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The winds of change and the ripples of cultural evolution have been sweeping over the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. Since 2006, and precisely during the past eighteen months, Abu Dhabi has experienced profound and very high profile change: the cultural life of the city has been suddenly and immeasurably enriched.
The extraordinarily ambitious 2012 Saadiyat Island project - complete with Louvre and Guggenheim museums - was announced to the world in February 2007; in September that same year, the Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC) opened a dedicated exhibition space within the Emirates Palace hotel, bringing delighted local audiences such prolific exhibitions as the Arts of Islam – Treasures from the Khalili Collection and Picasso; and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) brought heavyweight archaeological and anthropological exhibitions such as the British Museum’s Sudan, to the halls of the capital’s Cultural Foundation.
In an attempt to understand what is happening artistically in the region, the country’s individual Emirates are often pigeon holed by visitors, international gallerists and artists alike: Dubai is the centre of a flashy, on-trend burgeoning commercial art scene; Sharjah is ahead of the game in museum culture, its biennial and education; Abu Dhabi is the hub of world class, blue chip museums to come. But as Abu Dhabians are well aware, the artistic and cultural life of a city hasn’t, historically speaking, been built top down.
With the promise of those gorgeous, shiny, starchitect designed Saadiyat Island Museums for 2012, the most important question du jour – for TDIC and ADACH and everyone who is gunning for the ‘island of happiness’ to be the ‘island of blockbuster shows and record breaking ticket sales’, is audience. Who are they? Where are they? Artists, independent galleries, collectors and critics create a vibrant scene within the urban landscape and they in turn, inspire audience. The existence of major cultural institutions and big-name exhibitions is just the beginning. And perhaps, this is where Art Paris-Abu Dhabi comes in.
Up the Sheikh Zayed road, Art Dubai has been a runaway success. The fair not only highlighted the existence and potential of a contemporary art scene in Dubai in the first place but with its most recent offering in 2008, has further driven a market now complimented by two major, locally operating auction houses (Christie’s and Bonhams, with Phillips de Pury poised to make more a permanent mark on the scene).
Art Dubai is a great example of how powerful an international art fair can really be in terms of pulling together a ‘scene’.
The first edition in 2007 was widely expected to “make a significant contribution to the cultural life of the region” and eighteen months later, this certainly seems to be the case. When galleries were springing up two a penny in the city, John Martin and his selection board chose the most curatorially important of these to show alongside the international gang; hence, sorting the wheat from the chaff for the benefit of collectors new to contemporary art in the region. Outside the exhibition halls, the dots were joined by the Art Bus service shuttling art lovers from the fair to the galleries themselves, for a wider view of the city’s burgeoning scene.
The Creek Art Fair, founded by Mona Hauser of XVA Gallery, is the only fringe art fair in the United Arab Emirates and was created in response to –and is held at the same time as - the more commercially driven Art Dubai.
It is probably folly to compare Dubai to Abu Dhabi: it’s a tired subject for anyone who lives here and after all, they are different yet complimentary beasts. But suffice to say, that although the powers that be in Abu Dhabi are taking a different and perhaps, more considered approach to building visual culture and its institutions, they are also clearly aware that potential audience must be nurtured and a broader cultural landscape conceived, if the city is to avoid the worst of possible outcomes: tumbleweed (blowing through empty corridors on Saadiyat) in 2012.
TDIC’s Arts and Cultural Advisor, Rita Aoun confirms this awareness as such
‘Art Paris Abu Dhabi is organised for the second year in Abu Dhabi as one of the events associated with the cultural and artistic program and strategies that Abu Dhabi is developing in line with the future cultural projects. The fair is aiming at achieving the same goals of our artistic strategy and cultural vision to position Abu Dhabi as a cultural hub both locally and internationally. An Art fair is an inherent part of any artistic program aiming to create an art market and to promote understanding of art within a region.”
In a 2006 European Commission report for the European Capital of Cultures Organisation, researchers attempted to underpin the importance of creative cultural “clusterings” (i.e. a set of reactive and adaptable industries). With reference to Art Fairs in particular, the report concluded that their importance is three-fold: fairs play the role of incubators and promoters of new artists; they help maintain a significant element of the arts’ market; they generate important indirect economic effects, as the event requires involvement from a number of ancillary activities (marketing, shipping, insurance and so on) and in particular, they foster cultural tourism.
