1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in SEL
  3. Pop(Corn): Chan Sook Choi
  4. Rapport: Seoul
  5. When Everything You Touch Bursts into Flames: Olivia Rode Hvass at 00.00 Gallery
  6. Embracing Multiplicities: The 2023 Korea Artist Prize Exhibition
  7. On (Be)Holding Life that Pulsates in Overlooked Places: Jahyun Park at Hapjungjigu
  8. Beauty, Transformation, and the Grotesque: Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg on their Exhibition at SongEun Art Space
  9. Presenting Ecofeminist Imaginaries: Ji Yoon Yang on Alternative Space LOOP

E-08++
Summer/Fall 2024


Exhibition September 19th, 2024
PUS In the Dark Every Light is Blinding: Busan Biennale 2024

Exhibition September 7th, 2024
SEL Quick Glances at Frieze Seoul 2024


About ––

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Interviews ––

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Open Call ––

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Newsletter ––




Chronological Archive ––

    Selected Archive

Artist Interview November 18th, 2016
AUH Raed Yassin in Abu Dhabi

Editorial March 1st, 2018
AUH Abu Dhabi Is The New Calabasas

Exhibition Listing May 22nd, 2018
DXB Christopher Benton: If We Don't Reclaim Our History, The Sand Will

Artist Interview June 15th, 2018
TYO An Interview with BIEN, a Rising Japanese Artist

Artist Interview July 17th, 2018
TYO Rintaro Fuse on Selfies and Cave Painting

Artist Interview August 28th, 2018
BER Slavs and Tatars: “Pulling a Thread to Undo The Sweater”

Artist Interview September 1st, 2018
NYC Shirin Neshat In Conversation with Sophie Arni and Ev Zverev

Artist Interview September 1st, 2018
PAR Hottest Spices: Michèle Lamy

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

August 1st, 2020



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in the UAE
  3. Pop(Corn): Hashel Al Lamki
  4. Tailoring in Abu Dhabi
  5. Rapport: Dubai
  6. Michael Rakowitz From the Diaspora


E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21


Artist Interview August 23rd, 2020
LHR/MCT Hanan Sultan Rhymes Frankincense with Minimalism


Artist Interview August 24th, 2020
DXB Augustine Paredes Taking Up Space

Artist Interview August 26th, 2020
AUH Sarah Almehairi Initiates Conversations

Market Interview August 28th, 2020
AUH/DXB 101 Pioneers Ethical and Curious Art Collecting


Exhibition September 1st, 2020
DXB Alserkal Arts Foundation Presents Mohamed Melehi


Market Interview September 4th, 2020
DXB Meet Tamila Kochkarova Behind ‘No Boys Allowed’


Artist Interview September 7th, 2020
DXB Taaboogah Infuses Comedy Into Khaleeji Menswear

Artist Interview September 10th, 2020
LHR/CAI Alaa Hindia’s Jewelry Revives Egyptian Nostalgia

Curator Interview September 14th, 2020
UAE Tawahadna Introduces MENA Artists to a Global Community

Exhibition Review September 24th, 2020
MIA a_part Gives Artists 36 Hours to React


Artist Interview September 27th, 2020
AUH BAIT 15 Welcomes New Member Zuhoor Al Sayegh

Market Interview October 14th, 2021
DXB Thaely Kicks Off Sustainable Sneakers


Exhibition Review October 19th, 2020
DXB Do You See Me How I See You?


Exhibition October 22nd, 2020
TYO James Jarvis Presents Latest Collages at 3110NZ


Exhibition Review October 22nd, 2020
AUH Ogamdo: Crossing a Cultural Highway between Korea and the UAE


Book Review October 28th, 2020
DAM Investigating the Catalogues of the National Museum of Damascus


Exhibition Review November 13th, 2020
DXB
Kanye Says Listen to the Kids: Youth Takeover at Jameel Arts Centre


Exhibition Review November 16th, 2021
DXB Melehi’s Waves Complicate Waving Goodbye


Exhibition Review November 19th, 2020
DXB Spotlight on Dubai Design Week 2020


Exhibition Review November 21st, 2020
DXB 101 Strikes Again with Second Sale at Alserkal Avenue


