Abu Dhabi Art 2009 | Introduction
FOREWORD
Welcome to the inaugral edition of Abu Dhabi Art. We are pleased to bring you this innovative platform for modern and contemporary art, with its four days of extraordinary programming. We hope you will be inspired by the art, the ideas, the artists, and the art world leaders and thinkers who will contribute to making the debut of Abu Dhabi Art a success.
OPENING REMARKS
More than an art fair, Abu Dhabi Art brings together a mix of first-rate art and design from the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States and surrounds it with an exceptionally rich schedule of events, discussions, lectures, tours, specially curated exhibitions and more. Through its location on an ancient and modern crossroads of exchange, its gathering of remarkable artwork, and its roster of exciting programmes, Abu Dhabi Art will open new possibilities for all who attend.
As documented in this publication, the diversity of the programmes is one of the defining features of Abu Dhabi Art, allowing us to engage the public at every level and making possible a transformative experience for all who participate. Here you will find highly informative lectures and discussions offered by the Abu Dhabi Art Education Programme, in collaboration with New York University Abu Dhabi, Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Here, too, are live design workshops, some featuring cutting-edge Middle Eastern designers and some with outstanding Europeans; important conversations and debates as well as show-symposium and art expert tours.
This is an extraordinary time for Abu Dhabi. It is through the dedicated efforts of many individuals and institutions, in our own region and throughout the world that the dramatic development of the arts and culture in Abu Dhabi has come about. Together we are creating a place where our region’s artists, scholars and cultural entrepreneurs now mingle on a regular basis with their peers from all over the world. Thank you for joining us in this journey and, again, welcome to Abu Dhabi Art.
- Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan Chairman, TDIC and ADACH
ABU DHABI ART INTERNATIONAL PRESS BRIEFING (NEW YORK, LONDON, AND PARIS)
CREATION OF ABU DHABI ART
Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) is a master developer of key cultural, residential and tourism destinations in Abu Dhabi. The principal goal of its cultural programme, up to and including the creation of the Saadiyat Island Cultural District – the world’s largest single concentration of premier cultural institutions, is to establish an international platform in the UAE for arts and culture. Unprecedented in scale and scope, the Saadiyat Island Cultural District will include museums such as Zayed National Museum, Louvre Abu Dhabi, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum.
Education is essential to create opportunities for the local and regional community. TDIC’s mission is to engage the community in the city’s urban, cultural and artistic development and help widen professional skills and knowledge in the community through a dialogue with representatives from the world’s leading cultural organisations. Alongside the Cultural District project, TDIC presents a diversified programme of art exhibitions, events and talks to further engage audiences in the arts including public discussions with many of the world’s greatest artists, curators, scholars and museum leaders.
Since its founding in 2006, TDIC has hosted a series of groundbreaking exhibitions. By its third year of operation, these included: the first Middle East showing of the Nasser D. Khalili collection of Islamic arts. The first Middle East retrospective of the work of Pablo Picasso, and the first comprehensive survey exhibition of the contemporary art of the United Arab Emirates and most recently, Talking Art: Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Established in 2005 as the cultural authority of the Government of Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) aspired to harness the pride of the UAE people through the development of its cultural heritage, aiming to be the leading cultural development organisation in the region.
ADACH committed its resources to the preservation of heritage as well as to the development of Emirati, regional, and international arts, music, literature, and cinema. This vision was open to everyone in the Middle East, the Arab World, and beyond.
Through its major initiative, the “ADACH Platform for the Visual Arts,” the Authority brought together important contributions from contemporary artists from the Gulf and throughout the Arab World. It also presented a futuristic vision of Abu Dhabi as a place where living traditions and contemporary culture converged in a new, dynamic space.
ADACH established a number of structures and initiatives to fulfill its strategic objectives in fields including green building design, museum development, the film industry, translation, and publishing. Abu Dhabi Art, organised in partnership with TDIC, was created to serve the objectives of this strategy.
These efforts continued until 2012, when ADACH’s operations and mandate were merged into the newly formed Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority.