Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, Art Dubai, the world’s most internationally diverse art fair, returns March 20 to 23, 2019 for its 13th edition with works by more than 500 contemporary and modern artists from across the world exhibited by 90+ galleries from over 40 countries.

Art Dubai’s new structure includes four main sections complementing each other, which will offer visitors greater access and deeper engagement with artists and galleries from non-Western geographies and present a holistic platform where the gallery and community-driven programmes coalesce to showcase a truly international view of art.

“For this year’s edition, we’ve made some changes to the layout of the fair, general look and feel and added new content to give visitors an interconnected experience: from the gallery halls to the talks and performances. Art Dubai has always strived to be original in its content, in the diversity of its gallery line-up and its quality non-commercial offering and in keeping with that, we’ve added new sections which we think will add depth to our programming and when juxtaposed with the commercial galleries will create dialogue and the opportunity to explore art and new perspectives,” said Pablo de Val, Artistic Director of Art Dubai.

As the highlight of the region’s cultural calendar fixture and the world’s preeminent fair for Contemporary and Modern art from the region and other geographies usually outside of art’s mainstream dialogue, Art Dubai 2019 brings with it a tangible sense of community and cross-cultural exchange.

In the gallery halls, this is evident in the return of Art Dubai’s Residents programme, which this year hosts 12 artists from Latin America to ‘deep dive’ into the UAE, its culture and art scene; and new gallery section, Bawwaba, which aims to give visitors a curated reading of current artistic developments within the Global South.

Elsewhere, this interest in community building, inclusivity and promoting new and alternative perspectives is reflected in UAE NOW, a new segment which will showcase the country’s emerging independent self-organised art platform; an exhibition by the artists participating in Campus Art Dubai 7.0 programme; performance art which explores the unifying aspects of communal celebrations as powerful tools to think about the world around us; and ‘SOLAROCA’, Art Dubai 2019’s installation commission, an interactive and intercultural space created by Brazilian artist collective OPAVIVARÁ!

Programmes such as the Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program provide platforms for knowledge-building and nurture creativity in a new generation; while Global Art Forum, the largest arts conference of its kind in the region, and Art Dubai Modern Symposium continue to deliver a series of diverse and discursive talks and events.

The fair is sponsored by Julius Baer and Piaget, with Madinat Jumeirah as the home of the event. The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is a strategic partner of Art Dubai and supports the fair’s year-round education programme. BMW is the exclusive car partner of Art Dubai.

ART DUBAI 2019’S FULL PROGRAMME:

THE GALLERY SECTIONS

ART DUBAI CONTEMPORARY

With 59 galleries from 34 countries, Art Dubai Contemporary once again confirms Art Dubai’s unique character as a platform for discovery for art from across the world, reaching across the globe to bring audiences narratives of contemporary life, observations on society and examples of richly varied practices.

Spread across two gallery halls, the 2019 Contemporary section features a prominent line-up of first-time exhibitors from the region and beyond, including Sprüth Magers (Berlin / London / Los Angeles), ANDERSEN’s (Copenhagen), Galerie MAM (Douala) and Akar Prakar (Kolkata / New Delhi). As well as a strong contingent of returning galleries from Europe and Asia, including Victoria Miro (London / Venice), Galleria Continua (San Gimignano / Beijing / Les Moulins / Havana), Experimenter (Kolkata), Ota Fine Arts (Shanghai / Singapore / Tokyo), Galerie Templon (Brussels / Paris), Galleria Franco Noero (Turin), In Situ – Fabienne Leclerc (Paris) and Galerie Krinzinger (Vienna).

ART DUBAI MODERN           

Art Dubai Modern is the fair’s gallery section presenting museum-quality works by 20th Century masters from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. This year, Art Dubai Modern has been moved from the halls in Mina A’Salam to the main gallery halls, alongside Art Dubai Contemporary, with an aim to contextualise the historical narrative being played out across the booths. 11 galleries exhibit under Art Dubai Modern this year, ten of which are returning galleries with Dhoomimal Gallery (New Delhi), the oldest gallery in the India, making its Art Dubai debut.

BAWWABA

Curated by French-Cameroonian curator Élise Atangana, Bawwaba is a new gallery section created to shed light on artist interrogations of the notion of the Global South. Taking its title from the Arabic word for ‘gateway’, Bawwaba features 10 solo presentations by artists from, based in, or focused on the Middle East, Africa, Central and South Asia and Latin America on the Middle East; Africa; Central and South Asia, and Latin America, addressing themes of global migration, socioeconomic structures and identity.

