{"id":30549,"date":"2023-12-18T09:59:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T07:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=30549"},"modified":"2023-12-18T10:44:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T08:44:39","slug":"art-lights-up-riyadh-this-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/art-lights-up-riyadh-this-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Lights Up Riyadh This Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
London-based writer Sophie Kazan Makhlouf travels to Saudi Arabia to take in a citywide festival that may have forever changed the cultural landscape of Saudi Arabia.<\/span><\/h5>\n

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The experience of curating <\/span>Noor<\/span><\/i> will fundamentally change my practice and the way I think about presenting art in a public space. I can no longer think of light as mere a tool to illuminate artwork.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Sophie Kazan Makhlouf<\/h4>\n

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As night falls in Riyadh, busy squares, parks and skyscrapers pulsate with light installations, video projections and bright sculptures. <\/span>Noor Riyadh<\/span><\/i><\/a> \u2014 Light Riyadh \u2014 is the largest light art exhibition in the world. For two weeks, the third iteration of the Saudi capital\u2019s citywide light festival, <\/span>The Bright Side of the Desert Moon<\/span><\/i>,<\/span> draws together work by over 100 international and Saudi artists. It turns a major metropolis into <\/span>a gallery without walls,<\/span><\/i> the event\u2019s tagline that suggests broad inclusivity, the overarching mission of this impressive, international light art showcase. Curated by Pedro Alonso, an independent curator from Boston, the Paris-based lead curator J\u00e9r\u00f4me Sans, and Alaa Tarabzouni and Fahad Bin Naif, both architects and curators from Riyadh, <\/span>Noor Riyadh<\/span><\/i> is one of two annual art events organized under the umbrella of the Saudi government\u2019s public art initiative, Riyadh Art.<\/span><\/p>\n

The festival, which includes an indoor exhibition, is centered around three main outdoor hubs. Set against the Wadi Hanifah waterway is Khaled Makhshoush\u2019s <\/span>Untitled, <\/span><\/i>2023, on a massive LED screen, The Saudi artist uses 8-bit\/32-bit pixelated graphics of the kind used in video games, a medium that was the artist\u2019s gateway into art, to depict the far bank and a bridge. This is the view that the screen seems to be hiding and yet the artist has added creative \u201cglitches.\u201d Makhshoush\u2019s light-hearted distortion of reality forms the basis of his playful approach to contemporary Arab urban settings, which has become his trademark. He utilizes the light of the screen to give the viewer the feeling of looking through a camera lens or the frame of a mirror.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also in Wadi Hanifah is <\/span>Tree House,<\/span><\/i> 2019-2023, by Palestinian artist Ayman Daydban who lives and works in Riyadh. <\/span>Tree House\u2019s<\/span><\/i> massive installation is made up of two long walls and a ceiling made from cutout sheets of wood. These are layered to create a complicated patterning of shapes that apparently re-examine national narratives and the framing of nationalities. At night, these become a \u201ctableaux vivant\u201d which can be made out by the viewer, thanks to bright floodlights that shine through the space and create shadows along the floor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the <\/span>Noor Riyadh<\/span><\/i> hub at Wadi Namar, a dam that has recently been made into a public park, many of the artworks and international artists depict scenes related to natural environments; the local desert landscape and lusher tropical or North American spaces, conjured up in colorful projections or illuminated installations. Though it is dark, nature seems to be everywhere. Monira Al Qadiri, an artist born in Senegal, is a citizen of Kuwait and lives in Berlin. She combines the sculptural in <\/span>Monument<\/span><\/i>, 2023, and a projected contextualization of the Jinn tree and its desert surroundings for <\/span>The Guardian, <\/span><\/i>2023. This is a tributary film which explores the tree\u2019s imagined powers over mankind.<\/span><\/p>\n