2010
EXHIBITING GALLERIES
Aaran Gallery, Tehran
Agathon Gallery, Sydney
Agial Art Gallery, Beirut
Aicon Gallery, London
Aidan Gallery, Moscow
Albareh Gallery, Adliya
Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels/Paris
Artspace, Dubai
Assar Art Gallery, Tehran
Atassi Gallery, Damascus
Athr Gallery, Jeddah
Ayyam Gallery, Damascus
B21 Gallery, Dubai
Bait Muzna Gallery, Muscat
Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich
Bolsa de Arte, Porto Alegre
Carbon 12, Dubai
Cardi Black Box, Milan
Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai
Continua, San Gimignano/Beijing/Le Moulin
Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai
Dea Orh Gallery, Prague
Dirimart, Istanbul
Distrito 4, Madrid
Filomena Soares Gallery, Lisbon
Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco
Galeria Animal, Santiago
Galeria Art Lounge, Lisbon
Galeria JM, Malaga
Galeria Murilo Castro, Nova Lima
Galerie Caprice Horn, Berlin
Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
Galerie Christian Hosp, Berlin
Galerie Dorothea van der Koelen, Mainz
Galerie El Marsa, Tunis
Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut
Galerie Kashya Hildebrand, Z�rich
Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna
Galerie Piece Unique, Paris
Galerie Tanit, Munich
Gallery SUN Contemporary, Seoul
Gandhara-art, Hong Kong
Giorgio Persano, Torino
Green Art Gallery, Dubai
Grey Noise, Lahore
Grosvenor Vadhera, London
Hakgojae, Seoul
Horrach Moya, Palma de Mallorca
Hunar Gallery, Dubai
Kalfayan Galleries, Athens + Thessaloniki
Kamel Mennour, Paris
Koraalberg, Antwerp
La B.A.N.K, Paris
Laleh June Gallery, Basel
Lee Hwaik Gallery, Seoul
Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery, New York
NESSIM Gallery, Budapest
October Gallery, London
OMR Gallery, Mexico City
Paradise Row, London
Peres Projects, Berlin Los Angeles
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York
Rose Issa Projects, London
Rossi & Rossi, London
Selma Feriani Gallery, London
Sfeir Semler, Hamburg/Beirut
The Guild, Mumbai
The Third Line, Dubai
traffic, Dubai
Viltin Galley, Budapest
2010 PROJECTS
In 2010, Bidoun Projects is the curatorial partner of Art Dubai, responsible for programming a series of non-commercial exhibitions, commissions, screenings and educational events that engage with the fabric of the fair.
The projects range from A New Formalism, a group exhibition, including Hazem El Mestikawy, Iman Issa, Mahmoud Khaled and U5, that looks at new and expanded formalist practices, to a series of commissions that dwell of the spectacular, temporal nature of an art fair. These include new installations by Ebtisam Abdul-Aziz and Vartan Avakian, and a set of ice sculptures designed by Farhad Moshiri. Nikolas Gambaroff and Matt Sheridan intervene at Madinat Jumeirah with Nowhere for Nothing, a stoop designed to encourage fair-goers to stop for a chat and to exchange some gossip.
An art fair is of course defined by particular sets of performative roles – on the part of the gallerist, artist, journalist, curator, and visitor. In response, Bidoun Projects commissioned Sophia Al Maria, Khalil Rabah and Daniel Bozhkov to act as guides, conducting narrative and performative tours of the fair.
Forms of Compensation, an exhibition situated within Art Dubai’s gallery halls, is a series of reproductions of iconic modern and contemporary artworks, with an emphasis on sculptures, paintings and prints by Arab and Iranian artists. The series was produced in Cairo by craftspeople and auto mechanics in the neighbourhood around Townhouse Gallery, overseen by artists Babak Radboy and Ayman Ramadan, working from installation shots of the original artworks, along with the instruction that each copy should differ in one small way from its referent.
This year’s projects also dwell on the nature of documentation. A trio of artists and writers (Shumon Basar, Haig Aivazian and Naeem Mohaieman) are ‘in residence’ at the Global Art Forum and at the Art Park Talks, mapping the (naturally contested) conversations and moments – both those remembered and in real time. In keeping with the Global Art Forum’s theme of ‘Crucial Moments’, Alice Aycock’s seminal 1971 installation Sand/Fans, with sand sourced from the UAE desert, will be recreated. As part of Bidoun Video in the Art Park, guest curators Sohrab Mohebbi and Özge Ersoy examine the ways in which large-scale arts events have been promoted through a dynamic video programme.