The inaugural edition features works created within the last year or conceived specifically for the fair and is accompanied by a dedicated talks programme.

RESIDENTS

Co-curated by São Paulo–based curator and artistic director of art space Pivô, Fernanda Brenner and Abu Dhabi-based Munira Al Sayegh, Residents – Art Dubai’s unique annual residency programme and gallery section – focuses on Latin America this year. 12 artists from the continent’s leading galleries have arrived in the UAE to take up artists residencies for between 4 and 8 weeks immersing themselves in the life and culture of the Emirates and the local art scene to create new artworks for the fair which merge their distinct artistic practice with their temporary surroundings.

Residents is supported by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, with residency spaces provided by Bait 15, Dubai Design District, Tashkeel and Warehouse421.

EXHIBITIONS

UAE NOW

Curated by Munira Al Sayegh, UAE NOW is a new segment of Art Dubai exploring the country’s independent local artist-run platforms. These collectives and community groups offer a crucial counterpoint to the public and commercial sectors and add an essential layer to the local contemporary art ecosystem. UAE NOW highlights the depth in these organisations and their place in the evolving landscape, bringing to the fore the important contribution of grassroots platforms and the underground in creating new ways of thinking, theory and artistic movements. The participating platforms include, Bait 15, Banat Collective, Jaffat el Aqlam, PAC (Public Art Collective) and Dafter Asfar.

CAMPUS ART DUBAI GROUP SHOW: “Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Contemporary Art in the City”

Campus Art Dubai is the first and only programme of its kind in the UAE: an intensive six-month seminar and residency programme providing Emirati and UAE-based artists with the opportunity to develop their practices under the mentorship of world-renowned tutors and showcase their work during Art Week. Following the educational part of the programme, artists participate in a two-month residency, during which they receive support in transforming and developing their initial research ideas into work, which are exhibited in a group show. This year’s CAD 7.0 artists are: Dima Srouji, Augustine Paredes, Jumairy and Mohamed Khalid.

TALKS, TOURS AND WORKSHOPS

Talks, tours and workshops have been an essential part of Art Dubai’s extensive cultural programming since 2007 and have united fair visitors of all ages with over 600 leading artists, curators, and galleries; art historians, art experts and opinion leaders.

GLOBAL ART FORUM: ‘SCHOOL IS A FACTORY?’

Global Art Forum is an internationally-acclaimed annual transdisciplinary arts conference, which combines original thinking and contemporary themes in an intimate, live environment. Global Art Forum 2019 unites a diverse cast of global minds – from renowned curators and critics to educationalists and entrepreneurs – under the theme of ‘School is a Factory’ to address some of the urgent challenges and opportunities facing education today.

Some of the pressing questions posed throughout the Forum’s lectures, presentations and conversations will be: “What should education prioritise in the coming decade?” “How should humans be taught in the age of accelerated mechanization?” “Is the notion of ‘learning for life’ just an opportunistic tagline?” “Will higher education escape the ghetto of elitism?” “Do past experiments in education have something to teach today?” and “Will we need humans to teach humans anymore, anyway?”

The 2019 iteration of Global Art Forum is organised by Commissioner Shumon Basar, with editor and writer Victoria Camblin, and curator and writer Fawz Kabra as Co-Directors. Supported by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the two-day forum is open to the public (including non-ticket holders) and free to attend.

MODERN SYMPOSIUM: ‘CULTURAL HUBS OF MODERNISM’

Art Dubai Modern Symposium accompanies Art Dubai Modern, the fair’s gallery section presenting museum-quality works by 20th Century masters from the MENASA region. Under the title of ‘Cultural Hubs of Modernism’, this year’s Symposium attempts to map out the cultural shifts and trends instigated by modernity in four key cities in the Middle East and South Asia during the 20th century – Baghdad, Beirut, Dakar and Lahore – in a new 60-minute ‘masterclass’ format.

Renowed curators, scholars and patrons will each focus on a different city: Dr Nada Shabout, professor and founding president of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World, Iran and Turkey, presents ‘Performing Modernity: Baghdad of the Mid-twentieth Century’; Dr Iftikhar Dadi, professor and co-director of the Institute for Comparative Modernitiés, presents ‘Modern Art in Lahore’; Elvira Dyangani Ose, Director of The Showroom, London, will lecture on Dakar; and, Catherine David, deputy director of the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Georges Pompidou, delivers a masterclass session on Beirut.

