The Emirati artist Mohammed Kazem, who impressed the international art world with his talent at last year’s Venice Biennale, the most prestigious art exhibition in the world, will be unveiling a brand-new piece of work as part of the Abu Dhabi Festival proceedings.
Kazem has produced a new work from his Directions series titled Circle. The work consists of a collection of numbers that represent geographical coordinates taken with a GPS machine. The numbers will be mounted on the wall at the Emirates Palace Gallery and will be revealed to the public on March 21 before Herbie Hancock’s premiere performance in the Gulf.
Although the title is reflective of the fact that Kazem mapped out a circle when he took the coordinates, the shape itself is not visible. It is part of Kazem’s artistic practice of making the intangible elements of life tangible.
“To me, everything has another dimension,” he says. “I’m interested in trying to display visually the sounds of music or the structure of a shape. I began this series a long time ago.”
Kazem started making pieces from the Directions series in 1999. He has exhibited art from it in India, the United States, Germany and, of course, in Venice last year. At New York University in Abu Dhabi, Kazem’s Directions art covers the entire facade and last year a piece called Triangle was showing at Art Dubai.
Hoda Kanoo, the founder of Abu Dhabi Festival, explains that Kazem was selected to produce a commissioned work for the event because he is one of the most prominent conceptual artists in the UAE and he has a pioneering and innovative approach.
“[This piece] is a testament to the genius of this leading conceptual artist and a reflection of the UAE’s creative innovation,” says Kanoo. “In his work, the alphanumeric coordinates are assembled into a glowing materiality that should be really quite mesmerising and lead us all to think deeper about the interrelationship between geography and society.”
Kazem was commissioned under the theme of this year’s festival, which is Creative Innovation.
“The similarities that lie between Mohammed Kazem’s creative expression and the festival’s exploration of what is meant by Creative Innovation, makes him the perfect choice to be awarded with this year’s Festival Visual Arts Commission,” explains Kanoo.
The artwork will be on display in Emirates Palace for one month after which Kazem will travel to New York to take part in the ArteEast Watermill Residency Program, where he is set to produce a monumental work as another part of his Directions series.
Abu Dhabi Festival runs until April 7. Mohammed Kazem’s work will be unveiled at Emirates Palace Gallery on March 21. Admission is free
