10 May 2009

9th Sharjah Biennial

Went to see the main galleries of the 9th Art Biennial in Sharjah.

Here's a few of the art works I found interesting:
Football Field, 2007-2009 Site-specific intervention
by Maider López (1975 San Sebastián, Spain; lives there)

Water Fountain , 2009 Site-specific intervention
also by Maider López
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Spells on Our Youth, 2009 Sculpture
by Diana Al Hadid (1981 Aleppo, Syria. Lives in Brooklyn, USA)
Her sculptures take 'towers' as their central theme, drawing together a wide variety of associations: power, wealth, technological and urban development, ideas of progress and globalism. They are also symbols of the problems of cultural difference and conflict. The design on display here takes form of an inverted Tower of Babel.
(check some of her work - HERE)
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Some place, 2005 Plumbing pipes, radio monologue
by Sheela Gowda (1957 Bhadravati, India. Lives in Bangalore, India)
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Halcyon Tarp, 2009 Installation using the Royal Bengal tiger as a motif to explore aspects of Bangladeshi history, society and politics.
by Firoz Mahmud (1974 Khulna, Bangladesh. Lives in Tokyo, Japan)
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Noor (Light), 2009Light, car sun protection film, plexiglas
by Giuseppe Moscatello (1979 Botrugno, Italy. Lives in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates)
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3D bodyscans of German women's football team FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling), Rapid Prototyping, Airbrush
by Karin Sander (1957 Bensberg, Germany. Lives in Berlin, Germany.)
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Under Standing Over Views, 2009 Installation composed of fallen paint fragments collected from the walls of different cities.
by Nadia Kaabi Linke (1978 Tunis, Tunisia. Lives in Berlin, Germany)
Below is another close-up image of the same
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KA, 2009 Installation 2 JCB 1CX hoe arms, buckets, hydraulics system
by Nida Sinnokrot (1971 Pennsylvania, USA. Grown up in Zeralda, Algeria. Lives in Madrid)
KA transposes the raised-arms symbol of an ancient Egyptian belief system into a contemporary 'sculpture' of mechanical bulldozer arms, creating both a physical and methaphysical allegory of power.
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Forced Labor (Red Sand), 2008Wooden shelf, red sand, figurine
by Liliana Liliana Porter (1941 Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives in New York, USA)
Below is another close-up image of the same
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And my favourite work of the Biennial was
Inshallah, 2005 Neon
by Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen (1971 Aalborg, Denmark. Lives in Paris and London)
Insha Allah is an Arabic term evoked to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will". In Arabic speaking countries including UAE the term is used by members of all religions; meaning the term in and of itself does not denote a religion, but simply means "God willing."

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