Tirdad Zolghadr, curator for the UAE Pavilion
His Excellency Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al Owais, Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, has officially announced plans to create the first UAE Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, which opens in June 2009. In recognition of the emergence of the UAE as a cultural hub, and of the historic importance of this first national pavilion to be created by a Gulf state, the Biennale has provided a large and highly visible site for the UAE Pavilion.
"There is growing international awareness that individual Emirates - including Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah - have been welcoming cultural exchange on their soil with an impressive array of projects," Minister Al Owais commented. "Now, through its national pavilion, the UAE will take pride in sending its own work out to the world, showing visitors to the Venice Biennale that the UAE is also a place of artistic ferment."
The development and presentation of the UAE Pavilion is being organized by Dr. Lamees Hamdan, Commissioner of the Office of the UAE Pavilion, a member of the Board of Directors of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Serving as curator for the UAE Pavilion is Tirdad Zolghadr, who is internationally respected as a curator (7th International Sharjah Biennial; Kunsthalle, Geneva; Cubitt Gallery, London), critic (frieze, Parkett, Bidoun), professor (Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York) and filmmaker (Tropical Modernism). The UAE Pavilion will be designed through a partnership of Rami Farook (founder of the UAE's Traffic design gallery) and the exciting young Belgian architectural collective of D'haeseleer & Kimpe & Poelaert, known for its collaborations with visual artists.
Details of the featured artists and the exhibition will be announced in March 2009.
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