DOHA: The annual Global Art Forum kicks off today at the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.
Global Art Forum-7 is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), and is held in partnership with Mathaf (Qatar Museums Authority).
This year, Global Art Forum-7 is directed by Istanbul based writer/editor HG Masters, and commissioned by writer/curator Shumon Basar.
Entitled ‘It Means This’, the forum explores the concept of ‘definitionism’: investigating the words, terms, cliches and misunderstandings that proliferate in the art world and beyond. The Forum attempts to (re)define words, phrases and ideas we think we know, and those we need to know, to navigate the 21st century.
Each session or element of the forum will focus on a keyword; some are terms used every day, while other terms may be less familiar – including Mena (Middle East Nervous Anxiety), Freezone, and Neologism. The eclectic line-up of contributors are set to pick apart these terms through talks, debates, performances, TV clips, new publications, films, music, and more.
Participants in Global Art Forum-7 in Doha include writer-editor Charles Arsene-Henry; artists AlaYounis and Abdullah Al Mutairi; writers Elif Batuman (contributor, New Yorker), Maryam Monalisa Gharavi (Editor-at-Large, The New Inquiry), Oscar Guardiola-Rivera (author of What if Latin America Ruled the World?); writer/urbanist Keller Easterling (Professor, Yale University); curator-translator, and Dar Al Ma’mun co-director, Omar Berrada; curators Lara Khaldi (Director, Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre, Ramallah) and Koyo Kouoh (Director, Raw Material Company, Dakar); Turi Munthe, founder of ‘citizen journalist’ newswire Demotix, and Doha-based analyst and commentator Tarik Yousef.
Commissioned artist videos will be on display in the ‘Forum Forum’ a media repository accompanying Global Art Forum_7 in Doha and Dubai. In Doha, visitors can enter the unique viewing space of a Hummer limousine parked outside Mathaf to experience video works by the artists Lantian Xie, Abdullah Al Mutairi, Yto Barrada, Tunç Ali Çam, Nada Dada, and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Tristan Bera.
The talks begin at 3pm today and tomorrow. Visitors are invited to a special lecture by architect Rem Koolhaas at Virginia Commonwealth University’s biannual art and design conference, Tasmeem Doha 2013 – Hybrid Making, at 7.30pm tonight following the forum sessions at Mathaf.
The forum will close with a site-specific performance by composer and musician André Vida (pictured) tomorrow at 6pm. Vida’s work examines the relationship between written music and the body of the performer who plays it, and incorporates visual elements including video, lighting, and costume design.
This is the first performance in the Gulf for the Berlin-based artist.
The Peninsula
