ArteEast, in its capacity as a partner of Asia Contemporary Art Week, is pleased to announce two collaborations as part of this year’s ACAW platform, now in its 12th edition.
Curated and edited in its second iteration by Osman Can Yerebakan as a publication of ArteEast’s Quarterly journal, Asia Contemporary Art Week’s online journal FIELD REVIEW 2017 spotlights the Middle East and North Africa with essays on seven case studies about current manifold creative threads woven in the MENA region. The journal explores ‘goings on’ in the region through iterations such as inaugural museum exhibitions, satellite biennials, design fairs, and emerging collectives. Prevalent subjects encountered en route include malleable, yet inquisitive approaches to fluidity of history; struggle and resistance infuse into each microcosm at times when socio-political tumult affects the region and the globe. Mining the trajectories creative thinkers have pursued and aim to facilitate, one unearths decades long artistic fortitude that helped determine current trends.
Contributors to FIELD REVIEW 2017 include Maymanah Farhat, Chayma Drira, Edwin Nasr, Bassem Saad, Yasaman Alipour, Ruba Katrib, Osman Can Yerebakan, and feminist architecture collaborative. Maymanah Farhat focuses on the 13th Sharjah Biennial’s final offsite project, Upon a Shifting Plate, kicking off in Beirut as a two-day installment on October 14th and the biennial’s conclusive iteration Act II. Chayma Drira’s essay discusses Kader Attia’s multipurpose art and community hub La Colonie through the lens of Attia’s artistic practice and colonial history shared between France and Algeria. Edwin Nasr and Bassem Saad analyze Stvdio El Sham, a Beirut-based photography collective comprised of Tarek Moukaddem and Omarivs Ioseph Filivs Dinæ, through the legacy of studio photography and performance of identity. Yasaman Alipour’s association with the contemporary art scene in Tehran as a New York-based Iranian artist results in a piece about Parkingallery with a focus on its more recent formation, New Media Society. Ruba Katrib introduces the inaugural exhibition, The Jerusalem Lives, at The Palestinian Museum, which remained open without an exhibition until the opening of this group exhibition in September. feminist architecture, a three-woman architectural research enterprise, examines the sociopolitical impact of the second installment of Amman Design Week for the burgeoning capital and the region. Osman Can Yerebakan presents a survey of Who Carries the Water, a research-oriented artistic project helmed by Istanbul-based artists İz Öztat and Fatma Belkıs and exhibited at the 14th Istanbul Biennial and the 13th Sharjah Biennial.
ArteEast is also a sponsor of ACAW’s signature forum, FIELD MEETING Take 5: Thinking Projects, providing support for Beirut-based artist Marwa Arsanios’ lecture performance. Co-founder of 98weeks research project in Beirut, in 2012 Arsanios was awarded the special prize of the Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize. She was also nominated for the Han Nefkens Foundation award in 2014 and more recently the Paulo Cunha e Silva art prize. She has had solo exhibitions at the Beirut Art Center (2017) the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (2016), Witte de With, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (2016), Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon (2015), and Art in General, New York (2015.) Field Meeting Take 5 will take place at the Asia Society Museum & SVA Theatre in New York on October 14 & 15; those who wish to attend can register here.
ACAW’s 12th Edition began on October 5th and continues through October 26, 2017. 30 leading New York and Asia-based museums and galleries are presenting cutting-edge exhibitions, provocative public programs, and festive networking receptions across New York City. More information, including a full list of consortium members and full agenda are available at www.acaw.info.
