For the past few months, each country has been announcing the artists representing their respective countries at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
The 59th edition of the show, which will be under the direction of High Line chief curator Cecilia Alemani, will run in Venice from April 23 through November 27. The title of the show is “The Milk of Dreams,” a name taken from Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington’s book, which was originally published in the 1950s and released in English in 2017.
Regional participants are set to showcase artworks that were inspired by local culture, tradition, modernity, pop culture and more. Here are the participants from the MENA region who will be at the Venice festival. It is imperative to note that countries are still announcing their artists, so make sure to check back before April 23 to see the complete list.
Egypt
Artist: Mohamed Shoukry, Weaam El Masry, Ahmed El Shaer
Curator: Heba Youssef, Mohamed Shoukry
Venue: Giardini della Biennale
Shoukry, El Masry, and El Shaer work in different media, ranging from photography to painting and animation.
Oman
Artists: Anwar Sonya, Hassan Meer, Budoor Al Riyami, and Radhika Khimji, Raiya Al Rawahi
Curator: Aisha Stoby
Venue: Arsenale
This will be the first time Sultanate of Oman is participating in the Venice Biennale, and will include the work of five artists from the past 50 years. Anwar Sonya, considered the “godfather” of Modern art in Oman, works primarily in painting; Hassan Meer, the founder of the art collective Circle Group, works in video and photography, as does Budoor Al Riyami; Radhika Khimji works with textiles and sculpture; and works by the late artist Raiya Al Rawahi in the sound installation will also be on display.
Saudi Arabia
Artist: Muhannad Shono
Curator: Reem Fadda
Venue: Arsenale
In The Lost Path, Shono reminds the audience that the journey is greater than the destination with a monumental sculptural path made of 65,000 PVC pipes responding to a remote location in Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia.
Syrian Arab Republic
Artists: Saousan Al Zubi, Ismael Nasra, Adnan Hamideh, Omran Younis, Aksam Tallaa, Giuseppe Amadio, Marcello Lo Giudice, Lorenzo Puglisi
Curator: Emad Kashout
Venue: Isola di San Servolo
Turkey
Artist: Füsun Onur
Curator: Bige Örer
Venue: Arsenale, Sale d’Armi
As one of Turkey’s pioneering contemporary artists, Füsun Onur’s works deal with the potentials of space, time, rhythm and form that are inherent in simple, everyday materials charged with narrative and oblique autobiographical references. Istanbul-based Onur is a Turkish modernist who “explores the fundamental orientations of conceptual art through her own poetry. The installations of Füsun Onur stand out with their ability to erase the universally defined boundaries such as identity, culture and language, and to linger as a musical note in living beings, regardless of place and space.”
United Arab Emirates
Artist: Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim
Curator: Maya Allison; Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation
Venue: Arsenale
A veteran of the experimental art community in the UAE, Ibrahim’s Between Sunrise and Sunset is an installation of human-sized, abstract and organic sculptural forms. The work draws from the artist’s connection to the local environment of his hometown, Khor Fakkan, a city harbouring the rocky Al Hajar mountains on the east coast of the Emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
