The summer–autumn 2023 exhibition programme at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai’s hub for contemporary art and ideas, includes more than 100 artists, spanning history and geography, from Iran of the early 70s through to dynamic new commissions by UAE-based artists.
Tsuyoshi Hisakado: Polite Existence
May 4–September 24, 2023
In his first exhibition in the Middle East and South Asia, co-produced with the Japan Foundation, artist Tsuyoshi Hisakado focusses on large-scale conceptual installations that span techniques and materials including sound, light, computer programming, sculpture and drawing—taking inspiration from the laws of physics and mathematics.
Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics
June 8, 2023–January 7, 2024
The sixth edition of the Jameel Prize, the first to have a focus on contemporary design, arrives “home” in the UAE, having debuted at the V&A in London, and toured to Centro Cultural La Moneda in Santiago, Chile and El Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Franklin in Argentina.
Jameel Prize: Poetry to Politics features works by finalists Golnar Adili (Iran), Hadeyeh Badri (UAE), Kallol Datta (India), Farah Fayyad (Lebanon), Ajlan Gharem (Saudi Arabia), Sofia Karim (UK), Jana Traboulsi (Lebanon), and Bushra Waqas Khan (Pakistan) plus Saudi artist Ajlan Gharem, announced as the winner in September 2021 by an esteemed, independent jury for his architectural installation Paradise Has Many Gates (2015).
Some seasons: Fereydoun Ave and the Laal Collection, 1959–2019
September 28, 2023–March 24, 2024
Featuring more than 30 artists from the collection of one of Iran’s most influential and critical artists, this exhibition highlights five decades of modern and contemporary Iranian art, shaped by personal history, friendship, sensibility and circumstance. The Laal Collection was originally conceived by the Carnegie Museum of Art for the 58th Carnegie International and is curated by Negar Azimi and Sohrab Mohebbi with Talia Heiman.
Featured artists: Shirin Aliabadi, Yaghoub Amaemehpich, Nazgol Ansarinia, Fereydoun Ave, Haydeh Ayazi, Ashurbanipal Babilla, Sadra Baniasadi, Leyly Matine-Daftary, Davood Emdadian, Parvaneh Etemadi, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Raana Farnoud, Shahab Fotouhi, Ali Golestaneh, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Arash Hanaiae, Khosrow Hassanzadeh, Sirak Melkonian, Yashar Samimi Mofakham, Ardeshir Mohasses, Houman Mortazavi, Farhad Moshiri, Nikzad Nodjoumi, Iman Raad, Behjat Sadr, Bijan Saffari, Mostafa Sarabi, Mamali Shafahi, Reza Shafahi, Shideh Tami, Cy Twombly, Manouchehr Yektai, Hossein-Ali Zabehi, among others.
Hospitality
November 2, 2023–April 28, 2024
Curated by Murtaza Vali, Hospitality features 20 artists exploring the roles of hotels and the hospitality industry in the postwar era. Including loans from international museums, commissions and works from the Art Jameel Collection, together with archives and architectural interventions, the exhibition lends a critical eye to histories of colonialism, nationalism, modernity, conflict and globalisation.
Ongoing
Artist’s Rooms
Until May 14, 2023
Drawn from the Art Jameel Collection, this series of solo exhibitions by influential, innovative artists focusses on practitioners from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Ayesha Sultana
Bringing together recent works on paper and canvas, this exhibition explores the artist’s engagement with the materiality and everyday iconography of her home city of Dhaka.
Risham Syed
The exhibition comprises Syed’s major installation, The Seven Seas (2012), a series of large-scale quilts depicting 20th-century maps of various port cities that were strategically located on the colonial European trade route.
Daniele Genadry
This Artist’s Room features Genadry’s major painting Blind Light (2017), with new works focussing on distance, light and movement.
Artist’s Garden: Samur by Zheng Bo
Until December 1, 2024
Samur features a dance performance with a Samur tree growing in the UAE desert, paying homage to the tree’s resilience and cultural significance. The dance is presented as a film installation at the Jameel, surrounded by a landscape of indigenous desert plants.
Alongside exhibitions, commissions and research, Art Jameel’s curatorial focus includes artists’ film and video installations, presenting Tekla Aslanishvili: A State in a State (until April 23, 2023) and Sara Sadik: They will end up in ravines (until August 20, 2023).
