New curators chosen for the UAE Venice Pavilion 2019

Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath. Image courtesy of National Pavilion UAE - La Biennale di Venezia.

Independent curators and academics Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath will curate the UAE’s National Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, marking the UAE’s sixth participation in the International Art Exhibition since 2009.

Bardaouil and Fellrath are the Founders of the multidisciplinary curatorial platform Art Reoriented in Munich and New York, Chairmen of the Montblanc Cultural Foundation in Hamburg, and Affiliate Curators at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. Bardaouil and Fellrath have jointly curated numerous critically acclaimed exhibitions at renowned museums and institutions worldwide, and have held teaching positions at universities including the London School of Economics and New York University. They are award-winning authors with contributions to academic journals, books, newspapers and art magazines.

“The National Pavilion UAE’s exhibition connects local and global cultural conversations. Through their extensive professional experience in the region, Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath have already contributed to the nuanced conversations defining the UAE’s contemporary art scene. We look forward to sharing their unique perspective with the Biennale’s global audiences through an engaging, creative and insightful exhibition,” said Khulood Al Atiyat, Manager of Arts, Culture and Heritage at the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, commissioner of the National Pavilion UAE.

The 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale will take place from 11 May to 24 November 2019, and brings together more than 80 National Pavilions.

“The UAE has a distinctive contemporary art scene consisting of a heterogeneous range of artists and cultural practitioners, said the curators, Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath. “Through our work in the region, we have met some remarkable artists who are responding in intriguing and creative ways to a rapidly evolving multicultural society. For this sixth edition of the Pavilion, we will follow a new curatorial approach that will highlight some previously unexplored multidisciplinary strands within the UAE’s diverse cultural landscape.”

Over the past decade, Bardaouil and Fellrath have curated exhibitions including Art et Liberté: Rupture, War, and Surrealism in Egypt (1938 – 1948), When Process Becomes Form: Dansaekhwa and Korean Abstraction, Staging Film, Tea with Nefertiti and Mona Hatoum: Turbulence, as well as the Lebanese Pavilion for the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. Their exhibitions have been shown in leading global cultural institutions such as Centre Pompidou in Paris, Reina Sofia in Madrid, IVAM in Valencia, Kunstsammlung K20 in Dusseldorf, the Gwangju and Busan Museums of Art in South Korea, the Tate Liverpool, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Their most recent exhibition Ways of Seeing, which brings together 41 works by 26 artists and collectives, is on display at NYUAD Art Gallery in Abu Dhabi until 17 November 2018. It was previously displayed at ARTER – space for art in Istanbul and the Boghossian Foundation – Villa Empain in Brussels.

The National Pavilion UAE is commissioned by the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation and supported by the Ministry of Culture and Knowledge Development. The UAE has participated in the International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale since 2009 and maintains a permanent pavilion in the Arsenale – Sale d’Armi.