COMMISSIONS 2010

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.

In 2010, Bidoun Projects was 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 ranged 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 included new installations by Ebtisam Abdul-Aziz and Vartan Avakian, and a set of ice sculptures designed by Farhad Moshiri. Nikolas Gambaroff and Matt Sheridan intervened at Madinat Jumeirah with Nowhere for Nothing, a stoop designed to encourage fair-goers to stop for a chat and to exchange some gossip. Bidoun Projects commissioned Sophia Al Maria, Khalil Rabah and Daniel Bozhkov to act as guides, conducting narrative and performative tours of the fair.

Ebtisam Abdul-Aziz’s practice frequently engages with the principles and methods of mathematics and science; in this major new installation, displayed outside, she re-imagines a map of the Arab world according to a set of numerical codes and art market statistics. Ebtisam Abdul-Aziz’s practice frequently engages with the principles and methods of mathematics and science; in this installation, displayed outside, she re-imagined a map of the Arab world according to a set of numerical codes and art market statistics.

Vartan Avakian is an interdisciplinary writer whose work combines architectural and urban research, video, installation and pop media. Typical of his interactive, endlessly inventive practice, Avakian’s new work played within the framework of the fair.

ARTISTS

FORMS OF COMPENSATION

ART PARK

THE BIDOUN LIBRARY

A NEW FORMALISM

FARHAD MOSHIRI

ARTIST TOURS

ALICE AYCOCK

Forms of Compensation

Forms of Compensation, an exhibition situated within Art Dubai’s gallery halls, was 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 neighborhood 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.

Art Park

The Art Park returned for the third year at Art Dubai and was once again host to a range of film screenings, talks and performances. Besides Mohebbi and Ersoy’s endeavor, this year’s Bidoun Video included 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 included 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

A New Formalism was a group exhibition, including Hazem El Mestikawy, Iman Issa, Mahmoud Khaled and U5, that looked at new and expanded formalist practices, to a series of commissions that dwell of the spectacular, temporal nature of an art fair. This is a formalism that takes as its raw material everything from personal and social references, theoretical concerns, the imaginary and abstract understanding of object-hood, to a deep and profound interest in how artwork articulates itself in space.

A New Formalism

A New Formalism was a group exhibition, including Hazem El Mestikawy, Iman Issa, Mahmoud Khaled and U5, that looked at new and expanded formalist practices, to a series of commissions that dwell of the spectacular, temporal nature of an art fair. This is a formalism that takes as its raw material everything from personal and social references, theoretical concerns, the imaginary and abstract understanding of object-hood, to a deep and profound interest in how artwork articulates itself in space.

Farhad Moshiri

In a play on the spectacle of an art fair, as well as the tradition of outsource when it comes to large scale projects, Bidoun projects commissioned Farhad Moshiri to design a set of sculptural works to be rendered in ice, which were unveiled on the opening nights of the fair.

Artist Tours

An art fair is defined by particular sets of performative roles – on the part of the gallerist, artist, journalist, curator and visitor. Drawing on the fair-as-stage-set for inspiration, Bidoun Projects commissioned artists to act as tour guides, devising their own narratives through the galleries and the fair grounds, in an exploration of the pure subjectivity of interpretation. These ranged from storytelling by Qatari writer-artist Sophia Al Maria to Daniel Bozhkov’s The fastest Guided Tour of Art Dubai (a run through 10,000 square metres of creative producation in 40 minutes without missing a significant gallery or work of art).

Alice Aycock

Sand / Fans

A restaging of Alice Aycock’s installation that was first exhibited at 112 Greene Street, Soho, New York, in the early 197s, and perhaps the birth of the conceptual art movement of that time.