Global Art Forum_7

17-18.3.2013
MATHAF: ARAB MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
DOHA
 
20-23.3.2013
ART DUBAI, MADINAT JUMEIRAH
DUBAI

Featuring commissioned projects and research, as well as six days of live talks, the Global Art Forum brings together a diverse line-up of participants, including artists, curators, musicians, strategists, thinkers and writers.

Founded and produced by Art Dubai, Global Art Forum is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), and is held in partnership with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (Qatar Museums Authority).

In 2013, the seventh iteration of the Global Art Forum was directed by Istanbul based writer/editor HG Masters, and commissioned by writer/curator Shumon Basar. Entitled ‘It Means This’, the forum explored the concept of ‘definitionism’: investigating the words, terms, clichés and misunderstandings that proliferate in the art world and beyond. The Forum attempted to (re)define words, phrases and ideas we think we know, and those we need to know, to navigate the 21st century.

Global Art Forum_7 featured over 40 contributors. New participants to the Forum included Dubai-based political scientist Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla; poet and author Mourid Barghouti (I Saw Ramallah, among other books); artist and former REM lead singer Michael Stipe; writer-editors Charles Arsene-Henry, Brian Kuan Wood (Editor, eflux journal) and Guy Mannes-Abbott (author, In Ramallah, Running); artists Tarek Atoui, Tristan Bera, Manal Al Dowayan, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Shuruq Harb, Hassan Khan, Emeka Ogboh, Slavs and Tatars, Ala Younis; writers Elif Batuman (contributor, New Yorker), Maryam Monalisa Gharavi (Editor-at-Large, The New Inquiry), Oscar Guardiola-Rivera (author of What if Latin America Ruled the World?); Lagos-based writer-editor Tolu Ogunlesi; writer/urbanist Keller Easterling (Professor, Yale University); curator-translator, and Dar Al-Ma’mun co-director, Omar Berrada; curators Reem Fadda (Associate Curator, Middle Eastern Art, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project, and curator, National Pavilion for the UAE at the Venice Biennial), Koyo Kouoh (director, Raw Material Company, Dakar), Bisi Silva (director, CCA Lagos) and Tirdad Zolghadr (writer, based at Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College NY); New York-based anthropologist Uzma Z. Rizvi; composer and musician Andre Vida; and Doha-based analyst and commentator Tarik Yousef.

Returning speakers included writer and artist Douglas Coupland; curator Lara Khaldi (Director, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah); geostrategist and Director of Hybrid Reality Institute Parag Khanna; Turi Munthe, the founder of ‘citizen journalist’ newswire Demotix; Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects of the Serpentine Gallery, London, Hans-Ulrich Obrist; and the founder of Barjeel Art Foundation Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi. 

Each session or element of the Forum took on a keyword; some were terms we use every day – such as Heritage, Biography, Freezone, Score and Place (looking particularly at how the cities Lagos and Ramallah having been shaped by writers and artists). Other terms may be less familiar – included Academese, Advert Adverts, Drone Fiction, MENA (Middle East Nervous Anxiety), or Neologism. The eclectic line-up of Forum contributors were set to pick apart these terms through talks, debates, performances, TV clips, new publications, films, music, and so much more.

The Global Art Forum_7 included a range of commissioned projects and publications, including a series of “advert breaks” by upcoming artists Lantian Xie and Abdullah Al Mutairi, among publications: Biography and Drone Fiction.

Forum visitors were also invited to a special lecture by architect Rem Koolhaas at Virginia Commonwealth University’s biannual art and design conference, Tasmeem Doha 2013 – Hybrid Making, on March 17 following the Global Art Forum sessions at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.

Global Art Forum: Directors’ Biographies

H.G. Masters: Director, Global Art Forum_7

H.G. Masters_(b. 1982, Bermuda) is a writer and editor living in Istanbul. He is currently editor-at-large for ArtAsiaPacific magazine, after previously serving as managing editor. Since 2008, Masters has edited the ArtAsiaPacific Almanac, an annual review of contemporary art in 67 countries from Turkey to Tuvalu. Masters studied fine art at Yale University, and was the recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation | Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant in 2011.

Shumon Basar: Commissioner, Global Art Forum_7

Shumon Basar_ is a writer. In 2012, he was director of Global Art Forum_6, entitled The Medium of Media. He is Contributing Editor at Bidoun magazine, Editor-at-Large at Tank magazine, and cofounder of the collective sexymachinery. The exhibition Translated By, which he cocurated with Charles Arsene-Henry, began at the AA, London - where Shumon directs the Cultural Programme - and then toured to CCA, Kitakyushu as well as SALT, Istanbul. Shumon has been co-programming The Library is on Fire with Arsene-Henry, for the Luma Foundation's future art centre in Arles. His books include With/Without; Cities from Zero; Did Someone Say Participate?; Hans Ulrich Obrist Interviews Volume 2; Translated By; Tercume Eden and Do You Often Confuse Love With Fame and With Success? He is currently writing a novel, set in Dubai, called World!World!World!

In partnership with
Official Global Art Forum_7 Media Partner