Shubbak brings together a specially curated selection of works by female Saudi artists, whose practices  are at the intersection of movement, live performance and choreography. Against a backdrop of a lack of spaces dedicated to contemporary performance, the featured  artists integrate movement in varied ways. Either trained in choreography, collaborating with choreographers or other artists, or self-staging, each artist has a distinct and personal approach to the way they use the human body as an expressive tool in their work. Their diverse practices range from quirky renditions of traditional culture, epic cinematic storytelling, choreography inspired by landscapes to Instagram-disseminated performances. 

Image & Movement includes works by Ahaad Alamoudi, Balqis Al Rashed, Sarah Brahim and Marwah AlMugait.

THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW FALCONS GRILL THEM, 2018

Ahaad Alamoudi

In Those who don’t know falcons grill them, a cohort of young male dancers perform the Khabayti, a traditional dance from Saudi Arabia’s West Coast. The choreographed pageantry of swirling, sword-wielding men and boys was once used in preparation for war, and is now typically performed at social gatherings by male dancers. However, at segregated events, female dancers are able to perform the Khabayti for women-only audiences.

Highly Strung is a durational body of work, which explores notions of motherhood, domesticity and the invisibility of a woman’s labour.

Assouline in collaboration with the destination of AlUla announces the release of an immersive book of photography and illustrations titled, AlUla. With stunning images taken by internationally renowned photographer Robert Polidori, and interpretive illustrations by multidisciplinary artist Ignasi Monreal, AlUla virtually transports readers to the destination, giving them a glimpse into the city’s rich history and a unique look into AlUla’s local culture.

Available at ATHR gallery, Jeddah. (Order your book today or drop us an email for further inquiry!) 

Nestled deep within the vast desert of northwest Arabia, AlUla is known as a cultural oasis and living museum with more than 200,000 years of human history: from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers; civilizations such as the Nabataeans, Dadanites, and Romans; Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca and Medina, and trade caravans traveling the Incense Route; to present-day communities who mingle and exchange cultural ideas with global travelers.

AlUla is home to relics both old and new including Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hegra, with remains dating back to the Nabataean kingdom, as well as modern landmarks including Maraya, an award-winning, multi-purpose concert and entertainment venue that is also the Guinness Book of Records largest mirrored venue in the world.

Maan was initiated as a response to the magnitude of the current crisis and its impact on the arts community and a continuation of Athr’s support of the art scene and its artists. It is intrinsic to our mission to proactively participate in their sustainability all while making art accessible to a wider audience and triggering change, particularly in times of uncertainty.  Initiated by Athr in cooperation with artists, the production and research fund consists of creating limited edition artworks by established and emerging artists to support fellow practicing artists.

Open to all Saudi Arabia-based visual artists, irrespective of medium of practice. There are no limitations concerning age, region or provenance of the applicant. If you are a visual artist and have a project that needs a stimulus of funds for completion or need seed funding for production or research, please see the link below and apply online.

For further information, please contact us via this email address.

maangrant@athrart.com

NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery, the university’s museum-gallery, has announced that its new fall exhibition will bring the work of four established UAE-based artists : Palestinian Areej Kaoud, Emirati Jumairy, Saudi-born Ayman Zedani and Raja’a Khalid.

Titled Speculative Landscapes and curated by Maya Allison, Chief Curator at NYU Abu Dhabi and Executive Director of the NYUAD Art Gallery,, the exhibition allows the artists to explore the concept of environment, whether natural, artificial or visual, through the close study of their surroundings in the UAE.

Sarah Abu Abdallah: For the First Time in a Long Time
August 10–October 20, 2019 

Summer Party: August 9, 7pm, Food, Drinks and Music 
Artist Talk: August 10, 4–5pm, Sarah Abu Abdallah in conversation with Tobias Peper 
Artist Talk: August 24, 3–4pm, Peaches in conversation with Bettina Steinbrügge 

Kunstverein in Hamburg 
Klosterwall 23 
20095 Hamburg
Germany 
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 12–6pm 

hamburg@kunstverein.de 

www.kunstverein.de 
Facebook / Instagram

The Kunstverein in Hamburg is delighted to present the solo exhibition Whose Jizz Is This? by Peaches and the solo exhibition For the First Time in a Long Time by Sarah Abu Abdallah. We cordially invite you to our opening on August 9, 7pm.

