Related Research Articles
In the art world, a Biennale, Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is a large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. The term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895, but the concept of such a large scale, and intentionally international event goes back to at least the 1851 Great Exhibition in London.
Stephen Stapleton is an artist, social entrepreneur, and founding director of Edge of Arabia, CULTURUNNERS, and the UK charity The Crossway Foundation.
Vasif Kortun is a curator, writer and educator in the field of contemporary art, its institutions, and exhibition practices. Kortun served as the founding director of several international institutions, including SALT, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Proje4L, and the Museum of the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. In 2006, he received the Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies for his "experimental approach and openness to new ideas to challenge the contemporary art world and push its parameters beyond national or international, local or global developments." Kortun has written extensively on contemporary art and visual culture in Turkey for publications and periodicals internationally. He currently lives in Ayvalık, a seaside town on the northwestern Aegean coast of Turkey.
Jananne Al-Ani is an Irish-Iraqi artist.
Saudi Arabian art is contextual to the country being the birthplace of Islam; it includes both the arts of Bedouin nomads and those of the sedentary peoples of regions such as the Hejaz, Tihamah, Asir and Najd.
Ahmed Mater is a Saudi artist and physician. His mediums are photography, calligraphy, painting, installation, performance and video. His work, which explores history, the narratives and aesthetics of Islamic culture, and addresses consumerism and transformation taking place in the region and its effects on geopolitics, has attracted an international audience. In 2003, he cofounded "Edge of Arabia", an independent arts initiative dedicated to promoting the appreciation of contemporary Arab art and culture, with a focus on Saudi Arabia.
Ayman Baalbaki is a Lebanese painter. He studied at the Lebanese University and at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris. His large-scale expressionist portraits of fighters made him one of the most popular young Arab artists.
The Samdani Art Foundation is a private art foundation founded in 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh that aims to increase artistic engagement between the art and architecture of Bangladesh and the rest of the world. It is best known for producing the bi-annual Dhaka Art Summit, which is the highest daily visited contemporary art exhibition in the world, welcoming over 477,000 visitors in its fifth edition in February 2020. It completed its sixth edition in 2023. The foundation produces education programmes and exhibitions across the year in collaboration with Bangladeshi and international institutions and is one of the most active art institutions in South Asia.
Abdulnasser Gharem is a Saudi Arabian artist and also a lieutenant colonel in the Saudi Arabian army. In April 2011, his installation Message/Messenger sold for a world record price at auction in Dubai.
There has been an increase in public galleries exhibiting modern art in Saudi Arabia. This is supported by the influx of commercial galleries in the country and a growing grass-roots movement of artists which have acquired international status. Saudi Arabia is making its mark on the contemporary art scene and at the centre of this are women. These artists are noted for pushing at existing boundaries in the socially conservative country. Their work is largely feminist in nature—posing questions on the current political climate and women's rights. They question existing parameters and challenge proposed gender roles and social norms and use art to express injustices in order to give voice to an otherwise marginalized group.
Ala Younis is a research-based artist and curator, based in Amman. Younis initiates journeys in archives and narratives, and reinterprets collective experiences that have collapsed into personal ones. Through research, she builds collections of objects, images, information, narratives, and notes on why/how people tell their stories. Her practice is based on found material, and on creating materials when they cannot be found or when they do not exist.
Safeya Binzagr is a Saudi Arabian artist. She is a supporter of the art scene in Jeddah. Binzagr opened her own museum and gallery, the Darat Safeya Binzagr in 2000. She is the only artist in her country to have their own museum.
Ibraaz is an online forum for visual culture in North Africa and the Middle East.
Dana Awartani is a Saudi visual artist, of Palestinian ethnicity. She works in various mediums including painting, video art, and sand mosaic; and incorporates traditional methods of Islamic art. Awartani was born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where she lives today.
Manal Al Dowayan is a Saudi Arabian contemporary artist, best known for her installation piece Suspended Together from the Home Ground Exhibition at the Barjeel Art Foundation in 2011. She has shown work in a number of shows including the 2012 Soft Power show at Alan Art Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the 2013 Journey of Belonging, a solo show at Athr Gallery in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the 2017 100 Masterpieces of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art in Paris, France, as well as having her work exhibited in the 2014 USA Biennial in Houston, the 2015 P.3: Prospect New Orleans USA Biennial Notes For Now, and the Venice Biennale in the Future of a Promise Exhibition. Her work spans many mediums from photography to installation and focuses on a progressive examination and critique women's roles in Saudi society.
Faig Ahmed is an Azerbaijani contemporary visual artist who is best known for his surrealist weavings which integrate visual distortions into traditional oriental rugs.
Zahrah Al Ghamdi is a Saudi Arabian visual and land artist, as well as an assistant professor at the College of Art and Design at the University of Jeddah.
Shadia Alem or Shādiyah 'Ālim or in Arabic: شادية عالم is a Saudi Arabian visual artist.
Ahmed Alsoudani was born in 1975 in Baghdad, Iraq and came to the United States after fleeing from his native country in the mid-1990s. He is best known for his vividly colored and surreal acrylic and charcoal canvases, in which distorted, grotesque faces and body parts portray the horrors of war. This motif draws on his own experiences of devastation and violence, evoking a universal experience of conflict and human suffering.
Basmah Felemban is a Saudi Arabian, self-taught graphic designer. She has an interest in symbolism and Islamic metaphysics.
References
- ↑ Greenbox Museum of Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia, Abdulnasser Gharem
- ↑ Der Tagesspiegel, 29 June 2010, Edge of Arabia zeigt Kunst aus Saudi Arabien
- ↑ Ikono.tv, 19 October 2010, Edge of Arabia in Istanbul
- ↑ Time Out, 9 March 2011, Pioneering art scheme brings Saudi Arabia's contemporary art to the masses
- ↑ Financial Times, 3 June 2011, A spring in their step Archived 2 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Berlin Art Link, 5 November 2011, "The Future of a Promise" at the 54th Venice Biennale
- ↑ The Huffington Post, 25 January 2012, 'We Need To Talk': Saudi Arabia's First Public Contemporary Art Exhibit Tests Governmental Limits
- ↑ The New York Times, 18 January 2012, Contemporary Artists Rock the Boat Gently in Saudi Arabia
- ↑ The National, 23 January 2012, Saudi artists find a voice in Edge of Arabia's Jeddah exhibition
- ↑ Financial Times, 19 October 2012, An exhibition of the lesser known side of Middle East art comes to London’s East End
