The art scene in the UAE continues to be a mixed bag, especially for independent artists who don’t have a seat in the art world’s big table. Earlier this year, The Quiet Editor addressed this in an essay titled Engagement and Inclusion in Art Institutions in the UAE.

Despite an active (sometimes hyperactive) calendar of exhibitions and events in the country, a lot of the work produced or exhibited appear to be safe at best, Instagrammable spectacle at worst. My brother Khalid Mezaina wrote about this in his end of year post, this part is my favourite:

・i sometimes feel the local art world is only interested in works that are 'conceptual' and present themselves in abstraction, steering away from anything representational. i wonder if that's because it keeps things 'safe' and doesn't ruffle any feathers as the works are open to interpretation by viewers. or maybe everyone's pretending they're super intelligent and think the answers to all the world's problems are found by staring at a cube in a white cube!

Outside the UAE and in the past few months, many western cultural institutions have shown their prejudices when it comes to showing support for artists and causes that stand against injustices and oppression. Diversity and representation were merely window dressing all along. To not be against a genocide that is obliterating Palestinian civilians, their homes and hospitals is heartless.

Living in a part of the world where there’s already a limitation on artistic expression (creatively and politically), the wave of censorship in European and American institutions has been quite an eye opener. A few pieces worth reading:

The Embargo on Empathy by Jumana Manna
Documenta Resignation Letter by Ranjit Hoskoté
Art Student Fights for Free Speech After School Asks to Remove Pro-Palestine Signs
Germany Is Known for Its Heavily Funded, Thriving Art Scene. But a Slew of Cancellations Is Threatening That Reputation by Hanno Hauenstein

Whilst a few art institutions in the UAE have been public with their support for Palestine, similar gestures outside the art bubble is monitored, controlled, censored.

Feeling disillusioned about the state world, I still try to look for art that inspires, asks questions, and at times just simply gives me joy in these dark and cruel times.
The following is my list of 15 favourite artworks/exhibitions starting with my top 3 of the year, the rest are added in chronological order of visits. At the end of this post I added a list all exhibitions I visited this year.

1. Poster - Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger
BFI Southbank, London
October 16 - December 31, 2023

My favourite artwork of the year is this poster for Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger, a film retrospective that ran at the BFI Southbank in London and in cinemas across the UK between October and December.

The juxtaposition of two crucial scenes from two different films - the fall of Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) and transitioning from mental breakdown to derangement (Black Narcissus, 1947), and a teardrop falling on a pink rose marking a transition from life to death (A Matter of Life and Death, 1946).

These two scenes representing madness and sadness look so good together, and even more striking on the lightbox I saw at the BFI where I watched a few of the films from this retrospective.

2. The Peacock’s Graveyard - Amar Kanwar
Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present
Old Al Dhaid Clinic, Al Dhaid
February 7 - June 11, 2023

Still from The Peacock’s Graveyard by Amar Kanwar via Sharjah Art Foundation

Dreams are actually messages
from people who have passed
No, dreams are the deeper mind
thinking when we sleep

The above quote is from Amar Kanwar’s 7 channel video installation that was commissioned for Sharjah Biennial 15 and exhibited in a shed outside the Old Al Dhaid Clinic (one of the 19 locations of the biennial). I wrote about my first impressions of the biennial here and listed a few favourite works, topping the list with John Akomfrah’s Arcadia (2023), but when I saw The Peacock’s Grave, it instantly became my favourite work from this edition of the biennial.

After seeing all the works at Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (more than 300 works by 150 artists spread across 19 locations), my overall impression is that it was a bloated edition. There were lots of good and important work, but it was overwhelming making it difficult to reflect and to “think”. Not to mention seeing work about queerness, discrimination, protest and struggles, all of which can be considered as a subversive act to include them in a biennial in this country, but the reality is it’s a subversion that is contained in an art bubble, only legible to the people inside that bubble.

Humble in its scale compared to Akomfrah’s Arcadia, Knawar’s The Peacock’s Grave is intimate, poetic, sublime, and a much more meaningful work to me about our place in this world.

Of the work, the artist writes that it is “[...] not a lament or mourning, but perhaps a kind of gift, a collection of stories, some ancient, some new, something to keep by one’s side every day, or take along if going someplace, or to help us reconfigure life, ideologies, politics, solidarities, social movements. These stories lay the groundwork for reflecting on our unbearable arrogance, delusions and deep desire for violence. (via Marian Goodman Gallery)

Photos below by me.

3. Natural Sources - Jochen Lempert
Grey Noise, Dubai
January 11 - March 31, 2023

I almost missed this exhibition. I went because a friend recommended it and said I’d like it. He was right.

Jochen Lempert photographs the natural world in the most diverse contexts: from their habitat to the museums, from the zoo to the urban environment, in remote places or banal settings and situations. Lempert compiles his findings in a vast archive of images covering an ample spectrum, from common everyday views, to compositions that tend towards abstraction. This interest in the natural world as a subject has been further complemented by his exploration of the properties and materiality of the photographic image. Analogue, black and white, hand-printed in the darkroom, his photographs resist categorization and confront the canons of today’s aesthetic.
In his presentations, Lempert uses groupings and scale to respond to the exhibition space. He places and selects the photographs thoughtfully, always looking for cross-references and associations, uncovering subtle correspondences. Lempert’s arrangements give us new insights into our own place within the patterns, the structures and even the randomness or the order of the natural world. (via Grey Noise)

Images below courtesy of Grey Noise.

