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About Sharjah Biennial 7
The Sharjah Biennial 7 addresses the rapid developments marking the region, but also raises the question of intersecting artistic traditions, and of partaking in “Globalised” art events. The Biennial is hosting over 70 artists and inviting biennial glitterati, local citizens and the vast expatriate community to consider the now vaporous landscapes of our professional, cultural and sociopolitical habitats.

The very choice of the theme “Belonging” raises the question of what it means to endorse internationalised art practices outside the established, traditional centers of the arts. To which point must the event transcend local prerogatives, and in which way can it uphold its specificity without looking helpless or folkloric?

This year’s Biennial will be held in the Sharjah Art Museum and in the Heritage Area which is currently being restored. The two spaces are at walking distance from each other, thus integrating the Biennial in the heart of the city and decentralising its scenography. The Sharjah Art Museum houses a permanent art collection which is embedded in a local traditional style of architecture. Integrating parts of the Biennial within it is an attempt to engage with the structural parameters underlying the event. The Heritage Area, meanwhile, is a network of small exhibition spaces, courtyards, alleyways and a souq. It mirrors a simple, unpretentious past, and the difficulties of reconstructing such a heritage within the fast-paced changes marking the Emirates today.

Participants and visitors will have to position themselves within a kaleidoscopic fabric of archaeological assets, modern and postmodern architecture, a booming consumer culture, long-standing traditions, unprecedented immigration and other interfaces - including the biennial itself. Working with this setting implies awkward questions of voyeurism and collaboration, tourism and respect. The now standard issues of alterity and glocalisation could be tested to their limits, beyond the comfortable frame of a customary biennial.

The Sharjah Biennial 7 has produced a large number of site-specific projects some of which will be performative interventions offering yet another opportunity to contextualise without being quaint, to explore and highlight, rather than play down, the limits between the privileged discourse of the artworld and the realm of the profane.

Artists

Director: Hoor Al Qasimi
Head Curator: Jack Persekian

Organisers
General Co-ordinator: Hisham Al Madhloum
Biennial Co-ordinator: Mahita El Bacha Urieta

Calender of Events:

Sharjah Biennial 7 Opening Hours:
Sharjah Art Museum: Weekdays 09:00 - 21:00, Fridays 17:00 - 21:00
Expo Centre Sharjah: Weekdays 09:00 - 21:00, Fridays 17:00 - 21:00

6 April 2005
10:00:            Inauguration of Sharjah Biennial 7, Expo Centre Sharjah
19:00:            Inauguration of Sharjah Biennial 7, Sharjah Art Museum
19:15:            "Faces in One Feature", performance by artist Nuha Asad
20:30:            “A Different Position”, performance by artist Roza El-Hassan
20:40:            “MocMoc”, theatre performance for children, by artist duo Com & 
                     Com
21:00:            Inauguration of Sharjah Art Institute
21:15:            Inauguration of The H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi Collection

7 April 2005
10:00 - 14:30: Symposium: "Biennalicity" Part 1, Expo Centre Sharja
                     Conference Room. Lectures, screenings & artists' interventions
15:00             “I Supply! You Demand? (Pearl Guided Tours)”, performance by
                     artist Luchezar Boyadjiev, Sharjah Art Museum

8 April 2005
04:00 - 18:45: "Biennalicity" Part 2
19:00 - 21:00: Roundtable Discussion, Expo Centre Sharjah, Conference Room

10 - 22 April 2005
                     Sharjah Heritage Days, public festivities at Heritage Area, Sharjah

16 - 20 April 2005
                    5 day student workshops with artist Hassan Khan, College of Fine
                   Arts – University of Sharjah

10 April - 11 May 2005
                   Student workshops with artist-in-residence Naoko Takahashi,
                   College of Fine Arts - University of Sharjah

13 April - 25 May 2005
17:00:          (Wednesdays), workshops with artist-in-residence Naoko 
                   Takahashi, Sharjah Art Gallery

16 April - 5 June
10:00 - 130:00 & 17:00 - 19:00: Open Studio sessions with artists-in-residence
                                              Naoko Takahashi and Nikolaj Bendix Skyum
                                              Larsen, Sharjah Art Gallery
17 April 2005
                       Lecture by Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen for students, College of
                       Fine Arts - University of Sharjah

24 May - 24 June 2005
                      Artists-in-residence exhibition, Naoko Takahashi & Nikolaj
                      Bendix Skyum Larsen, Emirates Fine Art Society, Exhibition Hall

