The Sharjah Art Foundation announced today that the 11th Sharjah Biennial will take place Mar. 13-May 13, 2013, and named five artists who will create work for the exhibition: Saadane Afif, Yang Fudong, Studio Mumbai, Kazuyo Sejima and Wael Shawky.
Curator Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, will work with the theme of the courtyard in Islamic architecture, which she views as a metaphor for the intersection of public and private.
“I will invite a selection of Indian, Lebanese, Belgian, Japanese and Spanish architects to help envision a new urban structure that connects [Sharjah’s] historic area and its courtyard typology with the larger city,” Hasegawa says in a press release. “Within these new and traditional structures a broad range of artists will be invited to create works that will offer new experiences to be shared.”
Hasegawa has worked on many international exhibitions, including the 12th Venice Architectural Biennale (2010), the 29th Sao Paulo Biennale (2010) and the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale (2006). She may need to bring all this experience to bear in organizing a show that will be closely watched; the 10th Sharjah Biennial was the center of a censorship scandal that led to the dismissal of artistic director Jack Persekian over one of the works in the show.
Expanding its global reach, the Sharjah Art Foundation also commissioned two artist projects now on view at Documenta 13, one by Bani Abidi one by and CAMP (Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran). Additionally, the show “Lara Favaretto: Just Knocked Out,” on view at MoMA PS1 in New York, was co-organized with the Sharjah Art Foundation.
PHOTO: Sharjah Heritage Area. Courtesy Sharjah Art Foundation.