Untitled (Courbet), 2020, silver gelatin print, 37 x 27.5 cm

Untitled (David), 2019, silver gelatin print, 8 x 8 cm

Moon and Leaf, 2022, silver gelatin print, 23.2 x 17.2 cm

Digitalis, 2022, silver gelatin print, 25 x 18.5 cm

4. Notations on Time
Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai
January 18 - June 2, 2023

Wrote about this exhibition here.

5. The Euphoria of Colour - Carlos Cruz-Diez
Galeria Continua, Dubai
November 13, 2022 - January 31, 2023

It was my first visit to Galeria Continua in Dubai. It is located in Burj Al Arab Hotel, and has a great view of the sea. I couldn’t think of a better space in Dubai to show this work.

*Carlos Cruz-Diez - The Euphoria of Colour* exhibition view, GALLERIA CONTINUA / Dubai.
Photo: Musthafa Aboobacker

6. Field Recordings - Bridget Smith
Frith Street Gallery, Golden Square, London
January 27 - March 11, 2023

I was not familiar with Bridget Smith’s work before this exhibition, and glad I visited this exhibition and spoke to the artist briefly at the gallery. The following text is from Firth Street’s website.

Working in photography, video and installation, Bridget Smith’s practice interrogates the relationships we have with our environment, exploring the spaces in which we seek connection and transportation. For her new exhibition Field Recordings at Frith Street Gallery, Smith considers the natural world, using a range of mediums, all connected by circular motifs which may evoke the sun and the moon. The viewer is asked to consider the universe from a multitude of perspectives, being present in the moment while contemplating the passing of time. As the exhibition progresses, the circular becomes cyclical referencing an endless turn and return.

Bridget Smith - Silver Moons I, 2022, Tintypes
Silver Moons is a new series of tintypes depicting twelve luminescent spheres. Each hovers in what appears to be the deep black of space, conjuring thoughts of the moon and its phases. The photographs are created by exposing tin plates coated in silver nitrate in a large format camera, their materiality paralleling the metaphorical descriptions of the ‘silver’ light of the moon.

Evident in Field Recordings is Smith’s ongoing interest in photography’s ‘expanded field’, pushing the medium into the realm of sculpture and moving image whilst also adopting some of photography’s earliest methods. Previous works include Smith’s large-scale cyanotypes, a process originally used to create architectural blueprints and chosen by the artist for the particularity of the image it creates. The series Blueprint for a Sea (2015) captures cinema interiors complete with their repetitive seat formations, which allude to the wave-like patterns and light reflections on the surface of the sea.
For Field Recordings Smith worked with tintype photographer Nicky Thompson to produce a set of small, postcard-sized ambrotypes and tintypes, processes developed in the 1850s as a more affordable alternative to daguerreotypes. Objects in Space capture and document certain natural objects, recalling still unknown realms such as the depths of the ocean or outer space. Despite their antiquated mode of production, the dense dark background brings to mind the liquid-crystal display screen of a mobile phone – a device that people receive most of their images on today.

7. Voice-Over-Voice- by Shazia Salam
Tashkeel, Dubai
January 18 Jan - February 21 Feb, 2023

Shazia attempts to keep time with the rhythms of capitalist labour. She does so by entering the workspace of a particular professional sector in the region; voice-over artists. Holding a cultural position in the audio landscape of the UAE, their voices recall familiar transmissions; either through automated messages at the end of telephone lines, polite instructions in metro stations or emphatic displays in radio commercials. Shazia delves into the rituals, processes and procedures of the voice at work. (via Tashkeel)

Shazia Salam - Artefacts, 2022, 1min30s
Installation comprising recordings of collected vocal artefacts, breathing lights, excerpts of patent number US6658577B2.
Photo: Tashkeel

Shazia Salam - Emotional State, 2022, 3m30s
Installation comprising voice recording and digital print of spectral frequency audio visualization.
Photo: Tashkeel

8. Ruido / Noise - Karen Lamassonne
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
25 February – 14 May 23

Ruido / Noise is the first international survey of the work of Colombian American artist Karen Lamassonne (b. 1954, New York), a central figure of the male-dominated art and film scenes in Colombia in the 1970s and 80s. Throughout her career, Lamassonne has maintained a focus on self-portraiture and depictions of intimacy. The exhibit at KW encompasses contributions to both art and cinema and ranges from her earliest to most recent work. It shows Lamassonne’s radical, longstanding commitment to portraying women as actively desiring subjects. From tiled bathrooms, where a room of one’s own can be found behind locked doors, to urban bridges and parks, where erotic encounters are presented in a shifting sociocultural landscape, many of her paintings, photographs, collages, and videos depict the city’s sensual life in public and private spaces.
The earliest works in the exhibition are pencil drawings and airbrush paintings and include subjects and motifs that she would continue to pursue throughout her career. Paisaje (Landscape), from 1975, is one of a series of airbrush paintings that render figures at the scale of vast landscapes. Other early drawings include fragmented body parts that take on the attributes of other organisms such as a pair of hands in the form of a bird as seen in Vuelo (Flight), 1974, or ears that appear to grow like crops from the soil in Conchas (Ears), 1974. (via KW)