Exhibition Review
November 23rd, 2020


AUH SEAF Cohort 7 at Warehouse 421


Exhibition Review December 9th, 2020
SHJ Sharjah Art Foundation Jets Ahead on the Flying Saucer


Curator Interview January 25th, 2021
DXB Sa Tahanan Collective Redefines Home for Filipino Artists


Exhibition Review February 21st, 2021
GRV MIA Anywhere Hosts First Virtual Exhibition of Female Chechen Artists  

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020


November 1st, 2020
1. What is Global Art Daily? 2015 to Now

November 16th, 2020
2. Where is Global Art Daily? An Open Coversation on Migration as Art Practitioners


November 29th, 2020
3. When the Youth Takes Over: Reflecting on the 2020 Jameel Arts Centre Youth Takeover

December 20th, 2020
4. Young Curators in Tokyo: The Making of The 5th Floor

January 27th, 2021
5. How To Create Digital Networks in The Art World?

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

February 21st, 2021



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in NYC
  3. Pop(Corn): Zeid Jaouni
  4. You Can Take The Girl Out Of The City
  5. Rapport: NYC
  6. Kindergarten Records Discuss The Future of Electronic Music
  7. Sole DXB Brings NY Hip-Hop To Abu Dhabi
  8. Wei Han Finds ‘Home’ In New York
  9. Vikram Divecha: Encounters and Negotiations

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

Exhibition Review March 3rd, 2021
DXB There’s a Hurricane at the Foundry


Exhibition Review March 7th, 2021
AUH Re-viewing Contrasts: Hyphenated Spaces at Warehouse421


Curator Interview March 21st, 2021
DXB Permeability and Regional Nodes: Sohrab Hura on Curating Growing Like a Tree at Ishara Art Foundation


Exhibition March 28th, 2021
DXB Alserkal Art Week Top Picks


Exhibition Review April 1st, 2021
DXB A ‘Menu Poem’ and All That Follows


Exhibition Review April 5th, 2021
DXB A Riot Towards Landscapes


Exhibition April 16th, 2021
RUH Noor Riyadh Shines Light on Saudi Arabia’s 2030 Art Strategy


Artist Interview April 26th, 2021
CTU/AUH/YYZ Sabrina Zhao: Between Abu Dhabi, Sichuan, and Toronto


Exhibition Review April 27th, 2021
TYO BIEN Opens Two Solo Exhibitions in Island Japan and Parcel


Artist Interview April 28th, 2021
DXB Ana Escobar: Objects Revisited


Exhibition May 9th, 2021
LDN Fulfilment Services Ltd. Questions Techno-Capitalism on Billboards in London


Artist Interview May 11th, 2021
BAH Mihrab: Mysticism, Devotion, and Geo-Identity


Curator Interview May 20th, 2021
DXB There Is A You In The Cloud You Can’t Delete: A Review of “Age of You” at Jameel Arts Centre

Market Interview May 26th, 2021
TYO Startbahn, Japan’s Leading Art Blockchain Company, Builds a New Art Infrastructure for the Digital Age

Exhibition June 11th, 2021
TYO “Mimicry of Hollows” Opens at The 5th Floor


Exhibiton Review June 20th, 2021
AUH “Total Landscaping”at Warehouse 421


Artist Interview June 30th, 2021
OSA Rintaro Fuse Curates “Silent Category” at Creative Center Osaka


Exhibition Review August 9th, 2021
DXB “After The Beep”: A Review and Some Reflections

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

October 1st, 2022



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in TYO
  3. Pop(Corn): Nimyu
  4. Ahmad The Japanese: Bady Dalloul on Japan and Belonging
  5. Rapport: Tokyo
  6. Alexandre Taalba Redefines Virtuality at The 5th Floor
  7. Imagining Distant Ecologies in Hypersonic Tokyo: A Review of “Floating Between the Tropical and Glacial Zones”
  8. Ruba Al-Sweel Curates “Garden of e-arthly Delights” at SUMAC Space
  9. Salwa Mikdadi Reflects on the Opening of NYU Abu Dhabi’s Arab Center for the Study of Art

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22


Market Interview October 6th, 2021
RUH HH Prince Fahad Al Saud Discusses Saudi Arabia’s Artistic Renaissance


