NABATT: a sense of being
Contemporary Art Exhibition from Saudi Arabia
11 September – 31 October 2010
Opening:
Friday, 10 September 2010, 6pm – 8pm
Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art
No. 27 Duolun Road, Shanghai
www.nabatt.com
www.duolunmoma.org
Jowhara Al-Saud, Ayman Yossri Daydban, Reem Al-Faisal, Zaman Jassim, Fahad Al-Hajailan, Lulwah Al-Homoud, Mohammad Farea, Noha Al-Sharif, Mustapha Al-Arab, Dia Aziz Dia, Maha Malluh, Nasser Al-Turki, Mohammad Al-Ghamdi, Mohammad Al-Ajlan, Fahad Al-Gethami, Saddiek Mohammad Wasil, Farouk Kondakji, Bakr Shaykhoon, Bandar Al-Rumaih, Abdulaziz Ashour, Shadia & Raja Alem
Poetry by Abdullatif A. Al-Shaikh
Music Produced by Ahmed Al-Mayman
Co-Curators: Lulwah Al-Homoud & JW Stella
Saudi Arabian Pavilion at 2010 Shanghai World Expo is delighted to announce NABATT: a sense of being, an exhibition of contemporary art from Saudi Arabia.
The exhibition is co-curated by Lulwah Al-Homoud and JW Stella and organised by Cube Arts in collaboration with Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, premiering Saturday 11th September through 31st October 2010. There will be a Grand Opening on Friday 10th September, 6 – 8 pm.
NABATT: a sense of being features over 130 works by 23 Saudi Arabian artists. These works involve visual arts, music and literature, each of them being a catalyst speeding up the creative movement among Saudi artists. The diversity of media creates an intriguing crossover that illustrates the vivid cultural engagement within the Saudi art scene. The artists focus their work on the issue of glocalisation, a word that describes the continuous reciprocal reshaping that the local and the global wield on one another, something which has become a central issue of art and culture in the 21st century.
As the first Comprehensive Saudi contemporary art exhibition, and the largest ever shown in Asia, this exhibition will provide Asian and international audiences with the opportunity to look at Saudi contemporary art from multiple perspectives.
The exhibition is sponsored by The Saudi Arabian Pavilion, King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture at Saudi Aramco.
“The King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture is pleased to support the Nabatt exhibition as an example of contemporary arts within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The true wealth of Saudi Arabia is the limitless talent of its young population, who are dynamic, ambitious and possess incredible artistic and creative potential”. Fuad Al-Therman, Director
ABOUT NABATT
The word Nabatt has different meanings. Two of them, “extracting water from the ground” and “to obtain the sense of one word from another word”, clearly establish its folkloric and literary values. However, the origin of the word is still debated among scholars. A theory is that it originated from the Nabateans who were the first ancestors of Arabs. Another theory sees it deriving from the 16th Century Nabatti poetry, which is considered the richest form of popular Arabic literature.
Also known as “the people’s poetry”, Nabatti Poetry deals with all the themes dear to Arabic classical poetry but is free from any formality and constraint. Nabatti poetry’s characteristic traits are the simple style and the combination of poetic artistry with direct communication. It allowed the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula to express their creativity and spontaneity, to discuss their sense of place, identity and existence within diverse racial and complex societies, uniting and establishing a nation with Makkah as its centre. In certain eras, this poetry was the only record of historical events. It is a medium that consolidated the Saudi aesthetic genealogy and still practiced nowadays as part of the artistic exploration of contemporary social themes.
The exhibition Nabatt presents different forms of art from Saudi Arabia. It is an interaction between visual art, literature and music created in response to one another, showing the creativity of the artists as their ‘sense of being’.
For further press information, please contact:
Elvis Gu (Chinese): elvis.gu@nabatt.com
Peifen Sung (English): peifen.sung@nabatt.com
Wafa Omer (Arabic): wafa.omer@nabatt.com
