By Dr. Judy Bullington

The Sharjah Biennial 7 opened on April 6^th with an international audience of artists, critics, press, art devotees, and local dignitaries present to launch the event. The first Sharjah Biennial was organized in 1993, but the current Biennial bears little resemblance to those earlier exhibitions that focused on local and classical art forms. Beginning with the Sharjah Biennial 6 in 2003 and continuing with the Sharjah Biennial 7 in 2005, a dramatic shift in focus toward new art practices has occurred. The present exhibition, representing 69 artists from 36 countries, delivers on the promise of the organizers to introduce a new era of contemporary art in the Arab world. Forty-nine video installations stand alongside photography, digital, web, and performance artworks while painting on canvas is in evidence in a singular display.

The curatorial team selected and/or commissioned work from artists relevant to the designated theme of “Belonging.” The results are enticingly diverse, yet provocatively referential interpretations of what it means to belong. Images of ‘displacements’ caused by political and economic environments occur with the greatest frequency. Through them viewers are asked to explore their own identities and sense of belonging. Two of the three prizewinners worked directly with unpacking the layers of meaning associated with displacement. Italian-born artist Mario Rizzi filmed second-generation migrants in Paris. He appropriated the title of Edward Said’s memoirs, Out of Place, for the title of his 4-screen video installation. The viewer decides how long her or she wants to interact with émigrés from, among other places, Afghanistan, Chili, and Palestine. The artist spoke of his desire to move beyond the stereotypes of being on the border and never being integrated. He achieves this by focusing on people who have made the journey from being considered the ‘other’ to achieving a sense of ‘belonging’. The 3-minute clips include academics and professionals rather than the dispossessed, each acting their own life but clearly crossing between two lives. The meaning, it seems, is that roots are the cultural substrate for all human beings. Another prizewinner, Maja Bajevic from Bosnia, photographed the area around Sarajevo between Christmas 2004 and New Years Day 2005. The surroundings are gray and the buildings are in various states of decay. Christmas lights hanging on partially demolished facades are the only suggestion of habitation. The contrast between the lightness of the seasonal spirit and the bleakness of the environment prompt reflection about the complex social, psychological, and political conditions that exist in this post-war environment. The Echo by prizewinning Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr critiques sameness rather than difference. Scenes from Yousef Shahine’s famous 1969 Egyptian film titled El Ard are juxtaposed with the artist’s contemporary video of storyteller Christine El Ansary repeating monologues from the movie to convey the stagnant socio-political situation in Egypt from decade to decade.

The Sharjah Biennial 7, like its predecessor, is located in two venues—the modern Sharjah Expo Center and the renovated historical structure that houses the Sharjah Art Museum in the heritage area. The nature of the sites themselves call into play discussions about the role of an international display of new art practices in a traditional cultural setting. The Sharjah Art Museum has conventional open exhibition areas on either side of a corridor. In contrast, the vast empty interior of the Expo Center was transformed into a series of pristine white minimalist structures to specifically house individual works of art. Here interaction with the art happens in intimate individualized spaces, and there is a ramp leading up to a viewing deck where it is possible to survey the entire hall as if it were a life-sized architectural model. From this vantage point one can appreciate the scope of the installation process attendant to the Biennial. Emily Jacir’s stainless steel and rubber sculpture titled Embrace greets the visitor at the entrance. With the theme of the show, “Belonging,” stenciled in large letters on a nearby wall, the viewer grasps the relevance of this sculpture inspired by empty airport luggage carrousels. Here, as in previous works, the artist specifically references the inability of many Palestinians to experience the freedom of travel. Parisian-born Lebanese artist Fouad El Koury’s photographic works in the first salon of the Sharjah Art Museum deals with a different type of disparity. His images explore the notion of Civilization + Fake = Real where, in places like Sharjah and Dubai, the expansion of the built environment is progressing at a phenomenal rate. El Koury draws our attention to the idea of cities as the materialization of dreams. The question of belonging to cities where such dreams are celebrated arises when, as the artist observed, “people from here who travel abroad are more likely to identify themselves as being from Dubai than the United Arab Emirates.” Carey Young’s I am a Revolutionary explores the fusion between the art world and the business world. Minerva Cuevas focuses on the impact that development and industry are having on the ecological footprint of places like the Arabian Peninsula resulting in the loss of habitat and the extinction of some species. Through 1500 images displayed like TV monitors in Chris Kienke and Tarek Al Ghoussein’s War Room, the media’s coverage of the Iraq War and the subjectivity of experience are explored. These are only a few of the subtexts running through the exhibition. The range of interpretations of the theme of Belonging that the invited artists produced for this Biennial is commendable.

The Sharjah Biennial has, since its inception, operated under the patronage of the Ruler of Sharjah, His Highness Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi who is renowned for his commitment to culture and education. It is the vision of his daughter Her Highness Hoor Al Qasimi, who has been the Director of the Sharjah Biennial since 2002, to bring new dimensions to the event that will enhance the reputation and recognition of Sharjah on the international contemporary art scene. The growth of Biennials in the past decade is remarkable. There are 110 international Biennials organized around the world today, each providing a potential venue for mapping relationships between artists and their regions as well as local and global cultures. Her Highness Hoor Al Qasimi--who holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Slade School of Fine Art in London and has a particular interest in curatorship--is well positioned to facilitate dialogue among these zones of cultural contact. She modified the biennial format this year to include an Artist-in-Residency Program, a series of educational events that generated interaction with the local community and educational institutions, and a two-day symposium titled “Biennialicity” in tandem with the opening of the exhibition which dealt candidly with issues surrounding the debate between the local and global art contexts. Sheika Hoor appointed Jack Persekian, founder and director of the Anadiel Gallery and the Al Ma’mal Foundation of Contemporary Art in Jersusalem, as Head Curator. Two Associate Curators, Chinese-Canadian artist and writer Kenneth Lum, and Swiss-born Iranian art critic and curator Tirdad Zolghadr, were selected as part of the team. They worked in collaboration with local coordinators from the Sharjah Ministry of Culture to bring a truly cutting edge, multicultural art experience to the Gulf. Sheika Hoor believes the work of local artists has developed a lot in recent years and that the Biennials provide an important opportunity for them to see international contemporary art without traveling. Her ambitions include creating a strong contemporary art gallery and museum environment locally and taking art from the UAE to show in London. Both ambitions will build on the foundation laid by the Sharjah Biennial 7 to advance the dialogue of international cultural exchange.