SHARJAH.- Sharjah Art Foundation opened its summer 2019 exhibition programme, featuring the first solo exhibition of painter Andrew Stahl in the region, including an intensive community painting workshop with the artist; the seventh iteration of SAF’s annual photography open call exhibition, recently expanded to include international applicants; and an exhibition exploring ‘surface’ as an interface between artists and their surroundings; all opened 6 July 2019.
Surface Tension
6 July–7 September 2019
Surface Tension features works in video, painting, drawing and sculpture that explore ‘surface’ as a dynamic interface between artists and their surroundings. Although the notion of surface can conjure associations with the inconsequential or the everyday, the slick or the superficial, the works in this exhibition play on these associations in order to elaborate on knowledge, relationships and informal gestures that yield aesthetic insight or meaningful social innovation. The artists foreground synthetic materials and formal artifice in order to engage deeply with their surroundings and model social complexity that evolves from new understanding of collective experience.
Surface Tension includes works by Mohammad Al Faraj, Minam Apang, Dale Harding, Mire Lee, Randa Maroufi and Dala Nasser.
Andrew Stahl
6 July–10 September 2019
Sharjah Art Foundation presents the first solo exhibition of the work of Andrew Stahl in the Middle East, curated by SAF director Hoor Al Qasimi. Shown previously in numerous exhibitions across Europe, Asia and America, his work explores notions of transcultural interaction. The exhibition includes a selection of Stahl’s large-scale figurative paintings dating back to the 1970s as well as a sculpture made in situ and commissioned by the foundation. During the exhibition, Stahl will lead an intensive painting workshop aimed at teenagers and adults.
The exhibition opened on 6 July 2019 in Al Hamriyah Studios, Sharjah, one of Sharjah Art Foundation’s off-site venues.
Vantage Point Sharjah 7 (VPS7)
6 July–6 October 2019
Vantage Point Sharjah 7 (VPS7) is the seventh iteration of Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual photography initiative. This year for the first time, VPS7 is offering both local and international photographers the opportunity to participate in the exhibition. This initiative aims to foster photographers’ development and creativity and encourage their engagement with the wider cultural community. A large number of applicants, with a variety of professional backgrounds, skill sets and interests, respond to the open call each year, offering audiences a wide selection of photographic approaches, from documentary research to artistic experimentation.
The foundation announced its first open call for submissions during the summer of 2013, inviting UAE-based photographers to submit works that fell under the theme ‘Life and Landscapes of Sharjah’. Themes of other Vantage Point exhibitions over the last six years have included ‘Self-Portraiture’, ‘Performance’ and ‘Architecture and Urban Landscape’.
