Art Dubai Marker 2015: Latin America
Bridges are made through art, be them imaginary or not.
Located within Art Dubai’s gallery halls, Marker is one of the three main programs featured within the art fair. Each year Marker focuses on a selected theme or geography, reinforcing the art fair’s role as a site for discovery and cross-cultural exchange. In 2015, it will take its visitors on a journey to Latin America.
This theme was selected for its connections and shared similarities with the Arab world, which appears in everything from food, language and people, to art. As such Marker 2015 is made to imagine, build and realise bridges between the Arab world and Latin America. Historical and contemporary links that have formed through hundreds of years of migration between the region and the Arab world will be explored through works of art from both well-established and emerging artists from across Latin America.
Curated by Luiza Teixeira de Freitas, an independent curator working between London and Lisbon, Marker 2015, will be the largest showcase of Latin American art in the Gulf to date. For Marker 2015, Teixeira de Freitas will be curating a group exhibition in the form of a thematic salon-style presentation of drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations by more than 15 artists.
Together with the group exhibition curated by Teixeira de Freitas, Marker 2015 is set to take an exceptional and previously unseen multidisciplinary approach that speaks to all senses through visual arts, artists’ publications, sound art, performance art and film. Delving into the senses, which Marker 2015 brings to life, we take you through key components of this year’s program.
Presented by The State from the United Arab Emirates and Tijuana from Brazil, Marker 2015 will feature artists’ publications that explore the connections between Latin America and the Arab world. The publishers presenting the books each have a unique background and cause. The State is a publication in Dubai that have made it their cause to cover and explore narratives that are being overlooked in conversations about Dubai, such as the grey area between Dubai’s high-class and labour underclass extremities. Tijuana, on the other hand is an initiative started by one of São Paulo’s most interesting galleries, Galeria Vermelho, to create an exhibition space for showcasing artist’s books that does not fit smoothly into traditional exhibition spaces.
A sound art program selected by Marina Buendia from Brazil and Maria Quiroga from Colombia will present artists from across Latin America together with specially designed sound chairs by Argentinean artist Nicolás Robbio. The audio developed by the artists will allow visitors to experience music and sound in a different way than it ever was, by suggesting what current music can become in a fusion of art, language, music and sound.
Performance arts by Colombian artist Maria Jose Arjona will be presented as long durational performances exploring the concept of time. The works displayed will focus on relationships between the body and the world through performances that illustrate the body’s qualities, which are based on the understanding of its own transformational power.
Finally, São Paulo-based Videobrasil will present a specially curated series of artists’ film and video at the Art Dubai Cinema. Videobrasil is known to be the main reference centre for electronic art in Brasil and one of the most active centres for international exchange among artists, curators, and theoreticians. The videos presented at Marker 2015 will include renowned names from contemporary Brazilian production from the emerging Guilherme Peters to one of the video pioneers, Eder Santos. The Arab infusion in Latin America and their links will be illustrated with pieces from prominent Lebanese artists in the contemporary art scene including Akram Zaatari and Ali Cherri.
fluoro is a proud media partner of Art Dubai 2015, which is set to take place Wednesday 15 March – Saturday 21 March 2015. Stay tuned for more coverage of the largest international art fair in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia regions.
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