6 works stand out in the Diriyah Biennale of Contemporary Art

Art events in Saudi Arabia often show a penchant for the bright and shiny. The second edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, the nation’s premier biennale, however, was no such spectacle. Launched with broad international ambitions, the exhibition showcased a diverse geographical range of artists from the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Organized by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation and led by artistic director Ute Meta Bauer, the second edition of the biennial opened on February 20th and will last until May 24th in the JAX District, the creative area of ​​the historic town of Diriyah, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Al-Turaif area, near the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Featuring 177 works by 100 artists and groups of artists from Saudi Arabia and around the world, including 47 new commissions, the exhibition is entitled “After the Rain”. It is a significant moment for the biennale of contemporary art in a country undergoing rapid social change, in the middle of a region experiencing intense turmoil and the breakdown of the global geopolitical order.

“We absorbed a lot of information about how artists look at and think about their cultural histories: the places they work, the climate, the geopolitical histories, the materials and the knowledge transmitted through artistic practice,” Bauer said in an interview. with Artsy. “‘After Rain’ responds to that, the feeling of being in a biennial as a living entity, rather than a static exhibition of works,” he added.

Even among the overwhelming onslaught of art at any international biennale, several artworks at the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024 stood out, especially those from or inspired by regions not normally included on the art world circuit. Here we highlight six works.

Citra Sasmita, “Timur Merah Project”, 2019-present

Multidisciplinary Balinese artist Citra Sasmita’s work is widely recognized for demystifying myths and misconceptions about her nation’s art and culture, and in particular for highlighting female-centered narratives that reflexively confront colonial legacies. Recently appearing on several important international platforms, such as the São Paulo Biennale 2023 and the Sydney Biennale 2024, Sasmita’s paintings, sculptures and installations are traditional. in Kamas painting with his trademark figurative and narrative compositions.

For the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024, Sasmita exhibited her new work “Timur Merah Project” (2019-present). The vast installation, composed of fabrics and carved wooden columns, placed to dramatic effect, shows the spread of Islamic culture throughout the Indonesian archipelago, reached by sea, and the historical importance of Nusantara’s iconic port. The artwork is particularly impactful given its context, situating the history of Bali’s influential Islamic and Hindu civilization in a major biennial in Saudi Arabia.

Phi Phi Oanh, a well-known name in the Southeast Asian art scene, has worked with Vietnamese lacquer painting (lacquer paint) for two decades. With a background in painting, he explores this historical technique to connect his material elements and expand his form. After exhibiting at major institutions and biennials in Asia Pacific, Oanh had her work at the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, There is a light in the spring (2013-present), adapts old slide projectors and scaled-down clear film to displays to reproduce colorful images of microscopic worlds as projections.

The installation, which transforms lacquer paint from physical objects into intangible light projections, evokes telescopic views of the universe. In this work, visitors to the biennale find themselves in front of science fiction images, through a centuries-old medium.

Dhali Al Mamoon, Kather Nripati (Lord of the Wood)2021

Dhali Al Mamoon is an artist and educator who engages with Bengali history and the persistence of colonialism as historical trauma through nuanced visual and corporeal installations that excavate memory and meaning. His works are in the collections of the National Art Gallery in Bangladesh, the Ibsen Museum in Norway and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, among others.

With the 2021 installation at the Biennale, Kather Nripati (Lord of the Wood), Mamoon’s interest in everyday objects is quite remarkable. The assembled kinetic sculptures border on the macabre, thanks to their arms and legs flailing in all directions, periodically rotating on several plinths near the entrance to the first gallery, immediately setting the tone of the biennale.

The sculptures are inspired by the palm leaf puppets who mocked the movements of Indian soldiers recruited by the British East India Company, known as sepoys. These dolls were a form of resistance against colonial imperialism, and as elsewhere in Mamoon’s body of work, these raging objects challenge the typical order of power in society.

Hamra Abbas is clearly having a moment right now. The artist, represented by one of the region’s leading galleries, Lawrie Shabibi, currently has a major public art installation on Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue. The title Each color is a Shade of Black (2024), is part of the artist’s ongoing exploration of color in the context of faith, identity, race, beauty, and more.

At the 2024 Diriyah Biennale of Contemporary Art, this momentum continues Mountain 5 (2023), the largest work in a series of mosaic panels depicting K2, the world’s second highest peak. Although this fascinating work of art is full of soothing nuances, it was created through a messy process, cutting and joining lapis lazuli stone, then fixing it to a granite base, before polishing the work to reveal the landscape presented throughout. -gallery space black and walled in the biennale.

Abbas’ skillful use of the medium began from a very personal place for the artist. In 2015, when he returned to his native Pakistan, the artist began incorporating marble inlays from local factories, adding a new tangible and lasting dimension to his work.

Turner Prize nominee Zarina Bhimji works with film, sound, photography, sculpture and textiles, focusing primarily on distilling the triangular historical relationship between East Africa, India and the UK.

Trained at Goldsmiths and the Slade School, Bhimji’s work is based on archival research and extensive fieldwork, and his filmmaking is filled with colorful compositions, elaborate camera movements, saturated colours, textures and layered soundtracks.

Bhimji’s work at the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, Yellow patch (2011), is no different. Which also forms the second part of a trilogy shot in India out of the blue (2002) and Jangbar (2015), an immersive single-screen installation focuses on light, shadow and texture in its slow-panning shots of the Victorian-era offices of the Mumbai Port Trust in the desert landscape of the Ran of Kutch, near the Indian Ocean. Mandi port, and various structures in western Gujarat.

Shot on 35mm film, these four major locations in the Indian subcontinent refer to Bhimji’s father’s migration during colonial times. However, it is the video work’s soundtrack that steals the show, layering atmospheric field recordings with audio clips of political figures associated with the region (Mahatma Gandhi, Lord Mountbatten, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Jawaharlal Nehru) alongside musical performances. From Tanzanian singer Bi Kidude and Pakistani musician Abida Parveen to create a whirlwind of song and movement that matches the visuals.