Art Dubai Programmes 2010 - Contemporary Art fair Dubai

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 has commissioned Sophia Al Maria, Khalil Rabah and Daniel Bozhkov to act as guides, conducting narrative and performative tours of the fair. (Places are limited: please sign up in advance at the Art Projects Desk.)

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.