Order of Magnitude by artist Jitish Kallat kicks off the 2022 edition of Ishara Art Foundation
Ishara Art Foundation opens 2022 with Order of Magnitude by Jitish Kallat, the artist’s first major solo exhibition in West Asia and the Levant. Running from February 16 to July 1 2022, the exhibition includes new works that include paintings, multimedia installations, drawings and site-specific interventions, the exhibition reflects Jitish Kallat’s profound deliberations on the interrelationship between the cosmic and the terrestrial. Jitish Kallat’s oeuvre sits between fluid speculation, precise measurement and conceptual conjectures producing dynamic forms of image-making. Using abstract, schematic, notational and representational languages, he engages with different modes of address, seamlessly interlacing the immediate and the cosmic, the telescopic and the microscopic, the past and present. In Order of Magnitude, one finds a contemplation of overarching interconnectivity on the individual, universal, planetary and extra-terrestrial dimensions.
The viewer is first confronted with Integer Studies (Drawings from Life), which run through the space resembling both the horizon and the equator. Since the beginning of 2021, Kallat followed a ritual of making one daily drawing as part of a durational study in graphite, aquarelle pencil and gesso stains. Each work comprises diverse forms anchored by the same three sets of numbers: the algorithmically estimated world population, the number of new births, and the death count noted at the particular moment of the work’s creation. Human life and death are abstracted in drawings that are both graphic and painterly, prompting questions of extinction and evolution. Seen alongside these studies is a wall-sized painting titled Postulates from a Restless Radius, whose perimeter takes the form of the conic Albers projection of the Earth. The work begins as an unstable, cross-sectional grid (in aquarelle pencil) that opens up the globe on a flat plane. There is no cartographic intent here; in place of planetary geography it assembles signs and speculations, at once evoking botanical, suboceanic, celestial, and geological formations. Postulates from a Restless Radius is an exploratory abstraction of forms that suggest signatures of growth and entropy.
Jitish Kallat: Order of Magnitude will be accompanied by physical and virtual tours, educational and public programmes, a newly commissioned text by Amal Khalaf and artist conversations over the duration of the exhibit.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=https://www.facebook.com/designmiddleeast”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Sharjah Art Foundation announces details for FOCAL POINT Art Book Fair
Sharjah Art Foundation announces the programme and exhibitors for FOCAL POINT, the region’s largest and most diverse art book fair. Returning for its fourth edition, the fair brings together printed matter from the MEASA (Middle East, Africa, South Asia) region, including artist books, academic volumes and journals, zines and other non-traditional and experimental publications from more than 120 publishers, magazines, artists, editors, authors and makers from the UAE and MEASA region. FOCAL POINT takes place from 9 to 11 December 2021 in Sharjah Art Foundation’s Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, Arts Square.
For the first time this year, FOCAL POINT will feature a day-long talks programme at the iconic Flying Saucer about new books released from the Foundation, The Africa Institute and publications supported and made possible by the FOCAL POINT Publishing Grant. The event will bring together publishers, distributors, art professionals, knowledge producers, graphic designers, writers, journalists and editors to learn about these publications.
FOCAL POINT’s public programme extends throughout the art book fair with children and community workshops, music events and more.
A number of major publications and artist monographs will launch during FOCAL POINT 2021. These include:
Ahmed Morsi: A Dialogic Imagination, published by Sharjah Art Foundation, The Africa Institute and Skira, a significant monograph discussing the places, people, texts, ideas and materials that have shaped the unique practice of the New York–based Egyptian artist Ahmed Morsi.
Creating Dangerously: A Postscript to Sharjah Biennial 14, a collection of essays, poems and thoughts representing an extension of the SB14 platform, Making New Time, edited by Omar Kholeif, Director of Collections and Senior Curator, Sharjah Art Foundation.
The second edition of Beirut Bereft: The Architecture of the Forsaken and Map of the Derelict, a collaborative publication and exhibition project by Rasha Salti and Ziad Antar, which was originally commissioned, published and produced for Sharjah Biennial 9 (2009).
Corniche 3, a SAF Community publication project which brings together artists specialised in comics and illustrations based in the UAE and broader region.
The Africa Institute will launch Selene Wendt’s latest book Beyond the Door of No Return: Confronting Hidden Colonial Histories through Contemporary Art which explores the legacies of colonialism in contemporary art as well as the memoirs of Ibrahim El-Salahi, At Home in the World, tracing his life and career from Khartoum to Doha to São Paulo to New York.
