"Proximities" opens at Seoul Museum of Art, exploring cultural proximity through contemporary Emirati art
Even when geographically distant, cultures can draw closer. As the first large-scale contemporary art exhibition of the United Arab Emirates in Seoul, “Proximities” brings the two nations culturally closer through the stories of artists from the region.
Following a group exhibition of Korean artists in the UAE, the exhibition brings together three generations of artists connected to the country, reflecting its ongoing dynamic transformations, at the Seoul Museum of Art, co-presented by the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation.
“It is about how the artists (of the region) encounter these different worlds. They are presenting their own point of view,” said Maya El Khalil, a UK-based independent curator who co-curated the exhibition, at the opening ceremony in Seoul on Monday.
“The UAE as we know it today -- it has seven emirates coming together -- is relatively recent, dating back to 1971, but the emirates themselves existed long before that, and the region has always been shaped by tribal movement,” said El Khalil.
The exhibition unfolds through three themes: “A Place for Turning,” “Recording Distance, Not Topography” and “That Thing, Amphibian,” showing more than 110 artworks created by 47 artists active in the UAE from the 1980s to the present. The works on view are collected by ADMAF, 14 other art entities and individual collectors.
“As you may have noticed, there are very few partition walls in the exhibition space – it was intentional,” SeMA curator Kim Eun-ju said. “Creating walls physically implies division, and we wanted to avoid fragmenting the dialogue between generations.”
Abdullah Al Saadi, one of five pioneers of conceptual art in the UAE, shows “Stone Slippers” laid on the floor in the exhibition’s first section, “A Place for Turning.” As a wanderer, according to El Khalil, the artist draws on his daily journeys through the mountainous coastal city of Khor Fakkan in the eastern emirate of Sharjah.
“He would go every day on journeys,” El Khalil said during an exhibition tour. “They are stone slippers -- obviously very difficult to move. But they are deeply connected to the landscape, which is very rugged and rough.”
Al Saadi’s watercolor paintings from his journey -- titled “Camar Cande” -- are shown in the second thematic section of the exhibition, “Recording Distance, Not Topography.”
A few steps from the paintings is a five-minute video work titled “Directions (Merging)” by Mohammed Kazem who depicts an early-morning shoreline where coordinates imprinted in the sand are progressively erased by waves, arriving from a distant and inherently fluid elsewhere as the firmly impressed numbers are worn away.
“In this simple, repeated sequence, the apparently negative gesture of effacing the writing becomes a form of potentiality, as the engraved coordinates merge with the water and drift toward new directions,” according to the description of the work at the museum.
Kazem also contributed to curating the section with Italian-Lebanese artist Cristiana De Marchi, who is based in Abu Dhabi. Kazem and De Marchi are among the leading contemporary artists of the UAE who witnessed the most vibrant periods of the country’s development from the 1990s to the early 2000s.
The last section, “That Thing, Amphibian,” unfolds with the idea of the artist trio Ramin, Rokni and Hesam, whose work emerges from their living studio-home. The artist collective traces the evolution of the UAE, following the nation’s 50th anniversary.
Monday’s opening ceremony was attended by VIPs including South Korean first lady Kim Hea Kyung, Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Chae Hwi-young, UAE Culture Minister Sheikh Salem bin Khalid Al Qassimi, Seoul Deputy Mayor Kim Tae-kyun, ADMAF Founder Huda Alkhamis-Kanoo, and UAE Ambassador Abdulla Saif Al Nuaimi.
“I hope this exhibition will help broaden mutual friendship between the peoples of our two countries and serve as an opportunity to further deepen cultural cooperation between Korea and the UAE,” the first lady said.
The exhibition is the second collaboration between SeMA and ADMAF after the “Layered Medium: We Are in Open Circuits,” held at the Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi, which presented Korean art spanning from the 1960s to the present and was the largest presentation of Korean contemporary art in the Gulf Cooperation Council region.
“In today’s interconnected world, cultures exist in closer proximity than geography alone can map. This milestone exhibition reflects the spirit of dialogue, understanding and shared humanity that lies at the heart of our mission,” said Alkhamis-Kanoo, founder of ADMAF.
ADMAF is one of the first cultural organizations in the Arabian Gulf. Pioneering new artistic practices, it seeks to deepen global cross-cultural dialogue and inspire a renewed interest in the creativity of the UAE and the Arab world.
The two institutions will continue their long-term collaboration through different projects, which will be announced once their details are confirmed. The exhibition “Proximities” runs through March 29.
“Such exchanges will bring new insights and inspiration to the art communities of both countries, and Seoul will further cement its pivotal role as a hub for international artistic discourse,” said Choi Eun-ju, director of the Seoul Museum of Art.
yunapark@heraldcorp.com
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