The Art Park returns for the third year at Art Dubai and is once again host to a range of film screenings, talks and performances. Besides Mohebbi and Ersoy’s endeavour, this year’s Bidoun Video includes programmes curated by Masoud Amralla Al Ali, Aram Moshayedi, and Bidoun Projects, shown in a screening room and in the Bidoun Lounge in daily screenings hosted by the curators. A dynamic discussion programme includes talks and performances looking at the relationship between archives, art, music and film, in collaboration with the avant-garde archiving site UbuWeb.
The Bidoun Library is a collection of books, catalogues, journals, music and ephemera that traces contemporary art practices as well as the evolution of the various art scenes of the Middle East. At Art Dubai 2010, the resource space features a selection of innovative artists’ and children’s books (as well as music and films) published by Kanoon, Iran’s Centre for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, founded in 1961, which was an incubator for some of the country’s most celebrated artists and filmmakers, including Abbas Kiarostami, Ebrahim Forouzesh, Amir Naderi and Farshid Mesghali.
Bidoun Projects’ programmes at the fair are kindly supported by the Emirates Foundation.
Bidoun Projects is the not-for-profit curatorial wing of Bidoun, the arts organisation and publisher set up in 2003 to support contemporary artists from the Middle East. Bidoun Projects is managed by a group of artists, writers and curators based in Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, and New York.
GLOBAL ART FORUM 2010
In 2010, the Global Art Forum returns as the Middle East’s leading platform for cultural debate and discussion, focusing on key issues that bring together the arts scenes of the region with the rest of the world.
Under the banner ‘Crucial Moments’, the 2010 Forum explores evolving aspects of contemporary culture including education, mapping modernism, art writing, and patronage. Bringing experts from the art world together with those from the region, speakers will discuss both practical outcomes as well as more theoretical concerns.
ABRAAJ CAPITAL ART PRIZE RECIPIENTS
Kader Attia with Curator Laurie Ann Farrell
Born in 1970, Kader Attia spent his childhood between France and Algeria, or between the Christian Occident and the Islamic Maghreb. His work explores the impact of Western cultural and political capitalism on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), as well as how a residual struggle with and resistance to colonisation impacts Arab youth, particularly in the banlieues (suburbs) of France where Attia lived. He is represented by Galerie Christian Nagel (Berlin and Cologne) and Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna).
Born in 1970, Laurie Ann Farrell is Curator and Executive Director of Exhibitions for the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), which operates galleries in Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia, Lacoste in France and in Hong Kong. From 1999 to 2007 Farrell was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum for African Art in New York. Farrell earned her MA in Art History and Theory from the University of Arizona.
Hala Elkoussy with Curator Jelle Bouwhuis
Hala Elkoussy was born in Cairo in 1974. She studied at the American University of Cairo (AUC) before completing an MA in Image and Communication at Goldsmiths College, University of London. In 2004, she co-founded the Contemporary Image Collective, an artist-run initiative dedicated to the visual image based in Cairo. Elkoussy's work delves into the intimate and overlooked sides of communal living to highlight underlying dynamics at play within the complex urban structure that is Cairo.
Jelle Bouwhuis was born in 1965 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. He is an art historian, critic, writer and curator. Since 2006 he has been curator at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam where he is responsible for the programme of exhibitions, publications and residences. He also manages the activities of the Stedelijk Museum Bureau,
a project space in the city centre.
Marwan Sahmarani with Curator Mahita El Bacha Urieta
Marwan Sahmarani was born in Lebanon in 1970, and lives and works in Beirut. With an archetypal biography specific to his generation, he left Lebanon in 1989 and moved to Paris to study at l'École Supérieur d'Art Graphique. His practice often makes historical reference to art history and socio-political issues that are still very present in the Middle East but inspired by themes that are timeless. Sahmarani has exhibited with Fadi Mogabgab Contemporary Art Gallery, Beirut, The Third Line, Dubai, Selma Feriani Gallery, London and Kaysha Hildebrand, Zurich.
Mahita El Bacha Urieta is a curator, producer and arts policy specialist based in London. She has been active in the Middle East, working with the Sharjah Biennial (2004–07) and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage (ADACH). She has a BA in History and Archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean region from the American University of Beirut (1997) and an MA in Arts Policy and Management, City University, London (2000).
