Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi talks about her choices for the Venice Biennale

If you look at the grainy black-and-white images from the Emirates Fine Arts Society’s very first exhibition, in 1981, you will see paintings hanging from temporary walls and room dividers and people jostling for space in a crowded room.

This was the UAE’s art scene at a time when, although it had no international presence, it was thriving and buzzing regionally and many of today’s well-established artists were just beginning their careers.

It is scenes like this from which Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi took inspiration when curating artworks by Emirati artists for next month’s Venice Biennale, where the UAE has had a permanent pavilion in an ancient renovated building in the shipyard district since 2013.

Under the title 1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates, Sheikha Hoor, who is also president of the Sharjah Art Foundation, conceived the show as a retrospective of contemporary art exhibitions in the Emirates over the past 40 years, and selected from EFAS archives more than 100 pieces of art from 1968 to 2002.

The space

The artworks are all placed within a 250-square-metre space on a custom-designed grid of mobile, vertical walls and on an elevated floor – so that some of the work can be viewed through “windows”. The design will also incorporate sunken alcoves and pedestals for the many objects of art.

Original article by Anna Seaman

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Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi talks about her choices for the Venice Biennale