THE SHEIKHA MANAL LITTLE ARTISTS PROGRAM

Sheikha Manal Little Artists Programme is a partnership between Art Dubai and The Cultural

Office of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum aimed at encouraging young people to get involved and excel in the arts, returns for its seventh edition. This year’s theme is “Creating New Worlds” and is led by American artist Sally Curcio. Highlights include on-site workshops inviting children and teenagers to create their own cityscapes and imaginative utopias using found and recycled materials; Discovery Tours through the fair; and the Artists-in-Schools Initiative, giving exclusive opportunity to selected schools to experience the workshops on campus.

COMMISSIONS AND PERFORMANCE ART

PERFORMANCE ART

Developed by contemporary art institution, Kunsthalle Lissabon, this year’s performance programme is a celebration of togetherness and explores the unifying aspects of communal celebrations – dances, processions and festivities – as powerful tools to think about the world around us.

The programme revolves around two main performances, the first being Marlon Griffith, an artist from Trinidad and Tobago, who has developed a version of his A Walk into the Night, specifically for Art Dubai. Taking the aesthetics of Trinidadian carnivals and West African shadow puppets as a starting point, the piece stages both a large-scale celebratory procession and a magical play of light and shadow. The performance is a collaboration with the Filipino community in Dubai, involving 150 performers as well as music composed by a local musician and invites the fair’s visitors to join in the performance, which will pass through the fair.

Samson Young’s Muted Situation #2: Muted Lion Dance is a reimagining of the traditional Chinese lion dance, where performers mimic a lion’s movements to bring luck and fortune. In place of the usual percussive music, the dancers will perform to a soundtrack made of unusual sounds such as the intense breathing of the performers, rattling of the lion costume, and the stomping of the feet. With this, the audience is forced to reimagine the aural experience of watching this dance.

AFTER-DARK MUSIC PROGRAMME

Legendary online radio station and music platform, NTS Radio curates this year’s after-dark music programme. Mirroring the fair’s programming focus on “The Global South”, the two music sessions will be headlined by DJ Alexander Nut with Zakia, and Nabihah Iqgal (formerly known as Throwing Shade) with Zezi, playing music from the Middle East, Africa, South and Central Africa and South America.

PARTNER ACTIVATIONS

HIPA ‘TOLERANCE, HAS HISTORY’

From the Private Collection of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Chairman of the Executive Council and Patron of the Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award (HIPA), ‘Tolerance, has history’ is an exhibition which present a compelling visual narrative of the tolerant and cooperative nature of the region’s social fabric in the 1960s and 1970s; the values on which the United Arab Emirates was built. The photographs are part of a rare collection belonging to His Highness the Crown Prince of Dubai and take visitors on a journey through time.

ITHRA ART PRIZE 2019

Launched in 2017 by the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) in partnership with Art Dubai, the aim of the Ithra Art Prize is to support and promote emerging Saudi contemporary artists on a truly global platform. Daniah Alsaleh’s winning commission of the Ithra Art Prize, Sawtam, will be exhibited for the first time at Art Dubai before joining Ithra’s permanent art collection. The large-scale audiovisual artwork comprising 28 screens explores the structure and complexities of language, deconstructing it to its smallest unit of sound, Sawtam, the Arabic translation of “phoneme”.

JULIUS BAER ‘A JOURNEY DRAWN THROUGH AN ARCHEOLOGY OF THE PRESENT’

Swiss Private Banking Group, Julius Baer has commissioned Chourouk Hriech, a French emerging artist of Moroccan origin, to create and curate ‘A Journey Drawn Through an Archaeology of the Present’, an exhibition with a focus on creating a bridge between Switzerland and Dubai and charting the bank’s growth story. The artist is known to draw exclusively in black and white. For ‘A Journey Drawn Through an Archeology of the Present’, she presents contemporary yet almost fable-like artworks, which are sometimes retro-futuristic sometimes timeless, and will transport the audience through the unexpected strata of an archaeology of the present.

PIAGET ‘THE ART OF GOLD’

Returning to Art Dubai for its fourth year, Piaget presents ‘L’Art de L’Or’ (‘The Art of Gold’): an exhibition dedicated to the work of gold, the ultimate expression of the Maison’s craftsmanship. The curated selection of high jewellery and watches will be complemented by an installation by French Maître d’Art Pierre Bonnefille.

BMW ART CAR

BMW Group Middle East brings one of its BMW Art Cars to Art Dubai for the very first time: the 1989 BMW M3 Group A racing version. It was created by Ken Done, a significant painters on the Australian continent. In his signature lively colours and brush strokes he reflects the vitality of his homeland. Alongside the car is an exhibition in miniature form of all Art Car commissions allowing guests to discover the heritage and history of the BMW Art Car project which, since 1975, has involved renowned artists including Alexander Calder, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol.