The Jamil Center for the Arts, the contemporary art organization in Dubai, is returning today to receive its fans after its temporary closure since March 16, as part of efforts to contain the emerging Corona virus.
The restoration of the Jameel Center comes in line with the announcement of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority that museums will be opened in Dubai, starting gradually from the beginning of June.
The center announced new exhibitions that provide visitors with insights and perspectives, and open the doors of constructive discussion. The artists ’rooms in the center include, during the period from June 10 to January 3, a series of individual exhibitions of a group of influential and creative artists, and works drawn largely from the Art Jameel Collection, with a focus on artists in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. These brief presentations are joint works organized in dialogue with the artist. The new round of the artists ’room series will witness three individual exhibitions by: Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Tayseer Al-Batniji, and Larissa Sansour.
Larissa Sansour's "In the Lab" (2019), an Arabic-language science fiction movie, is taking place in the historic city of Bethlehem at the time of an environmental disaster. The film examines comprehensive concepts, including memory, history, location and identity, as the film's language provides a background charged in a narrative, political and symbolic manner. It was presented by Larisa commissioned by the Danish Art Foundation at the 58th Venice Biennale. The project is commissioned by "Spike Island" and "Fine Art", and this is the first show in the region.
«To my brother»
While Tayseer Al-Batniji explores the ideas of loss and memory in his work "To My Brother" (2012), a series of drawings without ink engraved on paper. The artist relies on family portraits of his brother's wedding to celebrate his memory. The brother died two years after his wedding by snipers, during the first intifada in Palestine in 1987. “To my brother” was one of the winning works in the Abraaj Art Group competition in 2012.
As for Lawrence Abu Hamdan, the artist who lives between Beirut and Dubai, and is one of the winners of the Turner Prize (2019), he will present in his exhibition a video and audio installation that he called “And at all this time there were no landmines.” The artwork, created by Lawrence of mobile phone images and audio clips and found in 2011, documents the Wadi Sayyah Valley, which is located in the Syrian Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967. The valley is called by this name, as the terrain in the area allows the sounds to seep through the border. Separate families on both sides of the border used to shout out their news there to communicate with each other.
Currently showing
At the Jameel Center for the Arts in Dubai today, and until the 22nd of November, the exhibition of Michael Rakovitz, the artist and sculptor, will be presented in his work. His work is characterized by deep research and harmony with the social dimensions of artistic practice. By exploring personal, social, and material histories and linking stories of diverse times and places, Rakwitz's work reflects cultural forms and ideas.
The exhibition is the first single for the works of the Iraqi-American artist, Michael Rakovitz, in the Middle East and Asia, along the first and second floors at the Jameel Center for the Arts, and it shows eight installations he created during the past two decades, through the mediums of stereoscopes, drawing, film, sound and photography.
The center also includes until the first of next October, the work of "Metropolis", by artist Lubna Chaudhry, a composition that includes 1000 handmade sculptures made of clay, which celebrate architectural motifs, inspired by the world of art and design in the Middle East and South Asia. The work focuses on the memories of cities, anthropological groups, concepts of history and present, and what was hand-made and artificial.
The paddle platform
Al Jaddaf Creative Center at Jameel Center is a virtual platform to celebrate local creative talents, and to empower audiences to interact with and support them through a series of activities. And because Jameel Center's arts programs open to the public and children's and family workshops are paused, given the current circumstances, the Al Jaddaf platform is designed to attract creative self-projects and deliver live music.
Guidelines
Merker Jameel Arts announced that it is freely available to visitors, but according to the new guidelines, visitors are required to book in advance for a two-hour visit via the center's website, to maintain the permissible number, and to ensure a comfortable visit that maintains social distance, and places public health as a top priority. . Visitors and staff must wear a face shield and undergo a temperature test for everyone before entering the center. Children under the age of 12 and adults over the age of 60 are not permitted to visit the Jameel Arts Center, Jaddaf Waterfront Art Park.
The artists' rooms include individual exhibitions, starting from June 10.
8 installations created by artist Michael Rakovitz at his exhibition at the Center.