6 June 2005
                     Sharjah Biennial 7 closes

Program Outline
Introduction
7 April 2005
10:00:          - Hisham Al Madhloum, Director of the Sharjah Art Museums and
                     the Art Directorate
                   - Tirdad Zolghadr, Associate Curator, Sharjah Biennial 7
Talk
10:20:           The Impact of Biennials on Contemporary Arts Consumption
Speaker:       Boris Groys, Curator, Art Critic and Media Theorist
Respondent:  Vasif Kortun, Curator and Co-Director of 2005   
                    Istanbul Biennial
Coffee break
Presentation

11:30:           Arts Marketing and Contemporary Marketing Strategies
                    Carey Young, participating artist, Sharjah Biennial 7
                    Workshop Presentation
12:15:         - Hassan Khan

                    Discussion of work-in-progress with students from the College of
                    Fine Arts and the American University of Sharjah. The workshop
                    is an opportunity for students to sharpen critical tools with respect
                    to the history of the Biennial industries in general and the Sharjah
                    event in particular.
Snacks
Panel
13:15:           Comparative Biennalicities
                    What are the drawbacks and challenges of a biennial or a
                    triennial, in different continents and metropoles? Istanbul, New   
                    Delhi and Sydney are three cities outside the mainstream
                    euroamerican circuit which raise issues – political, historical, 
                    artistic – that are as site-specific as they are relevant to the
                    Biennial format at large. An international comparison of
                    tremendous interest to any friend or visitor of the Sharjah Biennial.
                  - Charles Esche, Director of Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, Co-
                    Director of 2005 Istanbul Biennial
                  - Geeta Kapur, Art Theorist and Curator, based in New Delhi
                  - Charles Merewether, Director of 2005 Sydney Biennial
Screening
14:15:         - Dirk Herzog: Premiere of “Pelmeni or Bliny”, 21 min
                    Artwork produced for the Sharjah Biennial, 2005
                    Dirk Herzog, an artist who has worked on the tropology of tourism,
                    has documented the opening of the first Moscow biennial, 2005.
                    Moscow offers both a larger local art scene and a more
                    illustrious team curating the Biennial, and yet it seems just as
                    oddly unpredictable, idiosyncratic and thus simpatico as Sharjah, 
                    making it an unlikely but fitting point of comparison, a sister
                    biennial of sorts.
Project Presentation
8 April 2005
16:00:           Presentation by Sharjah Biennial Participating Artists
                    Luchezar Boyadjiev: The “Schadenfreude Guided Tours”
                    Performance
                    Natascha Sadr Haghighian: Screening and discussion of the films
                    “Present but not Yet Active” (12min, 2002), and “Prioprio Aperto” (6
                    min, 2005, in collaboration with J. Hopf and F. Zeyfang)
                    Peter Stoffel: Promoting the “Appenzell Biennial” project
Coffee break
Roundtable: “So About Sharjah”
18:15:           Moderator: Ranjit Hoskote, Art Critic and Poet
                    Fred Bohrer, Curator and Art Historian
                    Kama Boullata, Critic and Artist
                    Rina Carvajal, Member of the Sharjah Biennial Jury, Head Curator
                    at Miami Art Central
                    Okwui Enwezor, Member of the Sharjah Biennial Jury, Director of 
                    1997 Johannesburg Biennial and Documenta 11
                    Gerardo Mosquera, Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary
                    Art New York, Co-founder of the Havana Biennial
                    Jack Persekian, Chief Curator at the Sharjah Biennial
                    Mario Rizzi, Artist Participating at the Sharjah Biennial
                    Walid Sadek, Member of the Sharjah Biennial Jury, Artist & Critic
                    Hassan Sherif, Critic and Artist Participating at the Sharjah Biennial
                   Nadia Tazi, Writer and Editor
 

Notes:
Guided tours of the exhibition available throughout the Biennial (April 7 - June 6). Contact Education Curator, Ms. Zikrayat Matouk at 06-5688222
Children workshops at the 'Creativity Room', Sharjah Art Institute, weekdays 09:00 - 17:00 (closed weekends)
Open Studio sessions with Naoko Takahashi and Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen on: April 16 - 17 and every Saturday & Monday until 5 June
Workshops with resident artist Naoko Takahashi: Every Sunday & Tuesday 14:00 - 17:00, Wednesdays 11:30 - 13:30 pm

Contact Details
Tel: + 971 6 5685050
Fax: + 971 6 5685800
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.sharjahbiennial.org