Sharjah 10: Plot for a Biennial

Suzanne Cotter, curator at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and Rasha Salti, creative director at ArteEast, recount their biennial.

Massimiliano Gioni: How does the Sharjah Biennial set itself apart from all other biennials?
Rasha Salti: Objectively, it is the 10th edition of the Sharjah Biennial, and that is a milestone that deserves pause...and praise.
This biennial is replete with a plot, narratives, a cast of characters—traitors, translators, collaborators, traducers, experientialists, traders, and a range of motives—necessity, devotion, affiliation—a superlative number of participants, an eclectic mix of international, regional and local artists, old sites revamped, new parasitic structures, public art that includes a rocket, a performance of hundreds of balloons released in the sky, live music, contemporary dance performance, film screenings in cinemas, a slew of keepsakes including a collectors' album of trading cards, a manual for treason, an encyclopedia's appendix, manifestos...I will let my colleagues give the serious answers.
Suzanne Cotter: The location of Sharjah, sitting in the Middle East world but at a crossroads between Central Asia and Asia, certainly contributes to its special nature. Its trajectory of the past decade has also reflected an international position that stems from the Arab world. Within the history of Biennials, or Biennialisation, too, Sharjah has looked to define itself in ways that are true to its context while asserting a position of critical enquiry. In doing so, it has created a zone of culture that is respected locally, regionally as well as internationally.
Bahar Behbahani and Almagul Menlibayeva,
Video still from <i>Ride the Caspian</i>, 2011. 2-channel HD Video, color, surround sound, 13:00 minutes, sound artists: OMFO and Negar Behbahani
Bahar Behbahani and Almagul Menlibayeva, Video still from Ride the Caspian, 2011. 2-channel HD Video, color, surround sound, 13:00 minutes, sound artists: OMFO and Negar Behbahani
How will this Biennial be different from the previous ones?
RS: I am not as familiar with previous editions as my colleagues are, Haig (Aivazian) grew up in Sharjah and is most familiar with its biennial, Suzanne (Cotter) has been a keen follower or observer for a few years now.
From my impressions I can point out three differences, the first has to do with the expansion of the non-visual and plastic arts program. The 9th edition of the biennial proposed an ambitious and versatile program that included theater, contemporary performance including lecture and sound, music, film and video screenings. In this 10th edition, for instance, the music program is a full-fledged experimental platform based on 'uncanny' collaborations. The film screenings program has been expanded remarkably to include the commissioning of short films, the co-production of a feature-length documentary and an ambitious program designed by acclaimed guest curators and film programmers.
The second difference has to do with the scope of engagement with existing works and new productions in the visual and plastic arts; some of the existing works date back to the 1960s and are considered to be masterworks of Arab art (Fateh Moudarres), others dating back to the 1980s are milestones in post-modern art (Mark Lombardi), will be cast in a conversation with new work from the region and the rest of the world.
The third difference is the amount of projects presented as a work-in-progress, thus valorizing the role of a biennial as a platform for experimentation, critical engagement and reflection of a unique sort, the biennial as a laboratory.
SC: Of an older generation of artists, are also presenting a body of work from the 1990s to the present of the Iranian avant-garde figure, Bahman Mohassess, who died in Rome late last year, and who has been an important inspiration for the artists Ramin and Rokni Haerizadeh. So the idea of filial ties, or father figures emerges as work as well as part of a certain thematic that has developed. Painting is very present in this Biennial, something that has also been less evident in previous editions.
I would also add that the concept of narrative has been pushed further with this Biennial than in previous ones that I have seen, in that we have looked to create real constellations of works by artists coming from different aesthetic and critical positions, but among whom, one can identify certain commonalities. We have looked to reflect this in a more considered approach to 'parcours' or circuits, from the Sharjah Art Museum and surrounding Arts Area, to the extraordinary Heritage Area, recently re-named Heart of Sharjah.
Khalil Rabah, 50 paintings, oil on canvas. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation This work was produced with the assistance of Rana Sadik & Samer Younis.
Exhibition: “Readymade Representations 1954-2009”, 2011
Khalil Rabah, 50 paintings, oil on canvas. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation This work was produced with the assistance of Rana Sadik & Samer Younis. Exhibition: “Readymade Representations 1954-2009”, 2011
Would you be able to mention one or two projects and describe them a little?
RS: Obviously, it is a most unfair question. I will cite two that respond best to your questions above. The first is a multi-media installation, and in many ways a "work-in-progress" or an coherent fraction of a much larger work that is still in the making, namely The Lebanese Rocket Society, by Lebanese artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. In essence, the project proposes a critical rethinking of prevailing narratives of modernity in Lebanon and the region, through the reconstitution of the story of The Lebanese Rocket Society, a humble association of scientists and engineers that banded together and decided to endow the republic with its own locally brewed space program in the late 1950s, early 1960s. The installation will include a sculptural monument to 'honor' the last rocket they constructed, film footage, photographic prints and an attempt at the reconstitution of a 'golden record'.
The second project, designed and produced by Cabinet, the New York based collective and magazine, is a collectors' album of trading cards. Only instead of soccer players or Eurovision contenders, the cards are dedicated to famous or notorious traders, traitors, translators and experientialists. Biennial visitors will be given a book and a set of cards packaged in a set of six, they are expected to trade with others (or purchase card sets from shops) if they wish to complete their album during their stay in Sharjah.
SC: Jumana Emil Abboud is creating a subterranean shrine in which votive objects and representations will be presented within a kind of film set of staged devotion.
The concept of narrative has been pushed further with this Biennial in that we have looked to create real constellations of works by artists coming from different aesthetic and critical positions, but among whom, one can identify certain commonalities.
Walid Raad, <i>Index XXII-XXVI: Artists</i>
2011. Drywall, paint, wood, colour photographs, vinyl Courtesy of Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Beirut/Hamburg. Produced by Sharjah Art Foundation
Walid Raad, Index XXII-XXVI: Artists 2011. Drywall, paint, wood, colour photographs, vinyl Courtesy of Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Beirut/Hamburg. Produced by Sharjah Art Foundation
The 10th Sharjah Biennial has been curated by Suzanne Cotter, Curator of Exhibitions, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project, and Rasha Salti in association with Haig Aivazian.

Suzanne Cotter is Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Curator, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project. Cotter has held curatorial positions at the Whitechapel Gallery and Hayward Gallery, London and was Senior Curator and Deputy Director of Modern Art Oxford (2002–2009). She has curated major solo and group exhibitions on contemporary art and artists and written for and edited of numerous catalogues and artist monographs, including a forthcoming book on the choreographer Michael Clark. She has also contributed to art publications including Frieze, Parkett and Artforum. A Jury member for the Turner Prize 2008, she was recipient of the Chevalier de l'Ordre dans les Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication in 2005.

Rasha Salti is an independent curator and freelance writer, working and living in Beirut. She has collaborated on a book entitled Beirut Bereft, The Architecture of the Forsaken and Map of the Derelict and has co-edited the publication I Would Have Smiled; A Tribute to Myrtle Winter Chaumeny. She was artistic director for the New York based biennial film festival CinemaEast (2005–7) and curated a season of Syrian cinema in 2006. Salti is also creative director of the New York based non-profit ArteEast.
Mustapha Benfodil, <i>Maportaliche / It Has No Importance</i>, 2011. Mixed-media installation, 23 mannequins, printed T-shirts, audio, graffiti Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation
Mustapha Benfodil, Maportaliche / It Has No Importance, 2011. Mixed-media installation, 23 mannequins, printed T-shirts, audio, graffiti Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation

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