Sharjah Biennial 12
The past, the present, the possible
05 Mar - 05 Jun 2015
Beginning with March Meeting 2014 and continuing through March Meeting 2015 (May 11–15, 2015), Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible (SB12) invited over fifty Artists and cultural practitioners from over twenty-five countries to introduce their ideas of the possible through their art and work. The exhibition took place in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, crossing the emirate to sites in and around the city as well as in the city of Kalba on the Gulf of Oman. Over two-thirds of participating artists presented new works and commissions.
Programming for SB12 included monthly lectures and workshops in various locations around Sharjah from September 2014 to February 2015. All presentations took place at Sharjah Art Foundation unless otherwise noted.
Sharjah is a unique place steeped in heritage and surrounded by change. With the presence of humans in the area dating back 125,000 years, this has long been a site of origin, transition and an unknowable future. Today Sharjah is part of a novel federation in the process of imagining itself along a time-space continuum unlike, but intimately linked to, that of its neighbouring nations. As the emirate’s future history is written through urban development, heritage-site restoration, interdependent transnational economies and a diverse everyday culture, Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible has invited fifty-one artists and groups to help us imagine and reflect upon its ambitions, possibilities and being. A biennial can be a dynamic structure for such considerations, and SB12 embraces this provisional format with a focus on timely experimentation from present and past.
Mobilising a host of new commissions and works juxtaposed with an ahistorical wealth of abstraction, The past, the present, the possible signals a distrust of narrative certitude in favour of unexpected simultaneities and potential alliances. Stepping into the arena of contemporary art in Sharjah are international artists involved in numerous and varied conversations, confrontational and collaborative, formal and existential. Together their works offer both material experience and meditative pause to reassert the need for wonder, mindfulness and query at this particularly disharmonious and decadent moment in human history.
Eungie Joo
Curator, Sharjah Biennial 12
Artists:
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
Etel Adnan
Babak Afrassiabi and Nasrin Tabatabai
Abdullah Al Saadi
Rheim Alkadhi
Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri
Leonor Antunes
Uriel Barthélémi
Eric Baudelaire
Mark Bradford
Unnikrishnan C
Chimurenga*
Nikhil Chopra
Saloua Raouda Choucair
Chung Chang-Sup
Abraham Cruzvillegas
Papy Ebotani
Ahmad Ghossein
Im Heung-soon
Iman Issa
Michael Joo
Maryam Kashani
Mohammed Kazem
Hassan Khan
Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti*
Beom Kim
Byron Kim
Lala Rukh
Lee Kit
Jac Leirner
Faustin Linyekula
Jawshing Arthur Liou
Cinthia Marcelle
Rodney McMillian
Julie Mehretu
mixrice
Asunción Molinos Gordo
Eduardo Navarro
Damián Ortega
Hassan Sharif
Taro Shinoda
Gary Simmons
Rayyane Tabet
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Adrián Villar Rojas
Danh Vo
Xu Tan
Haegue Yang
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Abdul Hay Mosallam Zarara
Fahrelnissa Zeid
Programming for SB12 included monthly lectures and workshops in various locations around Sharjah from September 2014 to February 2015. All presentations took place at Sharjah Art Foundation unless otherwise noted.
Sharjah is a unique place steeped in heritage and surrounded by change. With the presence of humans in the area dating back 125,000 years, this has long been a site of origin, transition and an unknowable future. Today Sharjah is part of a novel federation in the process of imagining itself along a time-space continuum unlike, but intimately linked to, that of its neighbouring nations. As the emirate’s future history is written through urban development, heritage-site restoration, interdependent transnational economies and a diverse everyday culture, Sharjah Biennial 12: The past, the present, the possible has invited fifty-one artists and groups to help us imagine and reflect upon its ambitions, possibilities and being. A biennial can be a dynamic structure for such considerations, and SB12 embraces this provisional format with a focus on timely experimentation from present and past.
Mobilising a host of new commissions and works juxtaposed with an ahistorical wealth of abstraction, The past, the present, the possible signals a distrust of narrative certitude in favour of unexpected simultaneities and potential alliances. Stepping into the arena of contemporary art in Sharjah are international artists involved in numerous and varied conversations, confrontational and collaborative, formal and existential. Together their works offer both material experience and meditative pause to reassert the need for wonder, mindfulness and query at this particularly disharmonious and decadent moment in human history.
Eungie Joo
Curator, Sharjah Biennial 12
Artists:
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme
Etel Adnan
Babak Afrassiabi and Nasrin Tabatabai
Abdullah Al Saadi
Rheim Alkadhi
Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri
Leonor Antunes
Uriel Barthélémi
Eric Baudelaire
Mark Bradford
Unnikrishnan C
Chimurenga*
Nikhil Chopra
Saloua Raouda Choucair
Chung Chang-Sup
Abraham Cruzvillegas
Papy Ebotani
Ahmad Ghossein
Im Heung-soon
Iman Issa
Michael Joo
Maryam Kashani
Mohammed Kazem
Hassan Khan
Kristine Khouri and Rasha Salti*
Beom Kim
Byron Kim
Lala Rukh
Lee Kit
Jac Leirner
Faustin Linyekula
Jawshing Arthur Liou
Cinthia Marcelle
Rodney McMillian
Julie Mehretu
mixrice
Asunción Molinos Gordo
Eduardo Navarro
Damián Ortega
Hassan Sharif
Taro Shinoda
Gary Simmons
Rayyane Tabet
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Adrián Villar Rojas
Danh Vo
Xu Tan
Haegue Yang
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Abdul Hay Mosallam Zarara
Fahrelnissa Zeid