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03/26/2009: "At Sharjah Biennale 9"
The United Arab Emirates’ enthusiastic embrace of all things cultural in recent years has resulted in a lot of attention being paid to Dubai and Abu Dhabi - both now host commercial art fairs and both have cultural mega-projects on the way. Less attention has been paid to the smaller Emirate of Sharjah which is doing neither of these things but remains quietly confident about its status as the real cultural capital of the UAE.
There is justification in this claim. Sharjah is the founder and home of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, was the UNESCO capital of Arab culture in 1998 and is currently home to more museums than Abu Dhabi and Dubai combined. However, perhaps the greatest evidence of Sharjah’s pioneering role in cultural development is the fact that since 1993 it has hosted its own biennale, the 9th edition of which opened on March 19th and will run until May 19th.
The main exhibition component of this Biennale called Provisions for the Future loosely explores how fictionalized notions of utopia can provide motivation for movement from one place to another. It also reflects on how action in the present either does or doesn’t provide security in the future. With a strong focus on experimentation and process, site-specific installation work was very much encouraged and this experimental ethos extended to the Biennale catalogue. This is a 2-part collaborative project between the Biennale, Bidoun Magazine, the Khatt Foundation and the 58 artists themselves. Part I focuses on creative process rather than finished product so each artist provided materials showing how the work emerged, from conceptual thought and preliminary visualization, to actual local layout planning and logistics. Part II of the catalogue will be published to coincide with Art Dubai in 2010 and will complete the process by documenting what actually happened in the Biennale. However, it is fascinating to be able to make these comparisons yourself as you see each work. 
Diana Al–Hadid’s partially collapsed structural installation was inspired by the Tower of Babel story and the patterns in a fingerprint. Despite the materials used and the size of the work it sat very delicately in a plaza in front of the Sharjah Art Museum which was covered with text by Lawrence Weiner. Nearby Maidar Lopez had intervened by drawing football field gridlines and installing a water fountain. This transformed the space especially in the evening when it was packed with kids playing football. Laurent Grasso’s large blue neon in Arabic reading ‘The wider the vision, the narrower the statement’ also worked well with the distinct Sharjah space and was perfectly placed in a long arched corridor. Prize for the most striking installation, however, has to go to Lara Faveretto. Her row of brightly coloured carwash brushes spinning purposefully in a large open courtyard was truly awesome. 
Two installations consisted of dark mazes incorporating video and sound pieces. Around each corner of Agnes Janich’s maze, Man to Man, were video projections of snarling and barking dogs or bloody bones and the noisy and claustrophobic space is constructed to make wrong dark dead ends very likely. On entering Lamia Joreige’s maze, Three Triptychs, music is triggered along with a camera which projects your progress onto a facing screen. In the next section you are abruptly removed from the image. Some of the video imagery is taken from the Tarkovsky film Solaris and projected onto the floor as well as onto screens while other imagery relates to the war in Lebanon. Some of the atmospheric audio input was arranged by musician, artist and techno whizz, Tarek Atoui. Interestingly Janich’s maze as presented in the catalogue was tangible enough to predict but Joreige’s impossible even to imagine. Similarly, the catalogue could not prepare you for the treat of Hala Elkoussy’s archive which was a small separate room crammed with photos, paintings, video screens and many other strange and wonderful items. It was an absolute dream space for hoarders, collectors, and thrift shop junkies. 
Another installation highlight was N.S. Harsha’s Nations consisting of hundreds of sewing machines loosely connected by tangled cotton and each draped with the flag of a different nation. The sheer scale of it made it look like an Asian sweatshop. Meanwhile, Firoz Mahmud’s Halycon Tarp was another epic cross-media installation using the Bengal tiger as a motif to reveal aspects of Bangladeshi history, society and politics as well as drawing attention to the perils facing the tigers themselves.
Decoder by Alberto Duman was supposed to be a tall outdoor tower of shopping trolleys. However, what transpired was a mini stack of trolleys on sand surrounded by photographs of trolleys in the desert and the plans for the original work. This was a great example of how an ambitious and experimental work could be successfully modified owing to difficulties with on-site logistics and how this process in itself could alter the meaning of the work.
Some work, however, didn’t live up to its catalogue expectations at all. Juan Araujo’s oil paintings on wood ended up being completely different to what was proposed and much less engaging. In the case of Doug Henders it was hard to relate the actual work to his carefully presented concepts which was very frustrating. This had the unfortunate result of making the catalogue pages seem more interesting that the work itself! 
There was a lot of innovative video work in the Biennale but those that stood out most for me were by Sharif Waked and Nikolaj Larsen. Waked uses the now familiar media image of a suicide bomber’s last broadcast but his protagonist reads excerpts from One Thousand and One Nights instead thus avoiding the horrific denouement. This mirrors the origin of the tales themselves in which Scheherazade narrates one gripping tale after another to King Shahrayar in order to save herself and her tribe from execution. Nikolaj Larsen’s work consists of two videos projected onto facing screens. On one screen Indian migrant workers based in Sharjah stand staring into the camera. On the opposite screen their families back in India do the same. Sitting in that space between the screens the viewer has to make the connections resulting in a very intimate and moving experience.
There was also a performance, theatre and film programme which provided a rare opportunity to see theatrical performances like Richard III, An Arab Tragedy, Sulayman Al Bassam’s dramatic adaptation of the Shakespeare play relocated to the contemporary Gulf. Placing the historical play in this modern context obviously reveals the relevance of Shakespearean themes across time and cultures but also gives a fascinating insight into how cultural activity can delicately reframe regional political discourse. By contrast, Elena Kovylina’s performance ‘Un cri dans le silence’ provided a moment of complete dislocation from cultural context. The performance was a scene re-enactment from Brigitte Bardot’s 1964 film And God Created Woman. It involved chicks, rabbits and a sexy dance in high heels and almost transparent dress. It was completely bizarre and I’m still not convinced I didn’t dream it!
Obviously there is a lot more to cover in something of this size and scale and this review really does not do it justice. Fortunately it goes on until May 19th so I am anticipating a lot more time down in the cultural capital of the UAE…
Links
Sharjah Biennale http://www.sharjahbiennial.org/en/default.html
Bidoun http://www.bidoun.com/
Khatt Foundation http://www.khtt.net/