ATHR would like to congratulate Bricklab on curating the first summer edition of 21,39. 

Curated by:  Bricklab (Abdulrahman/Turki Gazzaz)
Preview: June 8, 6-11pm (free and open to the public) 
Location: Historical Jeddah (Al-Balad) 

OUTDOOR INSTALLATIONS
1. Carlos Cruz-Diez / Crosswalk
2. Mammafotogramma / Al-Ba‍llo‍on
3. Manal Aldowayan / I Had No Wings
4. Nasser Alshememry & Blank Studio / The Vortex
5. Alaa Tarabzouni / Al-Som
6. Aziz Jamal / Guest Soap
7. Emy Kat / Assemblage
8. Ahad Alamoudi / I’m Here Next to You; Can You Hear Me?
9. Rashed Al Shashai / +3 Centimeters
 
XENEL LOBBY
9. Rashed Al Shashai / +3 Centimeters
 
AL-KHUNJI AL-SAGHEER
10. Traumnovelle / Palace of Cultures
11. James Turrell / Sedna
12. Hajra Waheed / Video Installation Project 1-10

Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Naphtha inaugurates Khuzam Palace’s relaunch, around the theme of oil and politics. The works selected explore the broad and deep consequences of oil on both social and environmental aspects, departing from the Kingdom and branching out to the rest of world.

With the support of private patrons, Athr is pleased to offer residencies in New York, Barcelona, Paris, London, Berlin and Beirut to Saudi-based artists. 
At a time of renewed openness in Saudi Arabia, Athr would like to offer its creative community, led by artists, the opportunity to engage with an international art discourse and exchange cultural values and artistic influences. 
 
Partner residencies: 
Residency Unlimited, New York 
ISCP, New York
Can Serrat, Barcelona
Bethanien, Berlin 
Al Mansouria Atelier at Cité des Arts, Paris
Beirut Art Residency, Beirut

Bricklab, the designers of the first Saudi pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale create a new pop-up sculpture especially for Shubbak. 22 brightly coloured units equalling in number the 22 states of the Arab League are arranged in different constellations to offer new viewpoints of geographies, nations and the power to imagine other realities. No unit can stand on its own, but has to be grafted onto others. Geographical Child’s Play conjures up poignant and surprising alignments and dependencies. Established in Jeddah in 2015 Bricklab quickly established itself as one of the most dynamic current design practices in Saudi Arabia.

Structures That Cooperate takes its name from the 2018/19 programme currently happening at Cubitt, London. It is a programme of projects that talk to Cubitt’s context as an artist-run co-operative. It is a call to question default approaches to programming a gallery space, looking instead to collective formats, imaginaries and realities. For the Ways of Learning exhibition at BALTIC 39 events will share work, process and research in collaboration with Aya Haidar, NewBridge Project, Hands on Film, BALTIC 39 Staff, Cinenova, Kirsty Clarke and the Artists’ Union England.

A book of poetry entitled Classical Poems by Arab Women and Mughal era inspired mesmerizing works of art by Saudi artist Dana Awartani. Torn between the era of Mughals and classical poetry, she methodically reconfigured and crafted a nostalgic series of Islamic art and ‘Jali’ work with artisans in India on silk panels reminiscent of the royal era. Known to reinvent classic and sacred works of the past with a contemporary style, Awartani does not disappoint in her latest work for 21,39 Jeddah Arts at Athr gallery.

There is at present a remarkable flowering of the Jeddah art scene, a sense that the young and reforming country of Saudi Arabia – having been relatively isolated from the rest of the world – has something new and different to offer on the artistic stage.

Jeddah’s yearly arts festival, 21,39, took place last week, and its ancillary events this year stretched across the country. Organisers took international visitors to Dammam, on the country’s east coast, to see the gorgeously high-spec Ithra: King Abdullah Aziz Centre for World Culture, the Saudi Aramco-funded art and cultural space that opens later this year, as well as to the King Abdullah Economic City to see the country’s first-ever solo show, Drum Roll, Please of Ahmed Mater.

The Clocks Are Striking Thirteen, curated by one of Athr Gallery’s former directors, Maya El Khalil, showed works that played with materiality and symbolism in novel ways. And it had feeling: there was a sense of things at stake.

