Shaikha Hoor Al Qasimi is president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation. She is a practising artist who received her BFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2002), a Diploma in Painting from the Royal Academy of Arts (2005) and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London (2008).
In 2003 she was appointed curator of Sharjah Biennial 6 and has continued as its director since then. She is Chair of the Advisory Board for the College of Art and Design, University of Sharjah, and Member of the Advisory Board of the Khoj International Artists’ Association, India, and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. She serves on the Board of Directors for MoMA PS1, New York, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, the International Biennial Association, Gwangju, and Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. Shaikha Hoor is the first Emirati to be appointed as the curator for the National Pavilion UAE la Biennale di Venezia.
When selecting the 100 works from 15 artists covering a period of 40 years, what were the factors that guided you in making the final list?
My goal with this exhibition was to reflect the diversity of artworks produced during this time in the UAE. Although “1980-Today” is not intended to be a thematic show, I did want to draw connections between generations and collaborators, as well as show the shift between modernism and contemporary work in the Middle East.
This led me to choose artworks that are both historically significant and that I also feel a personal connection with, given my own experience growing up Sharjah and my exposure to the arts through the Sharjah Biennial and the Emirates Fine Art Society (EFAS). The works demonstrate a juxtaposition of conceptual and formal approaches, time periods and media.
The selection also focuses on sharing fundamental stages of the artists’ careers. For example, while Abdul Qader Al Rais is best known today for his landscapes and abstract paintings, he is exhibiting a series of figurative paintings, some dating back to 1968.
Additionally, Mohamed Yousif has in recent years been working with found objects and elements from his natural surroundings, while his older work included traditional wooden sculptures.
How long did the project take you and your team? Any particular challenges that you faced in completing the project?
I spent the past year researching archives, newspaper articles, artists’ writings, catalogues as well as interviews with artists and cultural practitioners. There are many challenges involved with putting on a show of this size, yet it has been extremely fulfilling to be able to give these artists the recognition they deserve and introduce their work to a broader audience.
One unique obstacle we faced was the heritage status of our building, the Arsenale-Sale d’Armi, as it is a historic structure. To work around the limitations of the space, we developed a custom designed grid of mobile vertical elements and installed a specialised hanging system to allow for a more tailored presentation of the artworks.
In a future collection such as the one for the National Pavilion, do you think there will be more women contemporary artists making it to the final list?
There are many women artists in the UAE and many of them have been represented in Venice. I wanted to focus on the artwork with this exhibition and not the gender of the artist. I selected the artworks I was interested in showing and how they related to each other. I was mainly interested in sculpture and works that came out of a generation of artists working closely together during that time.
Since you have had an immersive look at the artistic activity in the UAE over the last four decades, what are your thoughts on how art in the country is likely to evolve?
What I can say is that there has been an increase in art activity across the UAE recently, with new spaces, galleries and foundations opening up in different Emirates. This diversity in commercial and non-commercial art scenes as well as available resources and support from foundations supporting the arts will hopefully give future generations the incentive and support to create new work.
