Beyond: Emerging Artists

Abu Dhabi Art, held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Member of the Abu Dhabi Execu/ve Council and Chairman of Abu Dhabi Execu/ve Office, will present works from the 2021 edi/on of the Beyond: Emerging ArBsts programme at Palazzo FrancheO, Venice, Italy from 20 April to 22 May 2022, to coincide with the Biennale Arte 2022. For its first itera/on in Italy, Beyond: Emerging ArBsts will showcase commissioned ar/sts Christopher Joshua Benton, Maitha Abdalla and Hashel Al Lamki, who were supported by guest curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, co-founders of mul/disciplinary curatorial plaXorm Art Reoriented.
The Beyond: Emerging ArBsts ini/a/ve invites local and interna/onal curators to work with UAE- based emerging ar/sts of their choosing in a year-round programme, enabling and suppor/ng the ar/sts to hone their skills and develop their professional prac/ce. Par/cipa/ng ar/sts are provided with a budget and curatorial support to create ambi/ous new works that are exhibited through Abu Dhabi Art.
Dyala Nusseibeh, Director of Abu Dhabi Art, said, “Abu Dhabi Art has always been commi\ed to nurturing ar/sts, enabling them to develop their prac/ce and providing opportuni/es that can support them professionally and expand audiences for their work. Our annual programme Beyond: Emerging ArBsts, was, in 2021, funded through the newly launched cultural philanthropy ini/a/ve Friends of Abu Dhabi Art, whose support gave our UAE-based emerging ar/sts an unparalleled interna/onal plaXorm. Now expanding beyond the UAE, we are delighted to bring global a\en/on to the works of Christopher Joshua Benton, Maitha Abdalla and Hashel Al Lamki in Venice this year.”
This material is distributed by Brunswick Group LLC on behalf of the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi. Additional information is on file with the FARA Registration Unit of the Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Combining film, installa/on, and sculpture, Benton’s The World Was My Garden works with the palm tree as a metaphor for migra/on, labour economies and the history of slavery in the Gulf. The exhibi/on’s centerpiece is My Plant Immigrants, an almost three-metre-tall date palm tree suspended in the air.
Abdalla’s Too Close to the Sun spans video performance, sculpture, and works on canvas and photography. The exhibi/on explores what the ar/st perceives as the wild nature of women that social forces have o`en a\empted to tame, intertwining themes including the wildness of human nature, the archetype of the feminine psyche, and the untamable character of wild animals.
Neptune, a mul/disciplinary work featuring sculptures and works on canvas by Al Lamki, traverses natural, built and imagined realms to foreground the scarcity of the Earth’s resources and how these events impact the human psyche. In his exhibi/on, the ar/st explores libera/on from worldly du/es and confines through the adop/on of a lifestyle grounded in nomadism.
Designed to introduce emerging UAE-based ar/sts to a global audience, this is the second interna/onal exhibi/on for Abu Dhabi Art, building on the success of the fair’s collabora/on with London’s Cromwell Place in 2021, where it extended its 2020 Beyond: Emerging ArBsts programme to the UK. La Biennale di Venezia is a perfect plaXorm for these young ar/sts to engage with art world professionals, collectors, art-lovers and fellow ar/sts.
“I’m honoured to showcase Neptune in Venice this year at a moment that coincides with the Venice Biennale. This body of work was recently exhibited at the Abu Dhabi Art fair under the fair’s Beyond: Emerging ArBsts 2021 programme, curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath. Neptune celebrates the various colours and textures of Abu Dhabi. I’m very pleased that the journey of this body of work can extend and reach a new audience that might engage with it cri/cally and offer up new readings and dialogues surrounding it,” said Al Lamki.
Abdalla said, “My commission for the Beyond: Emerging ArBsts programme at Abu Dhabi Art last year, as an interna/onally facing plaXorm, was a powerful opportunity in itself. The chance to share this series during the Venice Biennial is an honour. While much of my art chronicles personal narra/ves there are topics that humans might connect to universally embedded within my prac/ce. I’m excited to see how my art connects to those that encounter it in Venice and how it takes on new meaning in this dynamic new context.”
Benton said, “I am so excited to bring The World Was My Garden to Venice, Italy. European markets and consumer demand played an important role in the story of the date and its global circula/on at the turn of the 20th century. My inten/on with this project is to re-route these circuits by revealing the exploita/on inherent to these labour and agricultural economies.”
Nadine Maalouf and Nadia Sehweil, Co-Heads of Friends of Abu Dhabi Art, added, “When we created Friends of Abu Dhabi Art, it was out of a profound commitment to suppor/ng homegrown talent in the UAE and to encouraging the con/nuous development of the local art scene. Seeing the spellbinding, immersive works of Christopher Joshua Benton, Maitha Abdalla and Hashel Al Lamki first exhibited at Abu Dhabi Art 2021 now find a new seOng in Venice, is testament to the success and future poten/al of this endeavour. We invite everyone to visit the exhibi/on and discover the works of three of the UAE’s most promising emerging ar/sts.”

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