DUBAI: An exhibition of 34 works by 14 Saudi and Saudi Arabia-based artists is on show at Venice’s Palazzo Bembo until Aug. 14.
The “Re-Composing” exhibition has been organized by Riyadh’s 369 Art Gallery and focuses on aspects of national identity against a backdrop of cultural and social change in the country.
Curated by Maya and Mona Al-Abdullah, with support from researchers Remo Ciucciomei and Cyrine Bettaleb Ali, the show presents pieces that explore Saudi contemporary identity as well as its perceived stereotypes and conventions.
The work on display also examines issues of gender, race, nationality and heritage through the eyes of artists Saeed Gamhaoui, Mariam Almesawi, Khalid Almarzouki, Saad Howede, Raghad Al-Ahmad, RexChouk, Hatem Alahmad, Hmoud Al-Attawi, Houda Terjuman, Deyaa Yousef, Zahrah Al-Ghamdi, Fahad Al-Nassar, Khulod Albugami and Obaid Alsafi.
“This exhibition dedicated to Saudi visual artists introduces the concept of cultural recomposition and proposes its effects on the group interaction processes of the artists,” the curators said in a statement. “By this curation we are questioning the re-composition of art and the art of re-composition — a study made by different Saudi artists, from different perspectives into their own cultural identity.”
Zahrah Al-Ghamdi, one of Saudi Arabia’s most recognizable female artists and who recently showed her large-scale artworks at Desert X AlUla and Coachella, is presenting a photographic work in the show that captures her black veil on the ground amid an alluring landscape in Switzerland.
Al-Ghamdi explained that during an art residency in Switzerland she made four trips with a scientific team to the Val Roseg region. During her last trip, feeling melancholic at the thought of not being able to visit the site again, she felt a strong desire to find a special way to say goodbye to the landscape.
“I was sitting alone between the mountains and the lake with only the sound of nature,” the artist told Arab News. “During this moment I had a very strong desire to bid farewell to the region. I wanted to embrace the mountains and say farewell to them, but it was just in my imagination.”
Wanting to express her love for the place, in a ritualistic gesture Al-Ghamdi took off her black headscarf and laid it on the ground.
“I wanted to put it on the ground to draw the attention of nature via the black color (of my scarf) that is a foreigner to it; I wanted to express my presence with nature, that I am a part of it even if I will leave in a few moments,” she said of the photograph, which is on show at the exhibition in Venice.
The exhibition is taking place under the umbrella of Venice Biennale 2022.