Each year, Abu Dhabi Art collaborates with artists to create the fair’s visual campaign. The chosen images by the artist are used across the marketing campaign and define the visual identity of the fair each year.
The images for the 2024 campaign are all by the artist Mohammed Kazem.
Mohammed Kazem (born 1969, Dubai) lives and works in Dubai. He has developed an artistic practice that encompasses video, photography and performance to find new ways of apprehending his environment and experiences. The foundations of his work are informed by his training as a musician, and Kazem is deeply engaged with developing processes that can render transient phenomena, such as sound and light, in tangible terms. Kazem was a member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society early in his career and is acknowledged as one of the 'Five', an informal group of Emirati artists – including Hassan Sharif, Abdullah Al Saadi, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim and Hussain Sharif – at the vanguard of conceptual and interdisciplinary art practice.
Mohammed Kazem is represented by Dubai based Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde
Mohammed Kazem
Coordinates, 2024
Acrylic on paper
76 x 56 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Isabelle
Mohammed Kazem
Directions, 2002
Colour video installation, with sound, 2 min 15 sec; 4 chromogenic prints, stickers and 2 acrylic on wood panels, 100.23 x 69.23 cm each
Dimensions variable
Photo credit: Hassan Sharif
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde
Mohammed Kazem
My Neighbours , 2006
Inkjet print on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Photo Rag Pearl 320 gsm paperPart of a set of 14 works
70 x 50 cm
Photo credit: Mohammed Kazem
Courtesy of the artist and Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde
2024 Visual Campaign Artist
2024 Visual Campaign Artist
Mohammed Kazem (born 1969, Dubai) lives and works in Dubai. He has developed an artistic practice that encompasses video, photography and performance to find new ways of apprehending his environment and experiences. The foundations of his work are informed by his training as a musician, and Kazem is deeply engaged with developing processes that can render transient phenomena, such as sound and light, in tangible terms. Often positioning himself within his work, Kazem responds to geographical location, materiality and the elements as a means to assert his subjectivity, particularly in relation to the rapid pace of modernisation in the Emirates since the country’s founding.
Kazem was a member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society early in his career and is acknowledged as one of the 'Five', an informal group of Emirati artists – including Hassan Sharif, Abdullah Al Saadi, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim, and Hussain Sharif – at the vanguard of conceptual and interdisciplinary art practice. In 2012, he completed his Masters in Fine Art at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. In recent years, he has participated in several group shows in venues such as Hayy Jameel, Jeddah (2023), Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2023), 21,39 Jeddah Arts (2020), Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (2017), Guggenheim New York (2016), the Yinchuan Biennale (2016), Sharjah Biennial (2015), Gwangju Museum of Art (2014), Fotofest Biennial in Houston (2014), amongst others. In 2013 he represented the UAE’s National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with an immersive video installation entitled Walking on Water, curated by Reem Fadda, and in 2015 he showcased works from the Tongue series at 1980 – Today: Exhibitions in the UAE, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi.
His works are held in the collections of the British Museum, London; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and New York; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul; King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture, Dhahran, among others.
Mohamed Kazem is 2024 Visual Campaign Artist and he is represented by Dubai based Gallery Isabelle