After Rain / Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024
Overview
Official Catalog of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale 2024
A new platform for contemporary art situated on the outskirts of Riyadh near the At-Turaif UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, After Rain, features more than eighty artists of different generations, presents many contributions from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, and includes newly commissioned projects and time-based works of art. This international gathering of artists is founded on a commitment to fostering dialogue between Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world. The catalogue provides a visual and spatial navigation of the exhibition and the Biennale Encounters, a series of talks, workshops, performances, poetry readings. A compendium of essays, literary texts, and poetry, this book also serves as a logbook, highlighting the format of the Biennale as a work-in-progress that unfolds over time in diverse collaborations with artists, musicians, chefs, architects, farmers, and botanists. This large-scale international art project and its publication capture and reflect on an exciting moment within a changing Saudi Arabian cultural landscape.
With Hatje Cantz
About the Authors
Ute Meta Bauer
Ute Meta Bauer (born 1958 in Stuttgart, Germany) is an educator and curator in the field of contemporary art. Since 2013, she has been the Founding Director of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and a Professor in the School of Art, Design, and Media at Nanyang Technological University. She currently co-chairs the Master of Arts in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices and is the Principal Investigator for the three-year research project “Climate Crisis and Cultural Loss.” Bauer has held leadership positions in multiple cul- tural and academic institutions: as Artistic Director of Künstlerhaus Stuttgart e.V. (1990–94); Professor of Theory, Practice, and Communication of Contem- porary Art and Vice Rector of International Affairs at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1996–2006); and Founding Director of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (2002–05). At the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology (MIT), Bauer served as Director of the Visual Art Program (2005–09), as the Founding Director of MIT’s program in Art, Culture, and Tech- nology (ACT) (2009–12), and at the Royal College of Art London she was Dean of the School of Fine Art (2012–2013). Bauer was a co-curator of Documenta11 (2002) on the team of artistic director Okwui Enwezor and served as artistic director for the 3rd Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2004). Together with Paul C. Ha, Director of the MIT List Visual Arts Center, she co-curated the US Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), featuring video and performance pioneer Joan Jonas, for which they received honorary mention for best national pavilion. Most recently she curated the Singapore Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), presenting Shubigi Rao’s Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book, and she was a curator of the 17th Istanbul Biennial alongside David Teh and Amar Kanwar (both in 2022). Bauer has published and co-edited numerous pub- lications in the field of contemporary art including: The Impossibility of Mapping (Urban Asia) (World Sci- entific, 2020); Culture City. Culture Scape. (NTU Cen- tre for Contemporary Art Singapore and Mappletree Investments, 2021); Climates. Habitats. Environments. (MIT Press and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, 2022); the monograph Joan Jonas: Moving of the Land (Walther König, 2022); Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book (National Arts Council Singapore, 2023); Of Haunted Spaces: Cinema, Heter- otopias, and China’s Hyperurbanization on the films of Ella Raidel (NUS Press, 2023); and, co-edited with Dr. Karin Oen and Boon Hui Tan, SEA: Contemporary Art in Southeast Asia (Weiss Publications, 2022).
Catherine David
Catherine David is deputy director at the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Previously, she was curator at Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris. From 1994 to 1997 David served as Artistic Director for documenta X in Kassel, Germany, and from 1998 on is Director of the long-term project Contemporary Arab Representations produced by Tàpies Foundation in Barcelona. In 2000, she organized The State of Things for Kunst Werke, Berlin. Between 2002 and 2004 David was Director of the Witte de With Rotterdam in the Netherlands. In 2008 she received the Bard Award for curatorial excellence in New York. Since 2007, she organized several events and exhibitions, amongst which a monograph exhibition of Bahman Jalali at Tàpies Fondation in Barcelona (2007) and the interdisciplinary event: Di/ Visions: Culture and Politics of the Middle East at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2007). In 2013 she presented MARWAN Early Works 1962-1972 at Beirut Exhibition Center. In 2014 UNEDITED HISTORY. IRAN 1960-2014 at Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, in 2015 WIFREDO LAM at Musée national d’art modern Centre Georges Pompidou and in 2016 DIA Al-AZZAWI: A RETROSPECTIVE (from 1963 until tomorrow), at MATHAF Doha.
Technical Details
- Publication Date:
- Wednesday, May 7, 2025
- Language:
- English & Arabic
- Format:
- Hardcover
- Dimensions:
- 29.5 x 23.5 cm
- Weight:
- 0.5 kg
- ISBN:
- 978-614-8035-81-4
- Number of Pages:
- 460
- Publisher:
- Kaph Books