With Art Bahrain, the country’s artistic scene begins to flower

In an alleyway in the heart of Block 338, dozens of washbasins filled with soil and plants stand to attention, fixed to a wall with regimented precision.

Round the corner, a row of cacti — with wooden beams forming the stems and rusty nails representing the spines — line a wall and the roundabouts are festooned not with the usual coffee pots or national symbols but public art installations, from what looks like a giant stack of matches with blue chairs improbably balanced on it to upside-down birdhouses on scaffolding.

Block 338 in Adliya, Bahrain’s most bohemian neighbourhood, has become a metaphor for an art movement which is gaining momentum in the country. Its cobbled streets are filled with artworks, galleries, antique shops, chic restaurants and bars, festively lit by strings of fairy lights. The country has just launched its own international art fair, with its organisers insisting there is enough of a market to bring the art home. “It is an endeavour to bring international art to Bahrain and to take Bahrain to the world,” says Kaneka Subberwal, the co-founder of Art Bahrain.

“I feel Bahrain is very refined in its culture. It might not shout about it but content-wise, it does so much.”

The four-day event, which will begin on October 12, has a royal patron, Sabika bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, wife of the Bahraini ruler, but it is privately funded. It is expected to attract 10,000 visitors, including 2,000 collectors, potential buyers and representatives of the art world. A fifty-foot-wide marquee in the grounds of the new Four Seasons Bahrain Bay hotel in Manama will feature 48 booths from around the globe, with gallerists and artists invited to bid for stands priced at Dh33,000 for a 24- square metre space. Fifteen booths have already been sold. Among those confirmed are London’s Albemarle Gallery and Dubai’s Galerie El Marsa and Marsam Mattar while Sheikha Lulwa bint Abdulaziz Al Khalifa and Sheikha Marwa bint Rashid Al Khalifa are among the exhibiting artists. “We are expecting to fill them,” says Clementine Perrins, the British fair director, who has now stepped down from the role.

Original article by Tahira Yaqoob

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With Art Bahrain, the country’s artistic scene begins to flower