COMMISSIONS 2012

Art Dubai Commissions, as part of the extensive not-for-profit programme, gives regional and international artists the opportunity to develop dynamic site-specific works for the grounds of the fair. The projects are developed with local and international partner organisations creating a collaborative model that is designed to extend the life and influence of the project beyond the fair in March.

Artists commissioned to produce new site-specific works for Art Dubai Projects included Fayçal Baghriche, Yto Barrada, James Clar, Setu Legi, Magdi Mostafa, UBIK and Deniz Üster.

Fayçal Baghriche, Magdi Mostafa and Deniz Üster’s works were created as part of their A.i.R Dubai Residencies.

Art Dubai Projects also presented a series of commissioned interactive performances situated around the fair, which reflected on its format and economy. In 2012, selected artists included Manila-based Carlos Celdran and Köken Ergun.

ARTISTS

FAYÇAL BAGHRICHE

CARLOS CELDRAN

KÖKEN ERGUN

MAGDI MOSTAFA

DENIZ ÜSTER

SETU LEGI

JAMES CLAR AND UBIK

UBIK

PERFORMANCE NIGHT

Fayçal Baghriche, Nothing More Real

Fayçal Baghriche developed two site-specific installations. For Nothing More Concrete, situated at Satellite, Alserkal Avenue, Bagriche reclaimed plasterboard to produce a monolithic structure, a kind of anti-monument for a fair. Playing with the branding and repetitive overload of the plasterboard packaging, Baghriche seeks out and foregrounds the formalist patterns and structures that emerge. At Art Dubai itself, Baghriche’s Nothing More Real was a textural architectural intervention, inspired by the erratic rhythms of the building boom in the emirate.

Carlos Celdran, Livin’ La Vida Imelda: Arts and Culture, Disco, True Story

Carlos Celdran’s performative tour of the fair invited audiences to join him for seven acts in seven different parts of Art Dubai, performed through the week of the fair. Each selected site at the fair became a starting point for an entertaining and engaging commentary that dwelled on the intersection between geopolitics and contemporary art.

Köken Ergun, Untitled

Istanbul-based artist Köken Ergun collaborated with Dubai based singer Melisa Le Rue and pianist Stoyan Stoyanov to produce a commentary on the fair programme, delivered via the most familiar of pop songs, the typical fodder of a hotel bar. The project was produced in collaboration with The Fridge and featured Dubai-based singer Melisa Le Rue and pianist Stoyan Stoyanov.

Magdi Mostafa, Elements of the Unexpected

Magdi Mostafa developed contextual site-specific, process-based projects that were based on his interactions with the city. During his residency, Mostafa walked Dubai, gathering data and historical research, and recording sounds, allowing his experiences to be shaped by the city’s fluid parameters and geopolitical and economic specificities. In particular, Mostafa sought out outmoded, discarded, or analogue forms that invisibly persist in this cityscape, arguably one of the most contemporary, technologically advanced cities in the world. His installation, or representation of three dimensional sounds, at Art Dubai remixed traditional bread dough machines tahona, altered to knead and whip honey, with an aural cityscape; the work was drawn directly from his residency process and experiences.

Deniz Üster, Somewhere in the middle of two; southwest of one, and north of the other

Taking “reverse functionality” as her method, Deniz Üster constructed three barjeels, or windtowers, dedicated to Istanbul, Glasgow and Dubai, the cities in which she was based and which have shaped her identity and practice. Deconstructing their use, constructing them from found and sourced objects, Üster created a series of monuments that disseminate – rather than capture – sound, scent and texture, and that embody a sense of transition and alchemy. Titled Somewhere in the middle of two; southwest of one, and north of the other, two towers created for the terrace at Art Dubai were complemented by a third located in Bastakiya, the site of Üster’s residency.

Setu Legi, Pseudophobia

Jogjakarta-based artist Setu Legi’s major, site-specific installation, Pseudophobia, was part fortress, part refuge created from hand-sewn bags, imported from Yogyakarta and filled with discarded materials. The structure evoked connotations of a shelter in times of war and disaster, and aimed to carve out a place of reflection and perspective within the context of the art fair.

James Clar and UBIK, Oil and Texture

James Clar and UBIK collaborated to produce Oil and Water, a textural, sculptural rendition of a scale architectural building – an actual high-rise located in Dubai’s business district – immersed in crude oil and water. Taking as their starting point the meticulously composed architects’ plan which, once the building is complete, is rendered mere utopian nostalgia, the work observes the links between Dubai’s property boom, globalisation and the city’s consumer reinvention.

UBIK, Portrait of an Artist Through His Statements

Dubai-based UBIK also presented Portrait of an Artist through his Statements, an edible documentation of the precarious and symbiotic relationship an artist has with his bank balance. The work was a gesture of generosity on behalf of the artist to the Art Dubai community, reflecting UBIK’s personal triumphs and daily struggles of being an artist in the region.

Performance Night

Positioned as an abstract and sometimes absurd investigation into institutional critique, the inaugural Performance Night at Art Dubai, co-produced by Art Dubai Projects and Traffic, was inspired by Marina Abramovich’s paraphrased philosophy of ‘nothing to sell but memories’.

Led by Traffic founder Rami Farook, the evening combined words, photos, film, music and performance. Featured “performers” included artists, poets, musicians, academics, curators, collectors and gallerists, most of whom were UAE-based.