The Jameel Arts Centre has announced its programming for the new season, with a focus on urgent, discursive, and digital- and research-driven artworks.

The art space, which opened on Dubai Creek last year, has already made a name for itself as a key site of critical contemporary art with an Arab regional focus. The programme for the coming year continues this pattern: with the first solo exhibitions in the region for young Saudi artist Sarah Abu Abdallah and in 2020 for Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz. A major thematic exhibition, Phantom Limb, explores how fragments of material heritage can haunt the present.

Saudi-Arabien verbindet man sicher mit Vielem: mit der systematischen Unterdrückung von Frauen zum Beispiel, mit nicht eben zimperlichen Geheimdiensten oder mit einem brutalen Krieg gegen den Jemen - jedoch nicht unbedingt mit einer jungen Videokünstlerin. Eine solche ist nun im Hamburger Kunstverein zu entdecken, der Sarah Abu Abdallah die erste Einzelausstellung in Europa widmet. Ihr Titel: "For The First Time In A Long Time".

“There are so many myths in Al Balad,” says Effat Abdullah Fadag, who is curating this year’s 21, 39 Jeddah Arts, the annual visual art festival in the city. The academic and artist, who lives in Jeddah, is exploring the idea of myth in the exhibition, which, as in previous iterations, takes place at Gold Moor Mall and in the old house of Rabat Khunji in Al Balad. The latter area is renowned for its ­intricately carved doors and mashrabiyas, which date back to the 19th and early 20th centuries.

This year’s theme overall is Al Obour, or “crossing” – such as the new crossing into the old, the exterior crossing into the inside and, crucially, different generations crossing paths. Fadag explains that the emphasis on numerous generations came from Princess Jawaher bint Majed bin Abdulaziz, the patron of the event. “I gathered artists from different generations – pioneers, the upcoming generation, established artists – and added, of course, international artists.”

Saudi Arabia has launched a venture to become an arts hub. The Riyadh-based Misk Art Institute, sponsored by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, aims to be a center of education, culture and society.
Hend Al-Mansour, who has said that women artists are still often overlooked in Saudi Arabia, has named five women to watch who overcome those barriers. Many have been recognized inside and outside Saudi Arabia, particularly in the US.

Jeddah’s art scene is seeing a rich flow of exhibitions and events that shed light on work from local and regional artists.
The 21,39 art initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting art and culture, has combined a series of events that began this month and will carry on until May, with support from the General Entertainment Authority.
One of the highlights of the activities is “And Along Came Polyester,” which gathers the work of five women artists from the Gulf to showcase their contemporary work in solo exhibitions under the same roof at Athr Gallery.

Arab News spoke to the five artists about their experiences at the “And Along Came Polyester” exhibition.

 A Thursday night of contemporary art puts a refreshing end to schools’ midyear break. Young people and art lovers filled Athr art platform based at Serafi Mega Mall’s office towers as the artwork of five woman artists from the Gulf had them mesmerized.
The exhibition entitled “And Along Came Polyester” displayed the work of Saudi artist Sarah Abu Abdullah’s “18 Blankets,” Qatari artist Aisha Al-Sowaidi’s “The Shift,” Bahraini artist Hala Al-Khalifa’s “She Wore Her Scares Like Wings,” Kuwaiti artist Monira Al-Qadiri’s “Legacy” and Emirati artist Layla Juma’s “A Still Moment in Thought & Spatial Perception.”

Mr. Mater is emblematic of an outspoken new generation of Saudis who are making a name for themselves, and Saudi Arabia, in the world of contemporary art. Like Mr. Mater, some of these artists are using their work as a tool of critique, testing the limits of what is permissible in the ultraconservative kingdom.

“Art has a big role to play for change,” Mr. Mater said in an interview in his studio in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. “We are needed to push these red lines, the restrictions. It’s more interesting here than where there is freedom of expression.”

Participating artists:

Sarah Abu Abdallah, Heba Amin, Eleanor Antin, Darren Bader, Tyler Coburn, Simon Denny, Jason Dodge, Maria Eichhorn, Dora Garcia, Liam Gillick, Melanie Gilligan, Goldin+Senneby, Pierre Huyghe, Roberto Jacoby, Hanne Lippard, Lee Lozano, Mathias Poledna, Mladen Stilinovic, UBERMORGEN 

Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany

For the first time, the exhibition FLUIDITY focuses on the fluid as a defining feature of contemporary social realities against the backdrop of the art-historical discussion of the phenomenon of dematerialization. Starting from the ground-breaking publication project "Six Years - The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972" by Lucy R. Lippard (1973), the group exhibition FLUIDITY establishes an update of international conceptual strategies.