Exhibition October 7th, 2021
RUH Misk Art Institute’s Annual Flagship Exhibition Explores the Universality of Identity


Curator Interview October 15th, 2021
IST “Once Upon a Time Inconceivable”: A Review and a Conversation


Exhibition Review October 16th, 2021
AUH Woman as a Noun, and a Practice: “As We Gaze Upon Her” at Warehouse421



Exhibition Review February 11th, 2022

Artist Interview February 26th, 2022
TYO Akira Takayama on McDonald’s Radio University, Heterotopia, and Wagner Project


Artist Interview March 10th, 2022
DXB Prepare The Ingredients and Let The Rest Flow: Miramar and Zaid’s “Pure Data” Premieres at Satellite for Quoz Arts Fest 2022


Exhibition March 11th, 2022
DXB Must-See Exhibitions in Dubai - Art Week Edition 2022


Exhibition Review March 14th, 2022
DXB Art Dubai Digital, An Alternative Art World?

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

March 15th, 2022



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in IST
  3. Pop(Corn): Refik Anadol
  4. Rapport: Istanbul
  5. Independent Spaces in Istanbul: Sarp Özer on Operating AVTO

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022


Curator Interview March 21st, 2022

Market Interview March 28th, 2022
DXB Dubai's Postmodern Architecture: Constructing the Future with 3dr Models


Exhibition April 23rd, 2022
HK Startbahn Presents “Made in Japan 3.0: Defining a New Phy-gital Reality”, an NFT Pop-Up at K11 Art Mall


Exhibition May 6th, 2022
IST
Istanbul’s 5533 Presents Nazlı Khoshkhabar’s “Around and Round”


Artist Interview May 13th, 2022
DXB
“We Are Witnessing History”: Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian On Their Retrospective Exhibition at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery

Artist Interview June 13th, 2022
DXB “Geometry is Everywhere”: An Interview and Walking Tour of Order of Magnitude, Jitish Kallat’s Solo Exhibition at Dubai’s Ishara Art Foundation


Exhibition June 21st, 2022
DXB Art Jameel Joins The World Weather Network in a Groundbreaking Response to Global Climate Crisis

Exhibition June 27th, 2022
UAE
What’s On in the UAE: Our Top Summer Picks

Curator Interview July 9th, 2022
IST Creating an Artist Books Library in Istanbul: Aslı Özdoyuran on BAS

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

September 5th, 2022



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in VCE
  3. Pop(Corn): UAE National Pavilion
  4. Rapport: Venice
  5. Zeitgeist of our Time: Füsun Onur for the Turkish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale
  6. GAD’s Top Picks: National Pavilions
  7. Strangers to the Museum Wall: Kehinde Wiley’s Venice Exhibition Speaks of Violence and Portraiture
  8. Questioning Everyday Life: Alluvium by Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian at OGR Torino in Venice

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23


Market Interview June 28th, 2022
HK
How Pearl Lam Built Her Gallery Between China and Europe


Exhibition November 11th, 2022
TYO
“Atami Blues” Brings Together UAE-Based and Japanese Artists in HOTEL ACAO ANNEX


Exhibition December 2nd, 2022
TYO Wetland Lab Proposes Sustainable Cement Alternative in Tokyo

Artist Interview December 9th, 2022
DXB Navjot Altaf Unpacks Eco-Feminism and Post-Pandemic Reality at Ishara Art Foundation

Artist Interview January 8th, 2023
TYO Shu Yonezawa and the Art of Animation

Artist Interview January 19th, 2023
NYC Reflecting on Her Southwestern Chinese Bai Roots, Peishan Huang Captures Human Traces on Objects and Spaces

Exhibition Review February 9th, 2023
DXB Augustine Paredes Builds His Paradise Home at Gulf Photo Plus

Artist Interview February 22nd, 2023
DXB Persia Beheshti Shares Thoughts on Virtual Worlds and the State of Video Art in Dubai Ahead of Her Screening at Bayt Al Mamzar

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

April 12th, 2023



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in the UAE
  3. Pop(Corn): Jumairy
  4. Rapport: Art Dubai 2023
  5. Highlights from Sharjah Biennial 15
  6. Is Time Just an Illusion? A Review of "Notations on Time" at Ishara Art Foundation
  7. Saif Mhaisen and His Community at Bayt AlMamzar









