U.A.E. to Show Abdullah Al Saadi at Venice Biennale 2024
The pioneering conceptual artist will present a solo show with the help of Sharjah-based curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh.
Artist Abdullah Al Saadi and curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh, 2023. Courtesy National Pavilion U.A.E. La Biennale di Venezia. Photo: Daryll Borja.
National Pavilion U.A.E. this week announced conceptual artist Abdullah Al Saadi will represent the United Arab Emirates at the 60th edition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2024.
Al Saadi belongs to the group, often referred to as 'the five', who formed the first generation of conceptual artists in the U.A.E. emerging in the 1980s. The others are Hassan Sharif, Mohammed Kazem, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, and Hussain Sharif.
The group began creating works with found objects and unconventional materials such as cardboard, wire, cans, rope, and rocks in playful yet earnest ways reminiscent of the Dada and FLUXUS movements. Al Saadi made bicycle trips across the Emirates and overseas, documenting the experiences in catalogue-like collections of paintings, drawings, personal diaries, and objects.
'Abdullah's central position within the art history of the U.A.E. is also reflected in his participation in two previous National Pavilion U.A.E. group exhibitions', said Laila Binbrek, Director of National Pavilion U.A.E.
In 2011, Al Saadi presented the fruits of a decades long engagement with the subject of the sweet potato alongside other artists' work at the U.A.E. Pavilion in Venice. For the 2015 pavilion, he appeared in a survey show of U.A.E. art since the 1980s.
The artist also presented his Al Saadi's Diaries (2016) project, inspired by historical manuscripts, at the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Viva Arte Viva.
This time he will appear in a solo show at the National Pavilion, curated by Tarek Abou El Fetouh who is currently Senior Curator and Director of the Performance Department at the Sharjah Art Foundation. The pair previously worked together on a public space intervention, titled Terhal at Expo 2020 Dubai.
El Fetouh described Al Saadi's four-decade practice as 'a continuous engagement with changing environments as well as personal and cultural histories, creating points where they meet and interweave.'
'In his rich and diverse artistic practice, whether drawings, maps, diaries, or objects, Abdullah's visual language remains recognisable through his passionate longing for immersion in nature; he constructs a unique relationship with landscapes, which goes beyond the familiar', continued El Fetouh.
Speaking about his own work, Al Saadi said, 'My art is the result of interactions with places, people, ideas, and aesthetics that I encounter every day where I live and in my journeys.'
'I find myself driven to document these experiences visually or in written diaries and contemplations, seeking to transfigure the ordinary with the passage of time,' he said.
The exhibition will show at the U.A.E.'s permanent space in the Arsenale during the Biennale, which runs from 20 April to 24 November, 2024. —[O]
