Artist’s Rooms: Daniele Genadry
Exhibition Dates: Until 14 May 2023
Location: Jameel Arts Center
Daniele Genadry’s Blind Light (2017) artwork and her latest creations influenced by her recent research in la Rochelle and Cassis, France, and the Grand Canyon, USA are showcased in the exhibition. Genadry’s artistic approach involves using diverse media to scrutinize the impact of distance, light, and movement on visual encounters. She concentrates on investigating the connection between painting and photography, exploring how an image can generate its own temporality through light, and how a mediated field of vision can heighten our awareness.
The Nyuad Art gallery’ The only constant
Exhibition Date: until 4th June
Location: The Art Gallery at NYU Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi
The NYUAD Art Gallery is taking steps to promote sustainability issues, in light of the growing worldwide concern regarding climate change and the UAE’s focus on sustainability in 2023. In this regard, the gallery has organized an exhibition titled ‘The Only Constant’, curated by Maya Alison, which examines human-landscape interactions as represented in contemporary art across the globe. The exhibition delves into the artists’ perspectives on our present world and highlights the juncture at which human activity impacts the landscape and vice versa. The exhibition explores a broad spectrum of themes, ranging from depictions of paradise to concepts of development and the human desire for technology.
Artist’s Rooms: Ayesha Sultana
Exhibition Dates: until 14 May 2023
Location: Jameel Arts Centre
The exhibition displays the latest works on paper by Ayesha Sultana, highlighting the artist’s enduring fascination with the materiality and mundane iconography of her hometown, Dhaka. Through her art, Sultana captures the diverse forms of street corners, architectural elements, wall textures, and discarded construction materials she encounters while navigating her daily life in Dhaka and other cities she visits. These impressions gradually accumulate in her subconscious and manifest themselves in her artworks. Sultana’s artistic approach is not solely focused on form but also on material, movement, and distance, which have captivated her attention over an extended period.
Artist’s Rooms: Risham Syed
Exhibition Dates: until 14 May 2023
Location: Jameel Arts Centre
The exhibition showcases Risham Syed’s artwork titled The Seven Seas (2012), which is a set of large-scale quilts that interweave the complexities of contemporary geopolitics with the cotton trade of the British Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Syed sourced the fabrics used in her artwork during her travels to Turkey, Bangladesh, the U.A.E, Sri Lanka, U.K., India, and Pakistan. Her quilts depict 20th-century maps of port cities that played a strategic role in the European colonial trade, such as Izmir in Turkey, Kandy in Sri Lanka, Mumbai in India, and Ras al-Khaimah in the U.A.E. These cities were not only trade gateways but also sites of resistance and rebellion against imperial powers. Syed employs various techniques to create each quilt, including stitching and layering of fabric, which serve to mirror the layering of historical and post-colonial narratives. Through her art, Syed explores the location-specific craft of textile production and its significance in political resistance.
And The Mirrors Are Many
Exhibition Dates: Until 8 May 2023
Location: Warehouse 421, Abu Dhabi
The exhibition titled “And The Mirrors Are Many” explores the role of institutional repositories of memory such as museums, memorials, and archives. It poses two fundamental questions – why do we remember and how do we remember? The exhibition scrutinizes these contemporary methods of remembrance and their relationship with history. It reflects on the various aesthetics, techniques, provenance, and language used in the process of creating memories. The exhibition takes its title from a Mahmoud Darwish poem, “On the Last Evening on This Earth,” and urges us to examine our collective histories from the perspective of an ongoing catastrophe that has plagued human history.
Thinking Historically in the Present
Exhibition Dates: Until 11th June 2023
Location: Sharjah Art Foundation
The Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (SB15) exhibition, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, pays tribute to the late Okwui Enwezor and his remarkable contributions to the contemporary art world. Enwezor’s visionary work revolutionized contemporary art and introduced an ambitious intellectual project that has had a profound impact on the evolution of institutions and biennials globally. The SB15 exhibition is a reflection of Enwezor’s legacy and honors his significant achievements.