Sharjah 7: Wild card of culture in Arab world - Daily Star
---QUOTE---
As one of the seven tiny emirates that make up the U.A.E., Sharjah is squashed between Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, and the Gulf (whether you choose to define it as Persian or Arabian). Fifty years ago it was a fishing village. Twenty years ago it was the preeminent playground of the emirates, before Abu Dhabi and before Dubai, drenched in oil money and bumping with clubs, girls and drinks. Today, in a rather dramatic transformation, it is the single most conservative emirate of all, austere, ascetic, policed by draconian decency laws prohibiting alcohol, bars, late-night Internet cafes, immodest dress, indecent speech, and the improper mixing of men and women.
As such, Sharjah stands in the shadow of neighboring Dubai, where a woman companion is easy to select. But just as Dubai's audacious architectural and financial development - proceeding at a pace of global capitalism on potent speed - has been calibrated for the foreseeable exhaustion of oil reserves, Sharjah's restraint has a strategic dimension.
In 1998 Unesco named Sharjah the "cultural capital" of the Arab world. Sharjah's ruler, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qasimi, is banking on the distinction by introducing an onslaught of tourist-friendly arts initiatives and heritage preservations projects. The biennial plays into that hand, but it may very well prove to be a wild card.
The seventh outing at Sharjah is, more accurately, the second of its kind. Prior to the last biennial, the sheikh's daughter, Sheikha Hoor al-Qasimi, returned home from art school in London and bashed the event for being too traditional. Her father advised her to do something about it, so she took over as director. The sixth edition in 2003, curated by her and Peter Lewis (a lecturer at Goldsmith's College in London), was dramatically different from the previous five.
With 117 artists from all over the world, including Christo and William Kentridge (who won the biennial's top prize), it was notably more critical and cutting edge. Sharjah 6 was not without problems, however, including organizational issues and instances of last-minute censorship (political and sexual material was either obscured or removed).
To a large extent, the same held true for Sharjah 7 (though in what seems to be positive development, the political content, whether subtle or strong, remained on view this year).
Persekian took over the curatorial duties after Sharjah's first team was dismissed. He had just six months to pull everything together. As Lum suggests: "With such a compressed time frame it could have been a disaster."
In terms of actual artworks, the exhibition is anything but.
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www.sharjahbiennial.org
---QUOTE---
As one of the seven tiny emirates that make up the U.A.E., Sharjah is squashed between Saudi Arabia, the Sultanate of Oman, and the Gulf (whether you choose to define it as Persian or Arabian). Fifty years ago it was a fishing village. Twenty years ago it was the preeminent playground of the emirates, before Abu Dhabi and before Dubai, drenched in oil money and bumping with clubs, girls and drinks. Today, in a rather dramatic transformation, it is the single most conservative emirate of all, austere, ascetic, policed by draconian decency laws prohibiting alcohol, bars, late-night Internet cafes, immodest dress, indecent speech, and the improper mixing of men and women.
As such, Sharjah stands in the shadow of neighboring Dubai, where a woman companion is easy to select. But just as Dubai's audacious architectural and financial development - proceeding at a pace of global capitalism on potent speed - has been calibrated for the foreseeable exhaustion of oil reserves, Sharjah's restraint has a strategic dimension.
In 1998 Unesco named Sharjah the "cultural capital" of the Arab world. Sharjah's ruler, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qasimi, is banking on the distinction by introducing an onslaught of tourist-friendly arts initiatives and heritage preservations projects. The biennial plays into that hand, but it may very well prove to be a wild card.
The seventh outing at Sharjah is, more accurately, the second of its kind. Prior to the last biennial, the sheikh's daughter, Sheikha Hoor al-Qasimi, returned home from art school in London and bashed the event for being too traditional. Her father advised her to do something about it, so she took over as director. The sixth edition in 2003, curated by her and Peter Lewis (a lecturer at Goldsmith's College in London), was dramatically different from the previous five.
With 117 artists from all over the world, including Christo and William Kentridge (who won the biennial's top prize), it was notably more critical and cutting edge. Sharjah 6 was not without problems, however, including organizational issues and instances of last-minute censorship (political and sexual material was either obscured or removed).
To a large extent, the same held true for Sharjah 7 (though in what seems to be positive development, the political content, whether subtle or strong, remained on view this year).
Persekian took over the curatorial duties after Sharjah's first team was dismissed. He had just six months to pull everything together. As Lum suggests: "With such a compressed time frame it could have been a disaster."
In terms of actual artworks, the exhibition is anything but.
---UNQUOTE---
www.sharjahbiennial.org
Labels: Oman, Saudi Arabia
posted by John B. Chilton at 4/13/2005 06:17:00 AM
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