DXB Christopher Joshua Benton to Debut Mubeen, City as Archive at The Third Line Shop in Collaboration with Global Art Daily

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

January 29th, 2024



  1. Editor’s Note
  2. What’s On in Abu Dhabi/Dubai
  3. Cover Interview: Shaikha Al Ketbi on Darawan
  4. Rapport: Public Art in the Gulf and a Case Study of Manar Abu Dhabi
  5. Hashel Al Lamki’s Survey Exhibition Maqam Reflects on a Decade of Practice in Abu Dhabi
  6. “You Can’t Stand on a Movement”: Michelangelo Pistoletto Interviews Benton Interviewing Pistoletto

E-07++
Winter/Spring 2024


Exhibition Review July 16, 2024
PAR See Me With Them Hands: Reviewing Giovanni Bassan’s “Private Rooms” at Sainte Anne Gallery

Curators Interview May 14, 2024
AUH Embracing Change through an Open System: Maya Allison and Duygu Demir on “In Real Time” at NYUAD Art Gallery


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Mark

Woman as a Noun, and a Practice: “As We Gaze Upon Her” at Warehouse421


By Niccolò Acram Cappelletto

Published on November 16th, 2021

        Defying Euro-centric views on womanhood represents an ongoing process of deconstruction and collective efforts. After visiting museums and exhibitions in European countries filled with art made by male artists and only recently dedicating attention to the histories of female artists (a recent example being the 2020 “Tale of Two Women Painters: Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana”at the Prado Museum in Spain), I became more and more aware of the importance of a ‘woman’ history outside hegemonic paradigms and their representations in art and cultural institutions. With this interest and curiosity, I visited “As We Gaze Upon Her” at Warehouse421, an exhibition, out of the West, focusing on her-stories of ‘‘woman and its various forms [...]—an idea and a body” (Banat Collective, 2021), in particular through the lens of the WANASA region (West Asia, North Africa and South Asia).

How is it possible today to amplify the stories of “woman” and women through the diverse media of art and curatorial practices? How can the politics of womanhood become a meaningful instance of aesthetic and curatorial practices? “As We Gaze Upon Her” investigates the process of construction and deconstruction, mystification and demystification, of the “woman,” both in its tangible and intangible features. The featured artworks on display are divided into five sections including 25 artists from the WANASA region, all engaged with the exploration of contemporary notions of womanhood between aesthetics and politics. “As We Gaze Upon Her” is curated by Banat Collective, composed of writer and curator, Sara bin Safwan, and multi-disciplinary artist and educator, Sarah Alagroobi. The exhibition is part of the Curatorial Development Exhibition programme organised by Warehouse421 and the Bombay Institute of Critical Analysis and Research (BICAR). Emerging and more established artists contributed to the exhibition, united under the topic of body, identity, and “woman,” a noun used in its singular form by the curators.

1. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.


“Banat Collective considers how ‘woman’ can be a vehicle of exploitation, proposing an aesthetics and politics of emancipation that reclaims ‘woman’s’ boundless potentiality.”



2. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Curatorial Foreword. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.

From the beginning of “As We Gaze Upon Her,” the moment when I try to have a glimpse on the whole setting, the exhibition provoked in me a sense of liveliness and exploration. The diversity of media and themes achieves a sense of hunger for art creation. A natural curiosity stems from the artworks and branches in media and questions researched while maintaining a common focus, mediated through curation. The curatorial project does not supersede the artworks exhibited but highlights them and builds the network of relations in the different rooms.  By having the walls of the whole exhibition in a gradient hues of pink, “As We Gaze Upon Her” develops its macro-themes showcasing the artworks without concealing them or burdening them. From the first section, “Subverting the Gaze,” there is a clear attempt to reposition the female ‘self’ in opposition to patriarchal structures. By revealing these structures and appropriating them, the artists recover the gaze and shift the focus from being gazed to gaze. For instance, the references to Orientalist art from the 18th and 19th century by Farwa Moledina’s No one is neutral here (2019) and Baya Collective’s Women of Ourselves (2019) expose and reverse the usual story of the white male’s knowledge over its female oriental subject. The artworks of this section reveal a need for rediscovering the female depiction beyond the stereotypical portraits that dominated its representation. Moledina takes control of the female depiction, while Baya Collective showcases an intimate setting for women to gather and operate.