Ma3azef, in collaboration with SHFRA studios and Barzakh, will release The Moment of Tarab, which takes an intimate look into the lives of singing legends such as Fayrouz and Abu Bakr Salem, and Omissions in the Official Narrative, an anthology of the Golden Age of Arabic music. These two publications are produced as a result of the 2019 FOCAL POINT Publishing Grant, awarded to Ma3azef.
FOCAL POINT 2021
9–11 December 2021
Talks Programme: The Flying Saucer
10:00 am–4:00 pm, 9 December
Art Book Fair: Bait Obaid Al Shamsi, Arts Square
4:00 pm–10:00 pm, 9–11 December
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=https://www.facebook.com/designmiddleeast”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Institutional exhibition of The Otolith Group opens at Sharjah Art Foundation
Xenogenesis, presented by Sharjah Art Foundation from 13 November 2021 to 5 February 2022, brings together a selection of key works by The Otolith Group, the London-based art collective consisting of Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, founded in 2002.
Featuring a cross-section of works produced by the collective between 2011 and 2018, the exhibition reflects the artists’ ongoing commitment to creating what they call ‘a science fiction of the present’ through images, voices, sounds and performance.
Suspended between fiction, poetry, documentary and theory, The Otolith Group’s post-cinematic films, high-definition videos and multiple screen installations address contemporary social issues and themes inherited from colonialism, the way in which humans have impacted the earth, and the influence of new media on human activities.
The title of the exhibition references the African American science fiction novelist Octavia Butler’s legendary Xenogenesis trilogy. Butler’s ideas inform Eshun and Sagar’s longstanding preoccupation with the promise and threat of the idea of ‘alien becoming’, or ‘becoming alien’.
The most recent work in the exhibition is O Horizon (2018). The term O Horizon is used by soil scientists to refer to the surface layer of organic matter continually altered by human existence.
Sagar and Eshun adopted this agronomic term for their study of Santinketan, West Bengal, India, where the poet, dramatist, essayist, composer, artist, educator, social reformer, and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) founded the Visva Bharati University in 1921.
In its portrait of recitals, performances, choreography, and discussion situated within an ongoing environmental struggle to preserve the health of soil against the attrition of global warming, O Horizon suggests the outlines of a Tagorean ethos for the 21st century.
Another prominent work in the exhibition is The Third Part of the Third Measure (2017), co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation for Sharjah Biennial 13 (SB13), and part of the Foundation’s Collection.
The Third Part of the Third Measure emerges from The Otolith Group’s longstanding engagement with the work of the African American composer Julius Eastman (1940–1990).
Filmed and recorded in six takes with three cameras at RAK Studios in St John’s Wood, North London, on 12 and 13 February 2017, The Third Part of the Third Measure returns to the moment of 16 January 1980 when Eastman led three pianists in a performance of his controversial compositions.
Several works in the exhibition explore the impact of new media on humans, including Anathema (2011). By descending beneath the LCD screens of advertisements for smartphones, laptops and flat screen televisions, Anathema envisions the material substrate of liquid crystal technology as a sentient entity.
From this perspective, liquid crystal is reimagined as an entity that possesses consumers for its own occult objectives. Anathema exemplifies Eshun and Sagar’s enduring preoccupation with science fiction as a diagnosis of the present rather than the future. In From Left to Night (2015), the biomorphically geometric digital abstractions that pass across the multiple screens bring viewers into a sustained encounter with the material substrate of liquid crystals beneath the screens of smartphones, laptops, and flat screen televisions.
From Left to Night envisions the hidden technology of the liquid crystal as an abstract landscape that estranges the forms of mimetic rivalry produced by the active screens of social media.
In Statecraft: An Incomplete Timeline of Independence (2014-2019), commemorative stamps provide The Otolith Group with a rich iconography for narrating the political imaginary of African independence, as mass-manufactured designs issued to memorialise significant national events.
By sequencing the births and military coups d’etat of Africa’s new nation states in a historical timeline, Statecraft brings viewers face to face with the dissimulative aesthetics of national unity.
Xenogenesis was first shown at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven in May 2019 and was curated by Annie Fletcher. Its presentation in Sharjah is organised by Van Abbemuseum and Sharjah Art Foundation and co-curated by Annie Fletcher, Director, Irish Museum of Modern Art and Hoor Al Qasimi, Director, Sharjah Art Foundation. Original exhibition architecture designed by Diogo Passarinho Studio.
Xenogenesis was on view at the Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond, Virginia (2020), Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (2020), and Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne (2020). Following its presentation in Sharjah, the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana in 2022 and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in 2022.