An art fair’s economic relevance to its host city is clear. More significantly for Abu Dhabi – in conjunction with its quest for preservation of local heritage, support for contemporary artists and the import of other world cultures - is how an art fair can contribute to the Emirate’s vision of itself as an enlightened society. After all,
“Success not only depends on continued quantitive material advancement but a society in which ‘wealth’ is further measured in relation to human values, the state of the environment and social cohesion.”
Enter Art Paris Abu Dhabi.
Abu Dhabi witnessed the inauguration of its first international art fair in November 2007. Art Paris Abu Dhabi was conceived as a partnership between the founders of Art Paris, Caroline Clough Lacoste and Abu Dhabi’s government led institutions, TDIC and ADACH. Director Clough Lacoste, launched the original Parisian based fair back in 1999 and hence, created an important alternative to long running French contemporary art fair FIAC (Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain). On a visit to the UAE in 2006, her successful meeting with TDIC and ADACH resulted in a ten-year agreement and eight months later, the first Abu Dhabi edition. In 2007, Clough Lacoste outlined the move as such:
We want to open up this part of the world with up and coming artists and collectors. And we would also like to export our brand, our fair, our know how and the spirit of Art Paris to Abu Dhabi.”
The first Middle Eastern Art Paris - held in Abu Dhabi’s heavily gilded hotel, The Emirates Palace - was small in comparison to its French counterpart: just forty galleries attended Abu Dhabi’s offering in comparison to over 100 in Paris. It was, however, considered to be an extremely successful start in such green and untested waters. 9,200 visitors attended over four days and $15,867,000 was widely touted as the fair’s final sales figure. Galleries attending the November 2007 event, thirty of whom were from Europe and the US while ten galleries came to Abu Dhabi from other locations in the Arab world and Asia, were cautious and unsure what to expect.
Press quoted gallerists as bringing their most expensive works to exhibit in this famously oil-rich city, but as a litmus test rather than in expectation of sales. Syria’s Ayyam Gallery, pre-empting their Dubai branch opening with a stand at the fair, felt that the experience “surpassed expectations”. Hisham Samawi, a partner in the Dubai-based venture, confirmed that the event “was a great opportunity to meet many of our Gulf clients face to face”.
Local response to the fair was, for all intents and purposes, positive. As co-owner of Ghaf Gallery, one of only two contemporary galleries in Abu Dhabi, Jalal Luqman felt that the fair “introduced the UAE masses to some amazing work from international masters. [As] an artist and art lover it was a great event to visit.”
The few criticisms the event attracted were inevitably focused on the balance of Occidental and Oriental galleries and art, with particular reference to an absence of notable UAE artists. In Paris, the scales have traditionally been tipped in favour of a French presence. In response to a query regarding 30% of foreign exhibitors in relation to the number of French galleries at Art Paris, Clough Lacoste stated that
Art Paris wants to make the point that it is an international fair, but that it wants to defend the French art scene and the French traders.
Sensitive to this new location, however, the fair appears to have taken past critique on board and has pledged to make Art Paris Abu Dhabi 2008 bigger, better and with more focus on art from the Middle East. In conjunction with ADACH’s intent that their partnership with Art Paris “will create an international art fair which for the first time harmoniously blends art from the Occident with art from the Orient” , Clough Lacoste and team have made cultural exchange between East and West a focus.
At Art Paris in March 2008 former Institut du Monde director Brahim Alaoui, curated an exhibition called ‘Traversees’ (‘Crossings’). It included works by esteemed artists Mona Hatoum, Faisal Samra, Youssef Nabil and Ghada Amer and went some way to bridging the cultural divide between the Parisian fair and its new offspring. Come November this year in Abu Dhabi, audiences are promised the inclusion of thirteen galleries from the Middle and Near East, as well as Asia: four up on last year. One of Dubai’s original and most important contemporary galleries, The Third Line, returns to Art Paris Abu Dhabi for a second year and is accompanied by its Al Quoz neighbour, B21 Progressive Gallery. Their local peers, Art Sawa, included in the ‘Art Paris Abu Dhabi Young Talent’ sector, and 1x1 Gallery will be focusing on art from the sub-continent. The only gallery showing at the fair with a presence in Abu Dhabi is Contempo-Corporate Art.
