Art Dubai Modern, and its accompanying talks programme, has long been a space for scholarship around under-explored art histories and this year’s edition is no exception. The Art Dubai Modern curators are Magalí Arriola, art critic and independent curator, Mexico, and Nada Shabout, Art History Professor and the Coordinator of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Initiative at the University of North Texas, U.S. 

The pair were brought together by the fair’s artistic director Pablo de Val and have spent the last months sharing their knowledge on the art histories of their regions—Latin America and West Asia and North Africa, respectively—finding crossovers in the themes and styles of artists’ works during the modern period. The exploration has seen them uncover lesser known artists and connections that traverse these two sides of the southern hemisphere. Here they share what to expect at the fair.

The artists included in this year’s Modern section are so diverse—can you sum up in a sentence what binds them together?

MA: The 20th century saw anti-imperial struggles that created deep cultural ties between West Asia, North Africa, and postcolonial regions worldwide, and this year’s section looks at how the resulting migration, cross cultural relationships, and influences of different regions influenced artistic practice.

The section includes a Latin American artist for the first time—why did that feel necessary or important? 

NS: Art Dubai has always worked to make connections with other non-Western regions, so it made sense to expand that to Latin America in the Modern section. Historically, large communities of Arabs have migrated to Latin America, especially Lebanese and Palestinian—I even have relatives from my aunt’s husband’s family, who are Lebanese but moved to  Brazil early last century. There are lots of Arab names that have been Latinised over time but it is very difficult to find a lineage of migration. So we decided to focus on solidarities and affinities between artists—there were periods of time where both regions were part of the postcolonial third-worldism discourse so that’s another way that they are connected. We discovered that there needs to be  more work and research done in this area. In fact, there is a book being published on the subject this May: Art and Politics between the Arab World and Latin America, edited by Laure Guirguis and Maru Pabón.

Experiments in abstraction in response to post-colonial realities is one of commonalities between the artists that you have uncovered—which artists’ works can we see this in?

MA: Venezuelan artist Dario Pérez Flores is one of these artists working with abstraction that will be represented in the fair. In the 1960s, Pérez Flores conceived a series of plexiglass kinetic works and then relocated to France where a group of Latin American creators—mainly Argentine and Venezuelan—were already established working close to Denise René gallery. In the early 70s, he exhibited with important artists such as Carlos Cruz Diez (who will be exhibiting in the contemporary section with Galeria RGR).

How does this fit with the theme of heritage?

NS: The notion of heritage and abstraction are very connected. Many of the artists included in the fair, such as Hussein Madi, Bahman Mohasses, Mehdi Moutashar, and The New Vision Group, draw from their own heritage to express their identities. This was an important artistic endeavour for both regions in the 20th century.