The publication Xenogenesis, a polyphonic exploration of the work of The Otolith Group, will be officially launched in conjunction with the exhibition opening at Sharjah Art Foundation.
Presenting all bodies of work contained in the exhibition, the publication presents materials and graphics from the artists’ broader practice and brings together important thinkers, scholars, art historians and writers from disparate fields including Denise Ferreira da Silva, Annie Fletcher, Anselm Franke, Shanay Jhaveri, George E. Lewis, Mahan Moalemi, Fred Moten, Grant Watson, Vivian Ziherl and the late Mark Fisher. Edited by The Otolith Group and Megs Morley, and designed by Luca Frei, Xenogenesis will be available in the UAE exclusively at Sharjah Art Foundation shops alongside the exhibition opening on 13 November 2021.
Xenogenesis is published by Irish Museum of Modern Art and Archive books, with the generous support of the international partners and tour venues, Buxton Contemporary, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Institute of Contemporary Art, Virginia, Sharjah Art Foundation, Southern Alberta Art Gallery and Van Abbemuseum.
The exhibition opening on 13 November will be accompanied by a Talks Programme which includes two conversations: ‘Visions of the Future, Speculations on the Present: Thinking with Octavia Butler’ with Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, and ‘Xenogenesis: A Conversation with The Otolith Group’ that includes Anjalika Sagar, Kodwo Eshun, Annie Fletcher and Ciarán Finlayson.
The conversations will be followed by the official launch and signing of the monograph Xenogenesis: The Otolith Group.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=https://www.facebook.com/designmiddleeast”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
du selected by Watani Al Emarat Foundation for cloud migration to Dubai Pulse platform
du, from Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), today announced that it has been selected as the cloud service provider of choice for Watani Al Emarat Foundation, the social development program promoting UAE national identity and good citizen practices across the local community. With the Foundation identifying the Dubai Pulse platform as the preferred secure cloud-hosting environment for availing complete managed services, the leading national telco provider will assume responsibility for successful Dubai Pulse cloud migration. The new partnership has been finalised with a signing ceremony at the 41st GITEX Technology Week, which is currently being held until October 21 at Dubai World Trade Center.
Fahad Al Hassawi, Chief Executives Officer, EITC, said: “Ever since the official launch, Dubai Pulse has demonstrated its practicality as a futuristic digital operating system that caters to and benefits every segment of our society. With cloud capabilities now becoming even more invaluable in today’s evolving operating environments, we are proud to reaffirm our commitment to supporting clients in their cloud migration journeys by utilising our experience, expertise, and resources to ensure their goals and objectives are realised. GITEX 2021 represents the start of what promises to a successful partnership alongside Watani Al Emarat Foundation. We are eager to begin working with our new partner and equipping them with cloud-first capabilities they require to streamline business processes and ensure long-term operational sustainability.”
As digital transformation acceleration continues presenting organisations from all verticals with new and sustainable operating capabilities, Watani Al Emarat Foundation is now pursuing its vision for achieving increased scalability, performance, data security, and cost savings through new initiatives and IT services implementation on the cloud. More specifically, the Foundation requires a cloud-based file server to facilitate document sharing between corporate users, seamless user and computer authentication and authorisation in a Windows domain network, and the ability to assign and enforce security policies for all computers, including software updates and installation.
Dherar Belhoul Al falasi, Executive Director, Watani Al Emarat Foundation, added: “Considering Dubai Pulse is a joint initiative between Smart Dubai and du, we identified from the outset that there is no organisation better suited for leading our platform cloud migration journey than du, which has a distinguished track record for delivering on its client transformation commitments. From our perspective, complete managed services accessible through Dubai Pulse will be central to our services for many years to come, and we are delighted that du will be supporting us in obtaining the services and capabilities we require.”
du will begin initiating Watani Al Emarat Foundation’s cloud journey with seamless and fast implementation, with the end result being re-defined business continuity, complete managed services, and access to required networks and services. Based on the requirements detailed by the Foundation, du has also proposed Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for active directory and managed services. These benefits would be provisioned via Dubai Pulse, which is highly scalable, secure, and hosted in Tier 3 UAE data centers.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=https://www.facebook.com/designmiddleeast”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Dubai’s Khurram Shroff to chair Miami Mixed Arts Foundation
Khurram Shroff, Chairman of Dubai’s IBC group, one of the Middle East’s largest cryptocurrency hodlers and Blockchain advocates, has announced that he will be chairing the Miami Mixed Arts Foundation, which will include the biggest digital art collectors in the world. The foundation will launch the first-ever exhibition to include a mix of digital and physical art, in Miami.
