Sharjah Art Foundation

Sharjah Biennial 16

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
6 Febuary — 15 June 2025

Spectra (Buenos Aires), 2004

Ryoji Ikeda
Spectra (Buenos Aires), 2004
Installation view

Overview

I Look to You and I See Nothing features works by a host of international artists including Mathieu Briand, Kurt Hentschläger, Ryoji Ikeda, Anish Kapoor, and Guiseppe Penone. Co-curated by Olivier Varenne and Nicole Durling, the exhibition includes immersive sound environments, light installations, visual illusions, hallucination inducing rooms and contemplative spaces that explore the boundaries of the viewer’s perception.

Join us on Wednesday, November 13 at thejamjar at 7:00 pm when exhibiting artists Ivana Franke and Gregorio Zanon, and Co-curators Olivier Varenne and Nicole Durling discuss the role of multi sensory experiential works and how they shape our perception. We will also be joined by psychologist, Dr Nicole El Marj for the discussion.

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All SAF events are free and open to the public.

Speakers

Olivier Varenne is a Senior Curator with the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Tasmania, Australlia. Varenne Co-curated the Moscow Biennale (2009) and On and On at Casa Encendida Museum (2010). Other significant projects include: Céleste Boursier Mougenot’s From Here to Ear (2009); The Heart Archive, Christian Boltanski (2010); Monanism (2011 – ongoing); Wim Delvoye (2011 – 2012); Chiharu Shiota’s In Silence (2011) and Theatre of the World (2012 – 2013), and Yannick Demmerle (2012).

Nicole Durling is Senior Curator at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart and heads up Curatorial and Collections. Selected as one of MONA’s foundation team, she was a key collaborator in the building design, curatorial direction, brand establishment, design and exhibition installation of the MONA collection prior to its opening in 2011. Durling has curated and developed projects including music festivals, sound art performances, ephemeral interventions and permanent commissions. Since 2009 she has been artistic curator for MONA FOMA festival and was a part of the team that established and co-curated Dark Mofo festival in 2013.

Nicole El Marj obtained her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Ottawa in Canada and her Master’s degree in Educational Neuroscience from the University of London. She has previously worked at the Royal Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research as well as the Centre for Research in Autism in London. Her expertise lies in psycho-educational and neuropsychological testing as well as remediation for children, adolescents and adults with neuro-developmental disorders.

Related

Talk with Curator and Exhibiting Artists for I Look to You and I See Nothing

Zanon, Gregorio

Zanon's recent works merge composition and programming to explore emergent phenomena through the spatialisation, in real or virtual spaces, of multiple real-time sound sources.

Talk with Curator and Exhibiting Artists for I Look to You and I See Nothing

Franke, Ivana

Ivana Franke’s work consists mostly of installations and involves the use of ambiguous visual phenomena.