N.S. Harsha, Nations, 2006

Art in Sharjah

The United Arab Emirates is fast becoming a significant destination for contemporary art. Local artists are gaining recognition on the world stage, and the Sharjah Biennial and Art Dubai are bringing an international art audience to their doors. In this issue of Artkrush, we take a look at the ninth Sharjah Biennial — highlighting some of its star artists and interviewing Amir H. Fallah, a participant in SB9 and the founder and creative director of the street-stylish, LA-based magazine Beautiful/Decay.

- Paul Laster, Managing Editor

FEATURE

Under the watchful eye of the daughter of Sharjah's ruler — the British educated Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi — and Jerusalem-born, Palestinian curator and artistic director Jack Persekian, the Sharjah Biennial has swiftly become the Gulf's premiere contemporary art event. Maintaining its presence as an interlocutor for contemporary art and dialogue within the United Arab Emirates for almost two decades, and now in its ninth installment, the Sharjah Biennial returned to the arts and heritage district of Sharjah's Expo Center and Museum. For the first time, it coincided with Art Dubai and the region's only fringe fair, Al Bastakiya, capitalizing on a diverse audience of heavyweight international collectors, curators, critics, artists, and general art enthusiasts.

Composed of three chapters — past, present, and future — SB9 began with a rigorous three-day education program entitled the "March Meetings." The program brought together a diverse group of cultural practitioners and institutions working within the Arab world and its diaspora, including Rem Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Lebanon's Arab Image Foundation, New York's ArteEast, and London's International Curators Forum. The centerpiece of SB9, however, is the main exhibition, Provisions for the Future. Curated by Isabel Carlos, it features 60 international artists, of whom half have been handpicked from an open-call submission announced in 2008.

One of the highlights of the exhibition is recent Artes Munde prize recipient and Indian artist N.S. Harsha's ambitious Nations installation. Featuring a mock factory with lines of sewing machines churning out the flags of the 192 countries of the United Nations, it corresponds with the abundance of textile shops in the vicinity of the arts district of Sharjah. Another standout is Pakistani artist Hamra Abbas' powerful installation of miniature paintings of school children, titled God Grows on Trees. Featuring 99 images of children (an ode to the 99 names of God in Islam) who attend a local religious school in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, it spotlights the art of Zikr — the Islamic act of reciting the name of God and simultaneously learning to master one's breathing. Situated within a closed wooden booth, the installation can be experienced only by one visitor at a time, and is the recipient of the SB9 Award. Also of note is the work of newcomer Lamya Gargash, an emerging Dubai-born artist whose photographs of private Emirati homes and offices, titled The Majlis, provide a candid view into the private spaces inhabited by UAE locals. The project has also earned her a place in the inaugural UAE Pavilion at the upcoming Venice Biennale.

Parallel to the central exhibition was "Past of the Coming Days," a ten-day performance and film program curated by Tarek Abu El Fetouh. Featuring cutting-edge film and video, it included new work by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami and live art by Lebanese political performance artist Rabih Mroué, along with nightly radio broadcasts by Mumbai-based group CAMP, another recipient of the SB9 Award.

Accompanying SB9, a catalogue, titled Provisions, continues the process-based theme, and features a scrapbook-style compilation with original artist notes, emails, sketches, and a questionnaire, all edited and designed in collaboration with Bidoun magazine and Amsterdam-based design bureau the Khatt Foundation.

Sharjah Biennial 9 continues through May 16. Watch a video overview of the exhibition on YouTube.

- Sara Raza

INTERVIEW

Amir H. Fallah — an LA artist who is also the founder and creative director of Beautiful/Decay magazine, Beautiful/Decay Apparel, and the think tank Something in the Universe — has been exhibiting his art in the Middle East since 2005, and is currently participating in the 2009 Sharjah Biennial. Artkrush editor Paul Laster caught the busy artist between tasks to discuss the Biennial, his artwork, the future of the magazine, and his relentless schedule.

Artkrush: What work are you showing in the Sharjah Biennial?

Amir H. Fallah: I'm showing a site-specific sculpture called Eclipse (Watch Tower), a large two-story structure built entirely on location in the atrium of the Sharjah Art Museum. Because of the slanted floors and unconventional construction of the museum space, I chose to work in the atrium, which had the only level flooring in the museum.

Most of my sculptures incorporate living plants that need light, and the museum's atrium has large skylights that supply natural light to all three floors. All three stories of the museum interact with the sculpture. On the first floor, you stand under the base of a platform held up by four legs, which blocks the natural light in the atrium; that's replaced by a system of fluorescent lights that shine down on a large mound of dirt with a lone cactus. On the second floor, you come face to face with the platform, which holds hundreds of objects, including ceramic sculptures built in Los Angeles, local ceramic vases and pottery found in various souks in Sharjah, live cacti and succulents, hundreds of yards of rope, rocks, family photographs, and so on. The piece is reminiscent of a prison watchtower.

The sculpture combines reality, fiction, memories, and mementos, and explores how lines can be blurred between what's real and what's fabricated. Along with the sculpture, four large paintings hang on the second floor of the museum. The paintings are fictitious blueprints for forts.

AK: Have you previously exhibited in the Middle East?

AHF: I go there about once or twice a year. I first went to Dubai in 2005 for a solo show at the Third Line. They were the very first contemporary art gallery in Dubai. Since then, I've shown with them every year or so. I'm actually going back to Dubai on April 18 for my next solo show at the gallery.

AK: Although you were born in Tehran, you grew up and were educated in the US. How do the two cultures converge in your art?

AHF: I often say that people like me, who have grown up with two cultures, are cultural hybrids. We are constantly being pulled in different directions by who we are presently and where we came from. It feels like we're in a constant cultural limbo. Topics of cultural identity used to play a more relevant role within my art when I was in college, but these days I don't try to push it to forefront of the work. If it happens naturally, then that's great, but it's very trendy nowadays to make work about one's own cultural upbringing and/or hardships. It's so easy to toss some calligraphy or women wearing chadors into my work and get attention. There are too many Middle Eastern artists relying on these tactics. I'm not interested in being put on display because I have an "exotic" background. I'd much rather have the work stand on its own, without using cultural identity to prop it up.

AK: The form of a fort is a key factor in your paintings, sculptures, and photographs. What does the fort signify to you, and how has using it solidified your work?

Keep reading for the full interview »

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