3. Baya Collective, Women of Ourselves, 2019. Digital print on canvas. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.

The archival aesthetics of Evar Hussayini’s av û nan hevpar e di nav me de, tu xwişka min î û ez xwişka te me (water and bread split between us - you are my sister and i am your sister) (2018-ongoing) transports the viewer through familiar photographs of women as memories coming out of the Keffiyeh composing the background of the frames. Hussayini reclaims the narrative of the pictures using archival tools to present the women’s journey of identity building. Next to the artwork, the video installation Precautions (2020) by Maitha Hamdan exposes the male gaze by showing herself while eating an ice cream through a veil where pink and white dominate the space in the video, immersed in a pink wall. I, as a viewer, see and am seen, as the artworks look at each other with an emphasis on gazes and body depiction. The use of pink, a color commonly associated to girls and women from birth, assumes almost an ironic allure when it becomes the frame of these artworks with their power of shedding light on women's misrepresentations.

4. Evar Hussayini, av û nan hevpar e di nav me de, tu xwişka min î û ez xwişka te me (water and bread split between us - you are my sister and i am your sister), 2018-ongoing. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.



“When will we know patriarchy has been overcome? And, when it has,  what happens to masks, to ‘womanliness’?”



The second section is dedicated to the theme of the “Masquerade” as a female practice often imposed on the woman body —yet, reclaimed and offered as a space for active creation and production. The variance of media include Aude Nasr’s Reversing Symbols (2021), playing with the photographic medium to exhibit a fluid identity of the portrayed person, in dialogue with Rania Jishi’s Dinner Is Served (2021), which features a full table with ceramics plates, bowls and glasses, presenting only the external structure of a dinner, left to be filled with the imagination of the viewer. In another room, different media intermingle and explore the role of body rituals and everyday life. From the two-channel videos by Ferwa Ibrahim’s Ablutions (2011), examining the Islamic ‘wudu’ highlighting the water with blue colour, to Saba Askari’s Untitled (Shelter, Flag) (2019), which is composed of used make-up wipes collected in one installation, these artworks expose the intimate space of performative body actions commonly associated with women. The dialogue continues with Shamiran Istifan’s Hanging Garden of Ishtar (2021), an installation dedicated to the evocation of body hair through a fountain from which sugar wax hangs. Finally, Aarti Sunder’s Setting Fire to the Sun (2019) explores the structures that regulate everyday life by presenting a confusional aquarium setting that alienates the viewer. This section transitions from the idea of gaze to focus on the individual’s body preluding to the third section: “Vindication of the Body.”

5. Aude Nasr, An Imagined Archive, 2021. 35mm film prints on paper. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421. 



“Banat Collective resists the effects of society’s assigning base corporeality to women and free mindfulness to men, exhibiting work that divorces the body from sensations of guilt, shame and displacement.”



Vindication of the Body presents works that deal with figuration, sometimes alluded to, and depiction of the body in place of something else. In a liminal space between evidence and concealment, the body is present even in case of its absence. To connect the following three artworks is the body as a vessel to investigate and deconstruct. Augustine Paredes’s Good Night, Sweet Dreams (2021) installation uses a self-portrait to tell stories of displacement in its intimate moments. Likewise, Amina Yahia’s Te'rafy (2021) painting resonates with fragmentation and quest for the female identity in all its different forms navigating what is considered appropriate or not and including depictions of women of different ages in the same pictorial units. Between figuration and abstraction, Alymamah Rashed’s Arak Kul Yawm Li’Anak Tahwa Ma Katalt / I See You Everyday Because You Have Adored What You Killed (2020) finds in the figure of “Muslima Cyborg,” ‘a metaphysical figure [that] stages a conflict with voyeurism through vivid, delicate mark-making and composition’ (Banat Collective, 2021).

6. Augustine Paredes, Good Night, Sweet Dreams. 2021. Steel bed and photographic print on fabric. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.

