As part of the Dubai government’s continued investment in the visual arts, a number of new activities have been announced under the umbrella of Dubai Art Season this month and in March.
Events sponsored by Dubai Culture this year, under the theme Take a Walk on the Art Side, include the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, taking place from February 3 to 13 in Al Habtoor City, and performance and artworks at Expo 2020 Dubai, which closes at the end of March.
Dubai Culture oversees a growing variety of projects: the Sikka Art Fair, the longtime local stalwart of music, art and design projects, which returns from March 15 to 24 in Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood, and World Art Dubai, a more affordable fair for collectors, which also returns, from March 16 to 19 at Dubai World Trade Centre.
Meanwhile, the newly launched Bulgari Contemporary Art Award will show the work of its nominees from February 3 to 9 at Van de Goudenberg Art Gallery in the Dubai International Financial Centre, with the winner announced at the end.
Dubai Art Season is anchored by Art Dubai, which brings with it an international group of collectors, curators, and art professionals, and the Sharjah Art Foundation’s March Meeting, influential among artists, curators and writers.
This year, Art Dubai is buoyed by the popularity of the city itself and the continuing interest in non-western forms of art, with numerous collectors and gallerists preparing to travel to the city, according to sources.
After its stint in its original home in DIFC, in a pop-up mid-Covid-19 event last year, it returns to Madinat Jumeirah from Friday, March 11 to Sunday, March 13.
The fair has always been interested in digital work, particularly through the involvement of its Global Art Forum director Shumon Basar, but this year it formalises this set of concerns.
The section Art Dubai Digital will be dedicated to this, as well as NFTs, and the Campus Art Dubai exhibition this year will focus on blockchain.
The March meeting, titled The Afterlives of the Postcolonial, this year continues the themes that are being developed for the 2023 biennial, which Sharjah Art Foundation director Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi is curating based on the ideas for the show by the late Nigerian curator Okwui Enwezor.
Sharjah Art Foundation will also launch its shows for the spring season, which this year include Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Khalil Rabah, and Ghanaian photographer Gerald Annan-Forson.
As usual, the UAE’s art institutions also look to put their best foot forward, with shows geared towards the local and international audiences who focus on art during this season.
Highlights include Admaf's Portrait of a Nation II: Beyond Narratives, on at Manarat Al Saadiyat. Lebanese curator Maya El Khalil explores historical groupings and tendencies towards collaboration in the UAE.
There are also work by the subtle, precise Pakistani artist Fahd Burki at the Jameel Arts Centre and the first major institutional show of Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian, a historically significant artist collective in the UAE, at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery.
