ArtReview
Today brings tentative optimism that the artworld’s enforced lockdown might be coming to some sort of end, after announcements on curators and themes by various international biennials. While barely a handful of major exhibitions were able to go ahead in 2020 (many either postponed or going online), the organisers of the Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art and a new project in Saudi Arabia, the Ad-Diriyah Biennale, are confident enough to announce curators and themes. Last week the Istanbul Biennial also announced its team for an event scheduled for late 2021.
Ad-Diriyah, an eighteenth-century town on the outskirts of Riyadh known for its traditional mud-brick architecture, and which is being redeveloped as a heritage site (it was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2010) will host Saudi Arabia’s first biennial. The kingdom’s newly formed Ministry of Culture has asked Philip Tinari, the director of Beijing’s UCCA Center for Contemporary Art to lead. Fro
Philip Tinari to Curate Inaugural Saudi Arabian Biennial
Philip Tinari, director and curator of Beijing’s UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, has been named as the curator of the inaugural Ad-Diriyah Biennale, to take place in 2021. The event is Saudi Arabia’s first international contemporary art biennial, and is expected to be divided into six sections featuring a total of more than seventy Saudi and international artists.
Established by Saudi Arabia’s newly formed Ministry of Culture and organized by its subsidiear Thunaiyat Ad-Diriyah Foundation, which is charged with establishing two recurring art festivals. The second of these which will occur alternately with the Ad-Diriyah Biennale, is the Islamic Biennale, debuting in 2022 and focusing on Islamic art.
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