The other three artworks of this section particularly resonate with each other between opacity and tangible presence. Sarah Ibrahim’s Who we are out of the dark (2020) adopts cyanotype as a technique to print the artist’s body parts into the blue fabric, which turns the presence into absence, the physicality into a memory. Suleika Mueller’s Underneath My Cloth (2019) is a photograph of a seated body wrapped in white cloth surrounded by white fabric, erasing any feature except for the fabric folds. The third piece is Mashael Alsaie’s 3aroosa “Bride” (2020) merges archival footage of oil machinery with the theme of bridal rituals offering a critical lens to social development and the role of women in a changing society. These three works claim in their own way technology and bodies while presenting in absence the female body. The flattening of the body and the exploration of cloth and machinery tells stories on the agency of women in the region’s contemporary societies.


“Ultimately, this chapter questions how liberation can be achieved outside traditional, cultural, and patriarchal formulations.”



The section Difference as Incompleteness explores the social setting of artistic and cultural practices. Mariam Haji’s Mutamaridah (2021-2019) explores self-portraiture through drawing and poetry to explore her Syrian cultural background; in a similar way, Shatha Al-Husseini’s 1,001 Ways to Use Rosewater (2021) is a homage to familiar settings through the diasporic lens, which she uses to analyse her own identity and roots. Aliyah Alawadhi’s triptych Psychic Impotence (2021) offers an image of women for women to detach from the male gaze of nudity aiming beyond the house setting where the norms of femininity start forming. Towards a material abstraction, Sharifa Horaiz’s Seated Figure on Pedestal (2021) reinvents the female body in shapes and forms deconstructing the physicality to reassert a sense of ambiguity.

The use of cloth and the relationship between body and identity is the theme of Walid Al Wawi’s In the name of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (2018), in which a Palestinian refugee document is replicated onto a Palestinian thobe, usually worn by women. The artwork inscribes the refugee status into the heritage of Palestine linking the present to the past. Walid al Wawi and Augustine Paredes are the two male artists included in the exhibition who both deal with themes concerning the body politics, either in the intimate setting of Paredes or the official politics of body mobility of Al Wawi. Including these two artworks expand the narrative on the gendered body by evoking the issues that pertain to every body when facing displacement, separation, and identity issues. In between Difference as Incompleteness and the last section of the exhibition is Umber Majeed’s Hypersurface of the Present (2018), which strikes with the neon quality of its green in opposition to the exhibition's gradual pink theme. Majeed presents and reinterprets the ‘digital kitsch’ of South Asia in five framed posters in front of an amputated body sculpture. The use of green is both a reference to the nationalism of her country of origin, Pakistan, and its nuclear politics.

7. Umber Majeed, Hypersurface of the Present, 2018. Pencil on paper, wood, plaster, and thread. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.


“Dysfunctionality exhumes the ideologies that fester in the fragmentation of feminine experience and identity.”



After deconstructing and reconstructing the female body and depiction, the last chapter looks forward and proposes how a discussion on women can be based on the ‘incompleteness’ and ‘imperfection’ of the female, and human, experience. What is dysfunctional about the overarching structures in which a “woman” lives and operates? The abstract painting of Tala Worrell in P and Vinegar (2020) depicts different materialities embracing her memories and chaos in a journey through her young years. Youth is also the theme of Zuhoor Al Sayegh’s You Carry Her Name (2021), in which tiles of paper look fragile and symbolise a past time in the artist’s life. Jude Al-Keraishan presents a series of monochromatic photographs, Sanad (2019), in which the masnad, a supporting structure for a seat, is sequentially broken up as a way ‘to introduce the space of the woman to disfigure patriarchy.’ The closing artwork of the exhibition is Transgressed Boundaries (2020) by Samar Hejazi, which is an installation of threads of traditional Palestinian motifs reflected on a mirroring surface. The artwork is singled out outside the room where the other artworks reside but nevertheless, it concludes a journey of fragmentation and deconstruction of women's presence through art practices of different genres and themes.

8. Samar Hejazi, Transgressed Boundaries, 2020. Thread and rose-tinted mirror. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.


