DCT Abu Dhabi has announced the launch of a major public art imitative for Abu Dhabi, supported by a substantial investment – more than $35 million a year. The aim of Public Art Abu Dhabi: “to support the emirate’s wider creative industries through public art” and to “further the emirate’s long legacy of investing in culture and embedding it in the fabric of society”.
That level of commitment buys a programme of installations and commissions, with a Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial scheduled for November 2024 as the centrepiece.
The initiative has been launched with WAVE, a giant public digital media artwork by the South Korean digital media design company d’strict. WAVE was first shown in 2020 on a massive 80x23m outdoor electronic display that wraps round one of the buildings in Korea’s version of Times Square, the Gangnam-Gu area of Seoul. There mega-size LED screens on the walls of the large buildings compete for your attention, and WAVE certainly delivered on that; it claimed to be the world’s largest anamorphic illusion (anamorphic meaning a distorted image that recognisable only when viewed from a specific vantage point – it’s a technique that has been used in art and design for centuries, with examples dating back to the Renaissance). In the case of WAVE, it’s obviously a 2D projection – but it’s dramatically 3D in its impact.
Basically an actual wave is projected on the huge screens, apparently crashing into the glass and giving the illusion of a glass tank containing perpetually moving water. It seemed the waves could break the glass and flood the area.
For the Abu Dhabi installation (above), the screens have been mounted in a rectangle on top of the Cultural Foundation. It’s a mesmerising experience and well worth seeing, especially after nightfall.
Other projects will include Manar Abu Dhabi, a series of light art installations and sculptures sited on islands of Abu Dhabi. It sounds like a kind of light festival and apparently it will be viewable by boat as “a surreal and magical outlook on the surrounding landscapes”. There’s no word on who’s involved or when this will be opening (we did ask).
Then there will also be a series of direct commissions at various of the emirate’s landmarks, including tunnels, roundabouts, bridges, and parks. Again, we couldn’t get any details, but we’re assured these will be “significant” and some will be permanent; the brief is to take inspiration from the UAE capital’s distinctive traits and highlight its modern heritage and natural landscapes.
Public art has long been a part of Abu Dhabi – remember the giant concrete cannon and coffeepot at Al Ittihad Square? – and Public Art Abu Dhabi will fit into DCT Abu Dhabi’s Modern Heritage Conservation Initiative, which aims to maintains sites that relate to the country’s recent past. The new public art will “contribute toward the conservation of significant architectural and urban spaces, enhancing their historical, aesthetic, social, scientific, and technological value to the community”.
In fact the community angle is key to Public Art Abu Dhabi – indeed, Reem Fadda, director of the Cultural Foundation and co-curator of Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, called it the cornerstone of the exercise. “Through both the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial and Manar Abu Dhabi we will insist that works commissioned for these major programmes will transform places and resonate with the people in a meaningful way”.
The Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial will be curated by Fadda with the independent curator Galit Eilat (right). These two know each other well, having worked together between 2006 and 2009 on the award-winning ‘Liminal Spaces’ project in Palestine, Israel and Germany.
Eilat promised that “the Biennial will commission and exhibit a vibrant, inclusive and varied selection of artists rooted in the UAE and the region, while also keeping with its mandate on including artists from all over the world”. Beyond that there’s no information (yes, we tried to find out more) but the Biennial is clearly going to be a major centrepiece of the whole exercise.
The level of commitment in terms of finance and personnel in Abu Dhabi makes for an interesting comparison with the approach being taken in Dubai. There Dubai Culture has committed to half a dozen substantial installations around the city, and has done so by effectively outsourced the selection and curating to local arts institutions – the Jameel, Alserkal Arts Foundation, Art Dubai, Tashkeel, and Akaas Visual Arts. So far the process seems to be open-call competitions (we’re on the third right now) with a winner’s prize of around AED 35,000 plus the construction and installation costs. So it’s all on a completely different scale to Abu Dhabi’s programme, which in fact looks more like the Saudi approach – large scale, heavy on impact, dirigiste rather than involving. Reem Fadda has been quoted as saying “we are absolutely building on the regional offering, looking at what Sharjah has been doing or Saudi Arabian cities such as Riyadh. We’re trying to complement these.”
And Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, who chairs DCT Abu Dhabi, said Public Art Abu Dhabi was all part of positioning Abu Dhabi as “a global centre for culture” and promised that the “ambitious” initiatives will “foster creativity, placemaking and cultural infrastructure, while ensuring that public art is integral to our emirate’s cultural identity, liveability, and attractiveness to visitors”. It sounds like a soft-power pitch for regional leadership in the arts.
Apparently DCT Abu Dhabi has just completed what it terms “a holistic infrastructural transformation of the Culture Sector on all fronts”. Rita Aoun, DCT Abu Dhabi’s Executive Director for the Culture Sector said: “we are ready for further announcements of new major projects that will bring art to our public in the public and will first and foremost resonate deeply and significantly with our community”.
Saood Abdulaziz Al Hosani, Undersecretary of DCT Abu Dhabi, also elected to major on the community benefit, commenting on “a unique opportunity to transform Abu Dhabi’s physical and civic spaces, making the UAE capital a more liveable, creative and joyful place”. He also came up with the line that “public art is where creativity and infrastructure meet”, which is indeed a neat summary.
It looks as though Public Art Abu Dhabi will be the umbrella platform for Abu Dhabi’s various public-access programmes – like the Durub Al Tawaya performances and the Rimini Protocol visits. There will also be collaboration with other ministerial and artistic institutions, such that exercises like school visits and tours for students to cultural sites and events will also come under the Public Art label. So will the cultural heritage work; DCT Abu Dhabi has been mapping modern heritage elements of the city, and that too will become part of the plan.
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