland in the Kingdom. The artist also re-narrates historical stories and novels using art, and transmits these narratives through contemporary means to reconstruct them with a personal character.

While Saudi artist Dana Awartani is participating in the event with her work “Divan Al Majhoul 2021, which combined textiles, hand embroidery and poetry.

دبي، الإمارات العربية المتحدة (CNN) -- شهدت المملكة العربية السعودية، مساء الخميس، Ø§Ù†Ø·Ù„اق Ø§Ø­ØªÙØ§Ù„ية "نور الرياض" ÙˆØ§Ù„تي تضمنت عرض Ø£Ø¹Ù…ال فنية تفاعلية تعتمد على الإضاءة في مواقع متعددة بأنحاء مدينة الرياض

وتضمنت الاحتفالية Ù…شاركة 60 من كبار الفنانين في مجال فنون الإضاءة، ينتمون لأكثر من 20 دولة حول العالم، منهم 23 من الفنانين السعوديين، وفقاً لوكالة الأنباء السعودية "واس"

وتشتمل احتفالية "نور الرياض" على 60 عملاً فنياً، تضم جميع أشكال فنون الضوء، من بينها أعمال تاريخية وهندسية وضوئية، ومنحوتات، وعروض للإضاءة، وعروض تفاعلية، وقطع حركية، وتركيبات وأعمال خارجية، ومجموعة من أشكال الفن الخفيف، يتاح لسكان وزوار مدينة الرياض الاستمتاع بها عن قرب في مختلف أرجاء المدينة، مع تخصيص مركزين رئيسين للاحتفالية في كلٍ من مركز الملك عبدالله المالي ومركز الملك عبدالعزيز التاريخي بالمربع

Misk Art Institute (MAI), under the auspices of the Misk Foundation established by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, has launched Imprint, a photography, film and digital exhibition (Oct. 4, 2020 — Jan. 28, 2021).

Curated by Latifa Abdul Rahman Al Khalifa and featuring the works of 17 Saudi and Gulf artists, the show is being held at Prince Faisal bin Fahd Fine Arts Gallery (or Masaha, meaning ‘space’ in Arabic), established in 1985 in Riyadh as a governmental hall dedicated to fine arts. It was renovated by MAI and reopened in 2019.

This year, the Saudi Art Council event has been given the title “I Love You, Urgently,” as a call to action in response to the global environmental emergency. With Saudi society undergoing a rapid transformation, the council asked local and international figures from the worlds of art, architecture and design to seek tangible solutions to the crisis and come up with alternative and symbiotic ways of living on our planet.

A wide range of Saudi, Arab and European artists and creators are taking part. They include Ayman Zedani, Aziz Jamal, Cristiana De Marchi, Daniah Al-Saleh, Duran Lantink, Fahad bin Naif & Alaa Tarabzouni, Farah K. Behbehani, Filwa Nazer, Maha Nasrallah, Manal Al-Dowayan, Marwah Al-Mugait, Mohammad Al-Faraj, Mohammed Kazem, Muhannad Shono, Obadah Aljefri, Omar Abduljawad, Nasser Al-Salem, Nojoud Al-Sudairi, Raja’a Khalid, Sultan Bin Fahd and Zahrah Al-Ghamdi.

Hailing from Saudi Arabia, Al Faraj has previously showcased his work across Dubai and Jeddah. “I think what really drove the idea into becoming this work was mainly seeing the robot Sophia being awarded the Saudi citizenship on TV, in contrast to my experience in trying to make a film about a group of displaced undocumented people in southern Saudi Arabia,” shares Al Faraj. “This was also my first attempt into balancing between the form and the content, make both influence each other in the work so that three chapters unfold in a sculpture of screens that's built and designed on three planes.”

“I don’t play music, but I felt that at times I was playing music by ear with this exhibition, listening to conversations around me as they were coming to the surface,” says Inouye.

Composition and sound are also key to Mohammed Al Faraj’s 10-minute video Sophia (2018-2019). Projected on three surfaces – two joining walls and the floor – the work merges real news footage of Sophia, the first robot to be granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, with reportage about a distressed sea turtle in Jeddah and other images of the artist’s home town, Al Hassa, in Saudi Arabia. It has an apocalyptic feel to it, particularly as Al Faraj has introduced purposeful glitches, which the curator says represent a kind of “digital decay that anticipates the demise of our computational order”.

For me, the show feels like a snapshot of now, which although spreads across a wide social and political geography, is talking of something much more central to human consciousness – the idea of a common intuition or a common idea that can traverse boundaries and borders and indeed, crash through the surface.

Surface Tension runs until September 7 at Sharjah Art Foundation, Al Mureijah Square, Sharjah, www.sharjahart.org

Also located in the piazza of Rubbat Al-Khunji House, an outdoor exhibition and visual study called The City in my Playground, a collaborative work between Zahra Bundakji and artist Mohammed Al Faraj, where he and children of the neighborhood take ownership of the streets through activities, explorations, and guided workshops.

As part of SAC’s art and culture events, Sharbatli House is also hosting an aleatory created by Nasser Alshemimry. The term aleatory refers to the random interactions of different sound sources to generate a whole one large sound that is more than the sum of its parts. Legendary musician John Cage pioneered the use of aleatory in his compositions. Aleatory allows the composition to be ever evolving and influenced by the environment, surroundings, and observers. Additionally, visitors can enjoy a Book Fair Co-space at the Historic Jeddah Season. The Book Fair is designed as a co-space of knowledge at the Sharbatli House Annex, which has been repurposed to offer a space that brings people together by presenting a design bookshop, reading space and lush gathering spot. It is a quiet modest' space, serving as a canvas for community engagement and debate.

Opening on Thursday, February 8th, at 7:30pm, Athr presents “The Clocks Are Striking Thirteen”, a group exhibition, as part of 21,39 Jeddah Arts. The participating artists are Aya Haidar, Ayman Yossri, Dana Awartani, Larissa Sansour, Maha Nasrallah, Moath Alofi, Mohammed Abdelrasoul, Mohammed Al Faraj, Mohammed Monaiseer, Muhannad Shono, Nasser Al Salem, Reem Al Nasser, Sara Abdu, Tamara Al Samerai, Wael Shawky and Zahra Al Ghamdi. The exhibition is curated by Maya El Khalil.