Established in 2007, Art Dubai is the world’s leading platform for Contemporary and Modern art from the Middle East - North Africa - South Asia (MENASA) region, aka the Global South. This 13th iteration of the fair will feature 500 artists from around the world represented by 90 galleries in 40 countries. Its Artistic Director is Pablo del Val. Featuring Global Arts Forum, the Residents Program, and Campus Art Dubai, programming will include talks, tours, workshops, special performances and an after-dark music program. The Fair runs from March 20 - 23.
The Ithra Art Prize was created in 2017 to support and promote emerging Saudi contemporary artists. It serves as a partnership between the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) and Art Dubai.
Below is an interview with Daniah Al Saleh, this year’s Prize winner.
(Follow the links for other 2019 Art Dubai interviews. Fawz Kabra, Co-Director, Global Art Forum. Fernanda Brenner, Co-Curator, Residents Programme. Adeela Suleman, Bawwaba artist. And Reena Lath, Co-Founder, Akar Prakar Gallery)
JS: Who or what exposed you to art? Who were the teachers and/or role models that influenced you?
DAS: I loved to draw since a young age, drawing the outlines of what shapes I find in front of me. But only enrolled in a drawing course years later after University at Dar Safia bin Zagr in Jeddah. I was taught by Dorothy Boyer, which I have learnt so much from and became my mentor.
JS: Though you were interested in art from an early age, why did you study studied Computer Applications in college?
DAS: I graduated with a science degree from school, and I was encouraged by my parents to choose a science course.
JS: At what point did you decide to dedicate yourself to art? What did your family think of the decision?
DAS: I took art seriously later in life, and after years of learning and taking various art courses in Saudi and the uk.
JS: What was the Saudi art world like when you were in school? You recently said that it has made great strides in the past five or six years? How has it changed, in terms of museums and galleries, a critical press, and patronage?
DAS: I don’t know how art in school is right now, but art classes in school were very basic back then. Regarding the contemporary art scene, with Edge of Arabia things started to change in the mid-naughties, as the art was focused more with the modern movement in Saudi before then. With the establishment of Athr art Gallery in 2009 and the By 2013 we had the art weeks in Jeddah with jaou and 21,39, things really started to change fast. The art scene still is in it’s infancy compared to contemporary world art history, but things are very hopeful with Ithra opening its new museum in the eastern province, Misk curating art exhibitions, and with the new art jameel center opening soon.
JS: How does your study of Computer Applications influence your work?
DAS: I don’t think it did, but then I can see some parallel features in both. The methodological practice of logic I use with the geometrical pieces I make.
JS: You said that geometry “contextualizes the truth behind the meaning of the thought intended?” How does thought intended correlate to “a wall of sound that is meaningless,” as you describe Sawtam, your piece on display at Art Dubai? In other words, how do you define meaningless?
DAS: Meaningless might be something that is intangible or uncomprehendable at a certain instance or at a fleeting moment. The sounds that are generated in sawtam is exactly that. With 28 sounds played at the same time, nothing make sense, it’s a cacophony of nonsense, meaningless. But when standing and listening facing the piece, the spectator tries to give meaning somehow to the outcoming noise, connecting certain sounds together, trying to contextualize a meaning, a word, a message.
Sawtam is about language, the Arabic language with it’s Arabic alphabet. Deconstructing the Arabic literature into it’s 28 alphabet letters, and giving sound to those letters, listening to them does not make sense, but these meaningless sounds, are what constitutes all the literature that has been spoken and written, and the literature that will be spoken and written, these meaningless sounds is the back bearer of thoughts and meanings.
JS: As a follow up, the patterns and colors in Outcasts and Ashwag remind me of prayer rugs. Are they meant to be symbolic or are they purely visual?
DAS: There is a narrative behind the 2 works that you mentioned. The mental correlation between prayer rugs and my work is probably based on the under structure of geometry in pattern making.
JS: For one who isn’t familiar what a phoneme is, how does it relate to the Arabic language? How do these elements fit together into Sawtam?
DAS: Sawtam is the Arabic word for phoneme. The sounds in the piece are phonemes of the Arabic alphabet.
JS: What are you working on now?
DAS: Right now I am pursuing an MFA in computational arts at Goldsmiths Univeristy, and have some works on the horizon as well.
Ashwag
OutCasts, 2019
Daniah Al Saleh