Wikipedia

Shadia Alem

Shadia Alem or Shādiyah 'Ālim or in Arabic: شادية عالم (born in Mecca) is a Saudi Arabian visual artist.

Shadia Alem
Born1960 (age 63–64)
Mecca
NationalitySaudi Arabian
Alma materKing AbdulAziz University
Notable workThe Black Arch - Venice Biennale
Websitehttps://www.shadiaalem.com/

Early life edit

Alem was born in Makkah.[1] Her childhood was spent in Taif, where she reportedly painted on doors from a young age.[2] Her father was a calligrapher and her mother embroidered.[3]

Education edit

Alem graduated with a BA in Art and English Literature from King Abdulaziz University. [4]

Career edit

 
G-GBTA B737-436 British Airways - Youm al-Suq artwork

Since 1985 Alem's work has been exhibited nationally in Saudi Arabia and internationally.[1] Some works are a commentary of the lives of women in Saudi Arabia, using form to demonstrate the anxiety that women may live under.[5]

Alem's work, Youm al-Suq, was selected by British Airways to appear on the livery of its aircraft in 1998.[6][7] Her 2007 retrospective exhibition at Albareh Gallery demonstrated the development of her work from portraiture, to landscape, to photography.[8] She has also exhibited at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn,[9] at Amum in Tennessee,[10] in Istanbul as part of its 2010 Capital of Culture programme,[11] and at the 6th Berlin Biennale.[12]

Venice Biennale edit

In 2011, Saudi Arabia entered the Venice Biennale for the first time with Alem as the country's representative.[13][14][15] Her work, entitled The Black Arch, which draws on folklore, Islam and medieval travel narratives.[16] The work was made of up of a dark cube suspended on its point over a sea of iridescent spheres.[17] Visitors were encouraged to move around the work and the sphere represented travellers of all kinds.[18] It covered an area of 350 square metres; its scale as an installation has been interpreted as a challenge to spatial order.[19] The colour black was also key to the installation: as the colour of Ka'aba cloth, the colour of the silhouettes of veiled women and of the black stone.[3]

In the same year, Alem was one of the artists chosen to feature in the British Museum's exhibition Hajj.[20][21] However, 2011 was not just a year of achievement - it is also the year their mother died, 15 years worth of work was lost in a flood in Jeddah and computer failure lost five further projects.[3]

She lives and works between Paris and Jeddah.[22]

Women and art in Saudi Arabia edit

In 2011, Shadia Alem and her sister, writer, were featured in Vogue Italia, discussing their work and the role of women in Saudi Arabia.[23] While Alem tackles gender issues through her work, her sister sees her writing as genderless.[24] In Alem's work Negative No More, the pre-and-misconceptions of Saudi women are commented on.[25] This installation consisted of 5000 photographic negatives, none of which feature women, to draw attention to the fact that women have been absent from Saudi Arabian political history.[26]

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  2. ^ "Shadia Alem. Greenbox Dictionary of Saudi Arabian Artists". www.greenboxmuseum.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  3. ^ a b c "Collecting special: Pilgrims' progress". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  4. ^ "Shadia Alem". ATHART. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  5. ^ Bates, Linda. (1998). Transitions : an interactive reading, writing, and grammar text (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 244. ISBN 0-521-65782-2. OCLC 42457877.
  6. ^ "Youm al-Suq - Shadia Alem". 2019-01-31. Archived from the original on 2019-01-31. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  7. ^ Saudi Arabia: The Monthly Newsletter of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. Information Office, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. 1998.
  8. ^ "Review: Shadia Alem – Albareh gallery : Gulf Weekly Online". www.gulfweekly.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  9. ^ "Shadia Alem. Languages of the Desert". universes.art. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  10. ^ "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  11. ^ "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  12. ^ "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  13. ^ Cumming, Laura (2011-06-04). "The 54th Venice biennale – review". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  14. ^ Magazine, Wallpaper* (2011-06-07). "Venice Art Biennale 2011". Wallpaper*. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  15. ^ Bharadwaj, Vinita (2012-01-18). "Contemporary Artists Rock the Boat Gently in Saudi Arabia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  16. ^ Dazed (2011-06-08). "Venice Biennale 2011: Saudi Arabia's The Black Arch". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  17. ^ Smith, Sylvia (2011-09-07). "Arab art at Venice Biennale". BBC News. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  18. ^ Slabbert, Barend; Jordaan, June (2016). "Sustainable ARTiculation: Adapting significant interiors to contemporary art galleries". International Education for Sustainable Development Alliance - Conference Proposal.
  19. ^ Al-Sadu as a Way of Understanding the Sociospatial Practices of Contemporary Art by Saudi Women (Thesis) Khulod Mohammed Albugami http://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/8696/1/KA-final%20thesis_2019.pdf
  20. ^ Butt, Riazat (2011-07-19). "British Museum to stage exhibition dedicated to hajj pilgrimage". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  21. ^ "Museum to stage Hajj exhibition". BBC News. 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  22. ^ "Shadia Alem | Biography | Athr Gallery". www.athrart.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  23. ^ "Shadia and Raja Alem - Vogue.it". www.vogue.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  24. ^ Demerdash, Nancy (2017-08-07). "Of "Gray Lists" and Whitewash: An Aesthetics of (Self-)Censorship and Circumvention in the GCC Countries". Journal of Arabian Studies. 7 (sup1): 28–48. doi:10.1080/21534764.2017.1352162. ISSN 2153-4764. S2CID 148690561.
  25. ^ Kattan, Lina M. (2015). The conflicted living beings: The performative aspect of female bodies' representations in Saudi painting and photography (PhD thesis).
  26. ^ Al-Senan, Maha Abdullah (2015). "CONSIDERATIONS ON SOCIETY THROUGH SAUDI WOMEN'S ART". International Journal of Development Research. 5 (5): 3.
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