Diriyah Biennale 2024 Announces ‘After Rain’ Theme
The Saudi Biennale's second edition will feature artists including El Anatsui, Joan Jonas, and Tiffany Chung.
The location of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in the JAX District in Diriyah. Courtesy the Diriyah Biennale Foundation.
Saudi Arabia's Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale will return to the JAX District from 20 February to 24 May, 2024.
The Diriyah Biennale Foundation has announced the theme of the upcoming edition, After Rain, which explores the region's complex human history and natural landscape.
'Presented through various artistic languages, these works are engaged in shared issues around land, water, food, and healing practices,' said Artistic Director Ute Meta Bauer.
Over 85 participating artists and collectives have been announced to date. They will present works across seven exhibition halls and various courtyards and terraces within the JAX district. That's up from 64 that participated in the Biennale's first edition, Feeling the Stones, in 2022.
Participating artists include Hassan Sharif, El Anatsui, Joan Jonas, and Tiffany Chung.
Saudi artists participating this year include the painter Safeya Binzagr—the only Woman artist in Saudi Arabia to have her own museum—and Dana Awartani, who was nominated for U.A.E.'s Richard Mille Art Prize in 2022.
A number of new works have been commissioned for the Biennale, including a documentary collaboration on Saudi futurism since the 1940s between Riyadh-based artist Ahmed Mater and Berlin filmmaker Armin Linke.
Jeddah-based Yemini artist Sara Abdu will present towers made from artisanal soap bars, alongside an installation combining sounds and palm trees by Saudi artist Mohammad AlFaraj, and separate spatial installations by Bosnian-Austrian artist Azra Akšamija, and Bahrain-based architect Anne Holtrop.
Collaborative duo Lucy + Jorge Orta will also provide a sit-down meal for the public in the alleyways during Ramadan.
'This multifaceted and multi-format Biennale can be seen as a journey, becoming a place for both interaction and contemplation, as each work becomes a storyteller, a protagonist, or an actor in a play,' Bauer said. —[O]