To conclude the exhibition, there is a glossary of terms and notions engaging with the principal themes and discourses dealt. I found this curatorial choice as a way to enlighten some of the terms used in the curatorial text but at the same time, a critical standpoint towards definitions and the words we use to describe the experience of women artists. As Sarah Alagroobi points out during the curatorial talk at the opening event, the glossary serves to highlight what can be defined and what escapes a formal explanation. It made me think of the accessibility of “As We Gaze Upon Her” and of the ways people could relate to the show. Personally, I found it an interesting tool to present the elements used to talk about womanhood leaving space to the artworks to go against those terms and their genealogy in European and North-American discourses. For instance, the inclusion of male artists in a feminist discourse brings to the surface the intersectionality of issues faced, not only by women artists, but more specifically artists from the WANASA region, dealing with ideas of displacement and identity.

The show made me think of my feminist references and I believe that a discourse on the autonomy of women in the art system resonates with the ideas formulated by art critic and feminist theoretician Carla Lonzi (1931-1982). Before rejecting the art system, Lonzi was disappointed with the ways women artists decided to work in the 1960s Italian art system. In opposition to patriarchal norms and male rule, Lonzi explored discourses on the woman identity by starting from herself in a diary, Shut up, or rather Speak (Taci, anzi Parla, 1978). She was rejecting the idea of ‘fight[ing] patriarchy with its own weapons’ (Fontaine, 2013) because it would have just continued the male dominance on thought and reality. “As We Gaze Upon Her” operates in a similar way trying to deconstructing the feminist discourse and its meanings for WANASA artists.

As invitations to more questions and not solutions, the different statements in the exhibition provide departure points to experience with the artworks. The visitor is left with the curiosity to look at the artworks and find answers, if any can be found, to the questions raised by the curatorial framework. The viewer can flow in the rooms without strictly following the order of the sections but is able to find their own connections among sections and artworks. The diversity of media does not create cacophonies but rather emphasise the need for an extensive and pervasive encompassing self-analysis of artistic media. Exploring how women, but not solely, make art about women, how gazes shape perceptions and produce illusions, how official his-tory must include her-story. This reminds me of feminist theoretician Donna Haraway’s statement that ‘it matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories’ (Staying with the Trouble, 2016). Art and curatorial practices are fundamental tools of reinterpretation and expansion of canons and norms to display environments open to re-centering the role of women in society, both in the region and the world.

9. Glossary. “As We Gaze Upon Her,” Opening at Warehouse421. Image courtesy of Warehouse421.


“As We Gaze Upon Her” quotes in its curatorial texts excerpts from North-American and European thought (from the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel until Canadian author Margaret Atwood) risking to frame the sections into a general discourse on feminism. Nonetheless, the artworks tell the stories of womanhood and female experiences from the region’s perspective, either in agreement or in opposition to the quotes. The feminist ideas of finding new ‘weapons’ resonate with the ambition of “As We Gaze Upon Her” to present a different story, often an uncertain story. As BICAR mentor Rohit Goel expressed in the curatorial presentation, referring to the curatorial process of deconstruction is a ‘groundless ground’ for the risks of losing oneself. The risk paid off for the quality of the exhibition that offers a contemporary perspective on female historical (mis)representation and the legacies in the present for the arts and politics of womanhood in the region. While displaying personal and collective stories of being a woman, the exhibition achieves a sense of genuine curiosity for everything concerning the identity and body, aesthetics and politics, of the “woman,” applicable in WANASA and beyond.


All the quotes in bold are taken from the curatorial texts of “As We Gaze Upon Her.” The exhibition is hosted in Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi, from the 16th of October until the 23rd of January and is curated by Banat Collective. It is part of the Curatorial Development Exhibition Programme in collaboration with Warehouse421 and the Bombay Institute for Critical Analysis and Research.

Niccolò Acram Cappelletto is an Editor at Global Art Daily and a Postgraduate Research Fellow at NYU Abu Dhabi, based in Treviso and Abu Dhabi. After completing his B.A. in Art History with specialisations in Political Science and Heritage Studies, he is conducting research on the connections between heritage and contemporary art in the context of postcolonial Italy. Recently, he collaborated on the Paris Bible Project with NYUAD and the Louvre Abu Dhabi on the study of bible manuscripts from the XIII century. Niccolò worked as a gallery and curatorial assistant with galleries in Venice, Paris, and Abu Dhabi. Interested in decolonial and demodernising practices, he believes in the need to translate into an accessible practice the heavy theoretical frameworks of the present.

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