With reference to the gallery’s expectations for this year’s event, Claudia Cellini, co-founder and director of The Third Line, says: “We are taking a bigger booth this year and bringing some really spectacular work by a selection of our artists. I think we have dual hopes, to place a few highly significant works by artists such as Mounir Shahroudy Farmfarmaian, Rana Begum and Susan Hefuna as well as introduce a younger collector base to younger artists such as Hayv Kahraman and Neda Harizadeh…[last year] there was a lot of local interest…I think locals in Abu Dhabi really believed in the fair – and that is a very important factor in our return and interest to take a larger space and even plan some offsite activities during the fair.”
All the signs suggest that Clough Lacoste and her project manager partner, Laure d’Hauteville, have improved on last year’s offering of Middle Eastern contemporary artwork. ‘Signs and Calligraphy’ was an exhibition curated for the fair by Amal Traboulsi, who returns in 2008 with a follow up show ‘Movement and Communication: Travels through Desert and Sea”. Art Paris’ PR machine describes this forthcoming exhibition as ‘Emerging Artists from the Arab world’ and despite the inclusion of Shirin Neshat’s work (an established Iranian artist living and working in New York) as well as that of UAE favourite Abdul Qader Al Rais (long recognised in this part of the world), the exhibition remains eagerly anticipated. Middle Eastern contemporary art frequently changes hands, is appreciated, displayed and talked about in Dubai and Sharjah but is rarely exhibited in Abu Dhabi.
So audiences will be offered an abundance of great artwork, from all over the world. Those same audiences will also be given the opportunity to develop an appreciation for art that goes beyond accessorising one’s home interior.
The fair’s accompanying education programme includes a two-day programme in association with Canvas Magazine that will be covering the very hot topics of Chinese, Indian and Pakistani art. Sotheby’s Institute will also be returning to Abu Dhabi on November 17th, with their three-day education programme.
Emilie Faure, Public Programming Director for Sotheby’s Institute, confirms that interest in this year’s offerings has already proven strong, as local enthusiasts clamour to learn more and in greater depth, about art and the art market. Perhaps most curious of all the peripheral educational events, is a new initiative for 2008, the ‘Art Talks and Sensations’ on November 18th which aims to bring together around “forty significant figures from the four corners of the globe ranging from artists, critics, poets, writers, designers, fashion stylists, architects, museum directors, actors, illustrators and DJs” in a round table discussion, lasting three hours and transmitted live on Abu Dhabi television.
Curator Fabrice Bousteau will be asking “Which aesthetics define the Arab world today?” as the central question for debate. Covering 300 million people, 22 nations and an ancient/ modern language (“the Arab World”) it’s a broad enough topic, but worthy and relevant nonetheless.
Art Paris Abu Dhabi is on track to deliver a fair that aims to push Middle Eastern contemporary art to the fore in terms of exhibition, education and conference. But the core strength of an event with almost a decade of experience in Europe under its belt is also what it delivers to Abu Dhabi and the UAE in terms of Western aesthetics. In the pursuit of balance, one might also hope that there will be opportunity for real cultural exchange. Middle Eastern contemporary art is not ‘emerging’, it has merely come to the late attention of art markets in London and New York, and so much the better that it has received the international acclaim it so often deserves. But European, American, Chinese and Russian art are also important and relevant and it is here that the fair can really contribute to the cultural fabric of Abu Dhabi: well curated, beautifully hung works in a variety of media and in a white cubed setting, selected for greatness rather than geographic location. It’s the best of the west offered up to audiences hand in hand with work from the region and the very experience Abu Dhabi doesn’t yet have outside of this annual gathering.
Conclusive Notes
So, once 57 white cubes have been dismantled, international dealers, collectors and gallerists have jetted back to Paris, London, New York and Berlin and Art Paris Abu Dhabi has left the building for 2008, how does one measure its success?
Will success be rated by increased footfall for 2008’s edition of the fair or, more likely by total sales figures? Perhaps more significantly long term, we might measure the importance of Art Paris in Abu Dhabi by the number of new students enrolling in arts based university courses come September 2009 or, by the growing vibrancy of a local contemporary art scene, independent of the government led institutions. In other words, the presence of an annual international art fair, with all the kudos and glamour and sensation that it creates for four days, could be the key to year round interest in the arts in this capital city and hence, in 2012, give the Guggenheim a chance to have its famous effect.
*Emily Doherty is a UAE (Abu Dhabi) based British cultural operator and writer.
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