This month, Athr is presenting Saudi artists Ghada Al-Rabea’s first solo exhibition, titled Sidi Shahin. Ghada tells Vogue Arabia that the name of the exhibition comes from a tradition in Medina that celebrates the upcoming Holy Month of Ramadan, when kids sing songs and knock on neighbors doors asking for candy.

Ghada Al-Rabea’s solo exhibition at ATHR takes place from April 30th until June 1st in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Art Dubai 2017, the international summit of the arts, has opened with a record-breaking bang with galleries from 43 countries showcasing the best of the global scene.

With 93 galleries representing more than 500 artists, one gallery stands out for many Saudis visiting the region’s largest art fair.

Jeddah’s Athr Gallery is the only gallery from Saudi Arabia present at Art Dubai, and is drawing interest from passersby due to its unique collection.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1069006/art-culture#photo/1

An exhibition entitled “And Along Came Polyester” is opening at Athr art platform, based at Serafi Mega Mall’s office towers, featuring five solo presentations by female artists from the Gulf.

The exhibition, alongside two others opening on the same day, is part of the 21,39 Jeddah Arts non-profit initiative organized by the Saudi Art Council.

“This is the first time to host five women from the (Gulf) region to present at Athr,” Leila Evangelista, one of the organizers at Athr, told Arab News.

“The story behind the title of the exhibition is that polyester is a material derivative from oil. Oil has been the main source of economic strength in the area from which the artists come.”

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1047421/saudi-arabia#

Recent Slade School of Art grad Haidar’s poetic works see embroidered postcards stacked in racks atop white plinths. According to Athr’s Maryam Bilal, the artist “moved to England because of the war in Lebanon, so being a refugee is always a theme of her work. She wants the embroidery to expand elements in the postcards, cities, and landscapes that she finds most beautiful.” Within the works (each stand priced at £1,800) picket fences are sewn with black thread; swimmers lounging around municipal swimming pools are given lobster-red lifejackets. The series, titled “Wish You Were Here,” is “about this feeling of wanting to go home,” Bilal noted.

“Symbolic Cities,” which Mater shot over three years, explores the impact of urbanization and economic change on the landscapes of his native Saudi Arabia through long-form photography and video. The exhibit consists of large-scale photographic works, shot in color, as well as two short films and a collection of smaller photographs.

Viewers traveling through the exhibit begin with “The Empty Land,” a series of 15 photographs that depict parched Saudi landscapes devoid of human presence, abandoned public works projects and discarded oil barrels — objects that represent the abandonment of traditional values and agrarian ways of life in the face of modernization.

The first US solo exhibition of the renowned Saudi artist, Ahmed Mater, has opened this week at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. The ‘Symbolic Cities’ exhibition, presented in collaboration with Culturunners in partnership with Art Jameel, will be on display at the Arthur M Sackler Gallery until Sept. 18. 

This week the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery begins hosting “Symbolic Cities,” the first solo show in America dedicated to the works of Ahmed Mater, one of Saudi Arabia’s top young artists and intellectuals. Over the last decade, Mater has been among the leading figures in an artistic movement that has altered both what is discussed in public and the manner in which contentious issues are presented. Today the artistic movement includes men and women working in genres from animation to film to standup comedy.

Saudi artist Ahmed Mater will present his first US solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. “Symbolic Cities” is being presented in collaboration with Culturunners in partnership with Art Jameel, a Community Jameel initiative, and Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts (SASCA), and will be on view at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery from March 19 through Sept. 18.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an immersive program of dialogues and discussions across Washington D.C.

Another eye-grabbing installation is Ahmed Mater’s at Athr, a gallery from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, including a wall work made with plastic gun caps, “Cowboy Code II” (2012), which links the honor code of American cowboys with jihadist fighters. In the modern section, a related “focus” project brought a mini-exhibition of work by Iranian artist Parviz Tanavoli, organized by New York University’s Grey Art Gallery.

In this exhibition, a room has been transformed into a barber shop to stress the issue of influence of  Non- Arabic speakers on the Arabic Language.

Artist Ibrahim Abumsmar has posted around four pictures that show Arabic sentences regularly used by expats from Philippines and Indians in Saudi Arabia.

Abumsmar said: “The idea came to my mind when I was in the barber shop and the Bangladesh barber was telling me his life story with his new Arabic language. 

I wanted to tell him to stop speaking and that is what I wrote in the mirror ‘Sadek Mafe gorgor kater’.