STORY BY Carla Bianpoen | PHOTOS BY Marco Cappelletti, courtesy of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation
The second edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah opened on 25 January and is currently taking place until 15 May this year. This awe-inspiring event showcases the contemporaneity of more than 20 works in a setting of Islamic harmony, going together with the spirit of the time.
In specially curated indoor galleries and outdoor areas within the huge biennale, spreading over 100,000 sqm at the Western Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, more than 20 international and Saudi artists have explored how faith is experienced, expressed and celebrated through feeling; thinking and making according to the spirit of the current time.
The contemporary arts exhibition is part of the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah that comes under the title ‘And All That Is in Between,’ which is part of a verse that appears multiple times in the Holy Book, stating: ‘And God created the Heavens and the Earth, and all that is in between.’
Led by curator Muhannad Shono, who is also a contemporary artist, along with Joanna Chevalier and Amina Diab as associate curators, the contemporary arts exhibition within the biennale entails 20 international and Saudi artists, with 15 amongst them being women artists.
Amongst the commissioned artists is celebrated Taiwanese artist Charweigh Tsai. Born in Taipei in 1980, she graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and architectural history, had followed a postgraduate research program at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and had multiple solo and joint exhibitions, combining calligraphy, painting, photography, performance, video, and ephemeral art. Her works have been exhibited in such museums as the Tate Modern, London; Queensland Art Gallery; Mori Art Museum, Japan; and many more.
For the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, Charweigh Tsai was commissioned a work by the Diriyah Art Foundation, which organises the Islamic Arts Biennale. Tsai devised a circular space inspired by a 10th-century plate of Samarkand at the Louvre, with the Kufic (a style of Arabic script) inscription that reads, “Magnanimity is at first bitter, but ultimately sweeter than honey. Good Health.” She felt attracted to it, she revealed, as it reminded her of the Song Dynasty Ding ware of the same era, which she had many times seen in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Its minimal and contemporary aesthetics were another infusion, while the relevance of the meaning of the inscription—interpreted as patience, forbearance, tolerance, and a sense of magnanimity—deeply moved her as relevant in today’s polarised world.
Tsai’s work for the biennale is a direct response to the AH 360-90/975-1000 CE ceramic dish from the 10th century from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, belonging to the Musée du Louvre collection. The work expands upon the historic black motif and its Kufic calligraphy. She was particularly inspired by its first character, which could be interpreted as patience, tolerance, or knowledge—concepts that very much relate to today’s polarised world. Charweigh Tsai also revealed that she was impressed by its minimalism and contemporary aesthetics.
To signify the meaning of her huge paintings to Islamic art, she created a curve to place her paintings. The curve is featured in a section of the biennale called Al Madar (The Orbit), which encompasses historic Islamic art from all over the world. Charweigh Tsai reveals the process of achieving the paintings, with the first layer on the canvas using ink painted in circular motion. Then, the second layer used mother-of-pearl pigment on top of the ink stains, achieving a strong reflection of light, while the inscription of the first character in Kufic calligraphy is on the final layer. Drawing the Kufic character in a repetitive fashion, going in circular movement, renders the notion of deep meditation on the meaning of the inscription.
The entire exhibition of 20 contemporary artists is truly amazing in how tradition, belief and spirituality unite in works so beautiful, using materials of the time. An exemplary work in this sense is Echoes of the Skies by Timo Nasseri, featuring a scattered flock of birds on a hanging dome crafted from 1,008 polished stainless steel mirrors. It is particularly imaginative as the fragmented mirrors (birds) reflect the surrounding environment as shards from a celestial puzzle.
Then there is Fatma Abdulhadi (b. 1988) in Riyadh, an artist specialised in silkscreen printing. Her work in the biennale, I Wish You in Heaven, is a scent-based artwork recalling her mother’s saying that “the smell of basil is the scent of paradise.” In her biennale work I Wish You in Heaven, Fatma explores the relationship between spirituality and the sensory. With suspended meshes and abundant basil plants, she has created an immersive space for contemplation, akin to a transformative passage, says curator Muhannad Shono.
Japanese artist Takashi Kuribayashi (1968), who works between Tokyo and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, offers a work consisting of oil barrels. Considerate of the region’s abundant oil reserves and the attached commercial element, Kuribayashi said he wanted to alter the notion of energy from oil into energies that live in humankind and any living species. Consisting of 540 metallic barrels on an elevated platform on which visitors can climb, the work reflects on the relationship between humans and the environment. The top of the work Barrels is covered with mirrors, reflecting the tree and the sky, a reference that all the vegetation from above becomes the oil that lies deep below when fossilised.
Kuribayashi contextualises the work within a broadened understanding of the natural, which also includes entities such as arid landscapes, fauna, bacteria, mushrooms, and even cancer cells, while exploring the role of energy, natural resources, and the power of the earth’s ecologies.
Quite different is the work Air Temperature by Lucia Koch (1966), born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, who lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. The work is a labyrinthine installation that experiments with light’s chromatic effects. Using textiles that are constantly animated by air currents and the public’s movements, it offers distinct visions according to the hours of the day and the quality and direction of light. With curtain panels in hues of red and purple, one is reminded of the passing of time and the changes in the atmosphere, highlighting the constant transformation and interaction of light, air, and living entities.
Issues of today’s world, like appropriation, authenticity, and representation in today’s mass reproduction of images, occupy Anhar Salem’s Media Fountain, a video work that investigates the impact of globalization, capitalism, and digital media consumption on contemporary Islamic visual culture. Born in 1993 in Jeddah, Anhar lives and works between her place of birth and Paris. Anhar is a self-taught video artist of Yemeni and Indonesian descent.
Her work in the biennale, Media Fountain, is an interactive fountain installation, using the water element to evoke the Islamic theme of purity. When activated, the mock water tap projects onto the visitor’s hands a cascade of AI- produced images based on found Islamic visual content. The fountain is adorned with tile mosaics representing the diversity and anonymity of online identities.
This contemporary arts exhibition, which was intended for the artists’ faith to think, express, and make (art), renders a unique view of contemporary art in evolution.