9. Nooks of Power - Sophiya Khwaja
Tashkeel (Warehouse 58, Alserkal Avenue), Dubai
May 9 - June 12, 2023

‘Nooks of Power’ aims to investigate the ways in which humans acquire, hoard and unleash authoritative power, with Sophiya dissecting herself as ‘Specimen No.1’. Divided into five distinct series, the works are all executed on paper using techniques from pastels to digital prints, employing acrylics, thread, collage, tea-wash and gouache. Each series is accompanied by a short explanatory text by the artist presented on the adjacent wall or incorporated within the work. These stories depict scenarios that were playing in Sophiya’s mind while creating the work in her studio. (via Tashkeel)

10. Bologna Fotografata. People, places, photographers
Sottopasso di Piazza Re Enzo, Bologna
May 12, 2023 – January 28, 2024

Wrote about it here.

11. A One and A Two: Edward Yang Retrospective
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
July 22 – October 22, 2023

Wrote about it here.

12. All My Little Words - Yoshitomo Nara
Albertina Modern, Vienna
May 10 - November 1, 2023

All My Little Words at the Albertina modern focuses on Nara’s multifaceted oeuvre of drawings, which developed over a period of some forty years and is presented here in a Petersburg hanging arranged by the artist himself. The exhibition ranges from early experimental works on paper and a number of paintings and sculptures to an expansive installation. The drawings, which he sometimes scribbles almost casually on slips of paper, envelopes, flyers, or corrugated cardboard, show the direct influence of music, literature, sub and pop culture that express the artist’s sociopolitical concerns: they negotiate social values, norms, and ideals in a diaristic manner. Nara’s mastery of drawing manifests itself in the richness of an emotional spectrum, ranging from vulnerability to existential depth to rebellion and unruliness. (via Albertina Modern)

I loved this description by friend Matt Mansfield in his Strange Days newsletter, “An exhibition of angry children with adult problems. A never ending fight.”

In a room about post-war trauma, a specially made exhibition soundtrack (great idea) can be heard in a room with works about post-war trauma. When I entered, I heard Voyages of the Moon by Mary Hopkin (1969) and was overcome with tears.

And there will come a time, my love
Oh, may it be in mine, my love
When men will proudly rise, my love
And board to sail the skies
Moonships from all the spheres
Moonships from all the spheres

The men be bathed in light, my love
The women clothed in white, my love
All in that wonderous fleet, my love
As each the other meets
Will smile and softly sing
Will smile and softly sing

And on some distant sand, my love
The ships will gently land, my love
Fair folk will meet them there, my love
With flowing golden hair
And great will be their joy
And great will be their joy

Photos by me.

13. Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective
The Photographers’ Gallery, London
October 6, 2023 - February 11, 2024

The retrospective focuses on different moments of Moriyama’s vast and productive career - beginning with his early works for Japanese magazines, interest in the American occupation, and engagement with photorealism. The show then moves through to his work from the self-reflexive period in the 1980s and 1990s, following on to his explorations of the essence of photography and of his own self, reflecting on reality, memory and cities through tireless documentation and the reinvention of his own archive.
Fittingly, Daido Moriyama: A Retrospective, brings together more than 200 works and large-scale installations, as well as many of Moriyama’s rare photobooks and magazines, for the first time in the UK. (via The Photographers’ Gallery)

Photos by me.

14. Hiroshi Sugimoto
Hayward Gallery, London
October 11, 2023 –⁠ January 7 Jan, 2024

I was so happy to finally see Sugimoto’s Theatres series in person, and his Seascapes series is mesmerising.

Over the past 50 years, Sugimoto has created pictures which are meticulously crafted, deeply thought-provoking and quietly subversive. Featuring key works from all of the artist’s major photographic series, this survey highlights Sugimoto’s philosophical yet playful inquiry into our understanding of time and memory, and photography’s ability to both document and invent. The exhibition also includes lesser-known works that reveal the artist’s interest in the history of photography, as well as in mathematics and optical sciences. (via Hayward Gallery)

15. The Red Shoes: Beyond the Mirror
Blue Room, BFI Southbank, London
November 10, 2023 - January 7, 2024

‘Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the red shoes go on.’ Circling back to the start of this list, an exhibition about Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. It was the first time for the BFI to host an exhibition like this and hope they will do more in the future. It was unassuming and delightful.

Discover over 100 previously unseen costume and production designs, scripts, behind the scenes photographs and posters, alongside the iconic red ballet shoes featured in the film. The exhibition will also feature personal items owned by Moira Shearer and costumes from Matthew Bourne’s recent ballet adaptation. (via BFI)

Photos by me. More here.