A city that boasts one of the most flourishing art scenes in the world, Miami has long attracted tourists for its Art Deco Historical District, located in the South Beach neighbourhood of Miami Beach. Reflecting a movement that enjoyed its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, the Art Deco district was the first 20th-century location to be recognized by the National Register of Historic Places.
Shroff has fond memories of Miami’s Art Deco Historical District. “Art deco is a very quaint district, a short distance from South Beach”, said Shroff,. “I remember going there in 2001 as a student and remember feeling a cool energy and vibe there. I had the best omelette and café con leche coffee then. It was one of the best omelettes I have had, second only to my favourites Raju Omelette and Filli Tea, in Dubai”.
Following in the footsteps of this tradition for being a hub for modern and post-modernist art, Miami has been hosting one of the annual editions of the famed Art Basel fair, in recent years. The event draws artists and art buffs from all over the world, and features exhibits showcasing some of the most exciting contemporary talents, as well as the works of some of the biggest names in 20th-century art.
Apart from establishing itself as one of the most awaited events in the city’s hectic art calendar, Art Basel Miami has also emerged as a global platform for electronic music. And this is no small feat, in a city that hosts the Ultra Music Festival, one of the world’s biggest electronic-music events. Miami’s tech-friendly character is also reflected by innovations such as NBA Top Shots, which is bringing digital assets to the world of collectibles, using NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens). Created by Dapper Labs, the NBA licensed NFTs facilitate the collection and trading of digital assets which represent physical collectible items.
“Miami Beach is now home to one of the most cutting edge art scenes in the world, as well as being one of the most digital-savvy ecosystems in the world,” Shroff said. “And the Miami Mixed Arts Foundation will introduce the next generation of digital artists to this iconic contemporary art scene, as part of exhibits that will also feature physical art”.
“This will be done by including leading artists, educators, influencers, and content creators, among the Miami Mixed Arts Foundation’s Board of Directors, which is to be announced soon. The foundation will also include some of the world’s leading digital art collectors. Once considered a fringe movement, these collections are now attracting mainstream attention, as seen by the recent sale of an early CryptoPunk collectible, for $762K in Ether”, Shroff, continued.
The Miami Mixed Arts Foundation will also drive the use of digital artwork in buildings, by partnering with Miami’s prominent real estate leaders. Anyone will be able to buy digital creations in (NFTs), allowing them to create digital displays or physical twins of the art which can be displayed virtually, across many platforms, also known as metaverses. The foundation’s motivation is to bring the next generation of digital art to fans, while increasing the value of the NFTs, for the benefit of the artists.
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.5&appId=https://www.facebook.com/designmiddleeast”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Ellington Art Foundation launches ‘The Art of The Silk Road’ competition to support local talent
Ellington Art Foundation, an initiative by property developer Ellington Properties, has announced a new nationwide art competition under the theme ‘The Art of The Silk Road’, to support aspiring and emerging artists in the UAE with commissioned pieces.
The initiative has been launched in line with the art foundation’s goal of promoting the UAE’s creative scene and supporting the nation’s goal to be a global centre for art and design.
Aimed at fostering local artists, the competition will offer homegrown talent an opportunity to elevate their visibility in the art sector by showcasing their creative work at one of Ellington’s award-winning residential projects, Wilton Terraces. The contest is open to all UAE residents aged 18 and over.
Robert Booth, managing director, Ellington Properties, said: “The Wilton Terrace Art Competition highlights our commitment to support and empower the UAE’s art community. We offer local upcoming and striving artists an avenue to showcase their creativity and join the league of featured artists by the Ellington Art Foundation at our communities. Our exceptionally designed residential developments deliver the finest in every aspect of life, and Wilton Terraces will serve as an ideal venue to exhibit award-winning art.”
Artists, photographers and designers can submit their concepts for paintings, photographs, sculptures and installations that display the fusion of oriental and occidental cultures using neutral palette and earth tones. Submissions are open until October 31, 2020 and entries will be reviewed by a panel of seasoned industry experts.
Ellington will award promising artists a premium exhibiting space within their stunning residential development, Wilton Terraces, in addition to monetary support from Ellington Art Foundation to craft the masterpieces.
Some of the art installations and pieces produced and commissioned as part of earlier initiatives include Emirati artist, Khalid Shafar’s sculpture – Palm Bouquet in the reception lobby of Belgravia, Hamama, a suspended art installation created by design students of the American University of Sharjah in Belgravia II and ‘V’, a wooden wall sculpture by Nour Daou in Eaton Place.