As Abu Dhabi Art comes to a close for another year, it’s time to reflect on the highs and lows of the four-day event.
Royalty
Tuesday night's preview was a regal affair, with Emirati royals, as well as the United Kingdom's Princess Eugenie, strolling through the booths at Manarat Al Saadiyat. Other VIPs included Manchester City football club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who was spotted checking out conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner's text piece Offsides (2007).
Institutions
As always, institutions were big buyers at the fair, and many of the galleries brought with them historically important work clearly intended for museums. David Zwirner, the international gallery with its main venue in New York, brought two Dan Flavin light pieces from 1972 that attracted institutional interest. William Lawrie, founder of Dubai's Lawrie Shabibi gallery, noted that they sold the wonderfully insubordinate sculpture The Seed, by Jordanian artist Mona Saudi, to the Sharjah Art Foundation, which will be staging a show of her work next year.
Internationalism
Both Abu Dhabi Art and Art Dubai reflect the international crossroads that the Emirates is famous for. You’d have to put in days of flying time to see this breadth of art on your own. Top gallery stands included:
• Le Violon Bleu, from Tunis, offered a stunning presentation of watercolour and carved-wood portraits and still lifes by their artists, Ali Bellagha and Hedi Turki.
• Paris-based Galerie Bugada & Cargnel showed three works by Argentine artist Julio Le Parc, whose kinetic light-show work was part of the 1960s' interest in technology – a period younger artists are increasingly looking back to as they engage with internet culture.
• Dubai gallery The Third Line dedicated its stand to Iranian artist Pouran Jinchi and her continuing work about The Blind Owl, a surrealist tale written by Sadegh Hedayat that was banned in Iran after it was published in 1937. "We wanted to show how Pouran developed this one body of work," says Nabila Abdel Nabi, Third Line gallery coordinator. "You can see how the newest works are the culminations of her project."
Talks and programs
The buying and selling at Abu Dhabi Art fair was complemented by performances, art commissions and talks, and by the well-received exhibition Emirati Expressions. On Wednesday afternoon, there was a panel discussion with a stellar line-up involving Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong, outgoing British Museum director Neil MacGregor and Agence France-Muséums chief Manuel Rabaté. In the evening, French choreographer Nacera Belaza wowed audiences with her performance of Le Cri as part of the Durub Al Tawaya programme.
Postmodernism
Curator Fabrice Bousteau organised Beyond, a commissioned programme of sculptural work displayed around Manarat Al Saadiyat and other venues at Warehouse 421 and Nation Towers. As part of the programme, Iraqi artist Halim Al Karim created an enormous, handmade camera, referring to 19th- century techniques for developing photographs that he taught himself in his dark room in Iraq. Standing just in front of the entrance to the fair, the camera became – in a postmodern twist – the backdrop for an endless series of Instagrammed photos, that digital invention that has an analogue camera for its App icon.
Room for improvement
While the event was hugely enjoyable, with plenty for the crowds to enjoy, there were a few things that could be addressed to improve the experience.
• Organisation: Logistics on the opening night could have been better. Guests and collectors were kept waiting for an hour and a half to enter the fair, until the top VIPs' preview tours had been completed. Even when the doors opened, a long queue stretched slowly through airport-like security before guests were able to enter.
• Scale: The fair was down by a few galleries this year, to a total of about 40, and it felt a little small, particularly in comparison to Art Dubai's sprawling show.
artslife@thenational.ae
