The good people at Alserkal Avenue are going big on art for the second half of April into May, extending the well-liked Art Weeks into a five-week month that provides a handy run-up to Art Dubai. Alserkal Art Month runs 18 April to 19 May; Art Dubai, originally set for mid April, has been rescheduled to 14–17 May.
Most of the local commercial galleries, including those in Alserkal Avenue, would have been planning strong shows to coincide with Art Dubai. The Avenue is now giving them a degree of exposure (and footfall) which might compensate for the month’s delay. So fully 16 exhibitions will be opening on 18 April; some will still be open when the Art Dubai crowd arrives, others will be holding over their blue chip exhibit and running with catch-up shows and group exhibitions (none the worse for that, of course, but the big push will be for the Art Dubai-adjacent money).
Vilma Jurkute, Executive Director of Alserkal, described Alserkal Art Month as “a tribute to the resilience and fortitude of the UAE’s arts ecosystem, and to the people who sustain it”. She went on: “Rooted in shared values, this month-long programme creates space for collaboration, dialogue and exchange at a time when that feels especially important.”
That’s true in terms of practicality as well as spirit. The apparently intractable conflict has disrupted the flow of goods and people that underpin Dubai’s economy, and this applies to shipments of art and art buyers as much as tourists and influencers. At a time when belts are being tightened under the threat of physical attacks, it’s good that there should be such an extended focus on business as usual – on Dubai (or at least Alserkal Avenue) as a vibrant, interesting, active exemplar of the cultural scene, where it’s always possible to celebrate creativity and community.
Alserkal Art Month looks busy. There’s a curated group show in Concrete involving several UAE galleries. There’s also public art, Alserkal Arts Foundation initiatives (including grants), the return of the always good Majlis Talks and the always excellent Slow Walk gallery tours, and public projects from the collectives that signed up for Alserkal’s Blank Space takeover project. On top of that we’re promised “conversations, poetry readings and performances [that] will feature some of the region’s most compelling cultural voices, from artists to curators, writers and filmmakers”.
The month’s programme is inspired by Shilpa Gupta’s installation Still They Know Not What I Dream in The Yard. Commissioned by Alserkal Arts Foundation and supported by Ishara Art Foundation, this light-text sculpture is a development of last year’s Still A Sky We Hold — both are among the public art commissions curated by Fatoș Ütsek Gupta for the Avenue under the title Between a Beach and Slope.
Déjà vu is the group exhibition in Concrete , running from 25 April to 8 May. The curators – Kevin Jones, Director of Strategy at Alserkal; Nada Raza, Director of Alserkal Arts Foundation; Zaina Zaarour, Curator & Manager of Programmes at Alserkal Avenue – describe the show as “a collective initiative between the UAE’s contemporary art galleries and Alserkal to present a commercial exhibition at the heart of its cultural district, Alserkal Avenue, during this challenging and uncertain time … Inspired by the absurdity of repetitious acts, Déjà vu will examine the uncanny sense of days re-visited and re-lived and the existential strain of perpetual recurrence”. We’re told that around 20 Dubai and Abu Dhabi galleries will be submitting work.
The show will be complemented by a Majlis Talks programme in The Yard, curated by Nadine Khalil.
Alserkal Arts Foundation has been helping artists with practical challenges over the last few weeks, and during Alserkal Art Month it will host reading groups by artist Chafa Ghaddar, open studios with Alla Abdunabi and Maryam Ahli, and a performance by Asareh Ebrahimpour. The Foundation has also established a fund to help facilitate the completion of research-led projects; grants of up to AED 10,000 will be made available to practitioners within the Foundation’s broad network for this (these are discretionary awards, so there‘s no public open call for applications).
There will also be creative workshops from the multidisciplinary collectives who were selected to join the cultural district’s Blank Space initiative (essentially four-week rent-free warehouse residencies in the Avenue, launched at the end of March to support emerging creatives in design, craft, music and visual arts). The workshops are by Dirwaza Curatorial Lab, Chafa Ghaddar, Nora Zeid, and Al Reem Al Beshr.
At the end of the month, Alserkal Advisory will bring key stakeholders and institutions across the UAE together for a round table on 16 May. The aim: “to understand and delineate ways in which arts institutions can create impact among communities”. It’s always good to talk: depending on the speakers and the moderator, this could provide a useful set of suggestions.
And the month’s closing week (12-17 May) will feature a four-day programme of moving image works under the title Moving – continuous-sequence screenings located on the screens in The Yard in Alserkal Avenue and at Art Dubai’s Madinat Jumeirah site. This is the second year of the cultural district’s partnership with Art Dubai.
Details of the programme for each weekend will be on Alserkal Avenue’s Instagram channels every Monday – go to @alserkalofficial or @alserkalavenue – and the website should have full info.
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