In copertina una veduta dell’installazione Standing by the Ruins dell’artista Dana Awartani per la Biennale di Rabat. Courtesy the artist, and ATHR gallery, Jeddah Standing by the Ruins  è l’installazione realizzata dall’artista Dana Awartani (Palestina – Arabia Saudita) su commissione per la Biennale di Rabat. Questa edizione della biennale si intitola  Un Instant Avant le Monde  e vede come curatore Abdelkader Damani.
Vi avevo già presentato Dana Awartani nella rubrica “ Voci d’arte araba “, attraverso un video che ci aveva avvicinati alla sua pratica artistica e alla sua visione.

"Since its inception, Al Burda has grown as an initiative that champions Islamic art and culture, encompassing both classical and contemporary styles.
"We have adopted an interdisciplinary approach, inviting the creative community to experience the unique intersection of culture, art and design," Al Kaabi said on Tuesday during the announcement of the event's details.
"Al Burda is a testament to our leadership's commitment to building a greater understanding of our shared culture," the minister added.
Masterpieces
Ten artists, who received a grant last year, will be presenting  their works in the Al Burda Endowment exhibition.
Among them are Emirati artists Aljoud Lootah, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Khalid Al Banna and Ammar Al Attar; Saudis Dana Awartani and Nasser Al Salem; as well as  Aisha Khalid from Pakistan; Zoulikha Bouabdella from Algeria; Fatima Uzdenova from Russia;  and Stanley Siu from Hong Kong.
Their masterpieces will also be part of Abu Dhabi Art on November 21.

Abu Dhabi’s Al-Burda Endowment exhibition will showcase the work of 10 selected artists, who were awarded a special grant in 2018, on Nov. 21.
Poetry and light are key elements in Jeddah-based artist Dana Awartani’s, which aims to revive sacred art to reintroduce it to the modern world.
The Saudi artist;Nasser Al Salem’s practice challenges the boundaries of the traditional Islamic art of calligraphy by re-contextualizing it in unconventional forms.

Al Burda, an initiative that celebrates Islamic art and culture, will present the works of 10 artists in their Al Burda Endowment exhibition, which will take place during this year’s Abu Dhabi Art in November.
The exhibition will eventually travel to Alserkal Avenue next year. Details of the festival programme will be announced later this year.

JEDDAH: From New York to Paris and from Barcelona to Beirut, Saudi artists are being given a great opportunity to further their knowledge and experience, as well as explore new ideas. Jeddah’s Athr Gallery, a strong supporter of contemporary art, is sending established Saudi artists to cities around the world for inspiration and self-challenge.
The art-residency program, entitled “Out of Place,” began as an open invitation to all Saudi-based artists during Athr’s 10th-anniversary exhibition. “The title refers to the notion of home and comfort zones, both of which get shaken when artists root themselves in a new city and environment for a residency program,” Alia Fattouh, director of Athr Gallery, told Arab News.
 
The main goal of an art-residency program is to inspire and broaden the horizons of those taking part, by allowing them to experience art and culture in different contexts.

Ayman Zedani’s  Between Muddles and Tangles  features a contemplative abstract video of lights dancing across a tangle of branches and leaves.
The artwork is a meeting of the artificial and the natural, as the artist filmed the glow of a light show against nearby greenery in an unknown location in the UAE.
“It’s a cross-section of man-made and natural environments where new landscapes thrive,” he says, pointing out that insects have adapted to these disruptions by using lights to guide their paths.
In one corner of the room, the artist has set up a sort of growth lab for the desert plant Kaff Mariam (Hand of Mary), placing them under LED lights that give off the same wavelength as sunlight.

The resulting video,  Sarab  (2016), was included in “ Naphtha, ” a summer exhibition curated by artist Moath Alofi at the Khuzam Palace in Jeddah and organized by the Saudi ministry of culture. It stands as a provocative representation of the changes taking place in the country, and a potent symbol of its attempted break with the past as it enters new terrain under 33-year-old crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MbS, who has promised modernizing reforms.
 “When things move fast and you are in the middle of them, you cannot comprehend the speed,” says Mohammed Hafiz, an art collector and co-founder of  Athr Gallery , a contemporary art space established in Jeddah in 2009.

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.

Over the last year, Saudi Arabia’s art scene has been exploding in the region and beyond, most recently with exhibitions such as “Zamakan,” which brought together the works of 11 of the country’s top contemporary artists. In this supportive and growing environment for arts and culture, more of the Kingdom’s young contemporary artists are making a name for themselves, such as Basmah Felemban, a self-taught graphic designer from Jeddah who also owns her own studio in the city of her birth. As a young creative now based in Saudi Arabia, Felemban is an avid supporter of Kingdom’s local creative scene, often participating in workshops, talks, and utilizing her social media platforms in a way that provides inspiration to others. Over the course of her short career, Felemban has already exhibited in many international and local exhibitions including Art Dubai, 21/39, contemporary art Istanbul, Venice Biennale, and Art Abu Dhabi.

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".

The exhibition, which takes place at Ithra, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, displays the work of some of Saudi Arabia’s most pivotal contemporary artists

 
Three old wooden doors are inexplicably alluring. The first one is colored in a vibrant shade of turquoise yet numerous scratchings on its surface tell of years of use. The central one, unpainted and found in a light tan hue, is the most intact of all three and has a silver door handle while the third is the most battered, scratched and beaten—time has worn its originally soft surface into a battlefield of a wear and tear.
It’s become battered, discarded and devoured by the harsh desert and beaming with one last purpose through  Saudi  artist Moath Alofi’s work,  The Doors of Thad  (2019), part of the ongoing project The Last Tashahhud.

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.”