Sharjah Art Foundation

Sharjah Biennial 16

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
6 Febuary — 15 June 2025

‘Shazdeh’s Garden’ Series

‘Shazdeh’s Garden’ Series

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
2009—2010

The works seek to capture the forms of nature in glass and to express the spirit of the garden itself.

‘No prey, no pay’ (2018–2019)

‘No prey, no pay’ (2018–2019)

Peter Friedl

Peter Friedl employs a range of genres, mediums and forms of display in order to explore the construction of history and different modes of narration.

(2023) عن...

(2023) عن...

Malek Gnaoui and Ala Eddine Slim

Combining sound, light, costumes and objects from a prison complex, the site-specific installation is derived from an archive of oral histories from the Tunisian prison system.

(My) East of Eden (2012–2013)

(My) East of Eden (2012–2013)

Pipo Nguyen-duy

Drawing from a lifetime of complex entanglements with the physical and emotional legacies of the Vietnam War, Pipo Nguyen-duy’s photography is influenced by traditional landscape painting and theatrical composition.

+/- 1791 (monument to the haitian revolution 1791)

+/- 1791 (monument to the haitian revolution 1791)

Dineo Seshee Bopape
2016/2017

Dineo Seshee Bopape’s recent constellation of sculptures reflects on a South African protest song that envisioned the country’s struggle against apartheid as part of a larger pursuit of liberation across the continent.

10 Calligraphic Works

10 Calligraphic Works

Wissam Shawkat

I have always believed that calligraphy can have a dynamic effect on the way we see and understand the world.

17 Calligraphic works

17 Calligraphic works

Mouneer Al-Shaarani
2012

Arabic calligraphy turns a phrase into an artwork by exploiting the expressive potential inherent in its forms.

18 Calligraphic Works

18 Calligraphic Works

Hassan Massoudy
2001—2010

Calligraphy enjoys the same expressive abilities as poetry, since all the arts are interrelated, each one paving the way for the other.

21 Assemblages on paper

21 Assemblages on paper

Bahman Mohassess
1989—2010

He began culling images from newspapers and magazines, instinctively juxtaposing them.

25 paintings and works on paper

25 paintings and works on paper

Fateh Moudarres
1962—1998

Fateh Moudarres is widely considered to be one of Syria and the Arab world’s seminal modernists.

30KG Shine

30KG Shine

Shadi Habib Allah
2017

The work of Shadi Habib Allah navigates across networks of people, technologies, objects, images and the economy.

33 Women (2014–2019)

33 Women (2014–2019)

Alfredo Jaar

Alfredo Jaar is an architect, photographer and filmmaker whose work in a range of mediums brings attention to issues that are overlooked by the media or suppressed by state and transnational structures of power and exploitation.

6 paintings

6 paintings

Elias Zayat
1981—2009

Figures intertwine, almost floating, while recurring images of faces recall Zayat’s other endeavour – conservator and restorer of orthodox icons.

7

7

Radouan Mriziga
2017

Radouan Mriziga’s performance of 7 envisions the moving body as measure, maker and medium of expression.

80 Miles to Atlantis (2020)

80 Miles to Atlantis (2020)

Imane Djamil

Imane Djamil’s multidisciplinary practice examines the transformation of space by humans. Engaging viewers in photojournalistic projects imbued with the style of docudramas, her works straddle the realistic and phantasmagoric.

9 Etchings and Mixed Media

9 Etchings and Mixed Media

Ziad Dalloul
1999

Considered among the most accomplished Arab painters and printmakers, Ziad Dalloul has been captivated with natures mortes, or still life, noting that the English word describes his practice more faithfully than the French one.

A Dragon King in Sleepy Pride Rock (2019)

A Dragon King in Sleepy Pride Rock (2019)

Anawana Haloba

Anawana Haloba often investigates the social, economic, ideological and cultural conditions of post-independence and the rapid shifts in subjectivity brought on by globalisation.

A Dream of Warsaw

A Dream of Warsaw

Artur Żmijewski
2005

A Dream of Warsaw documents the work leading up to an exhibition by Polish architect, urban planner, theorist and teacher Oskar Hansen.

A Hanging Garden

A Hanging Garden

Samir Srouji
2007

A Hanging Garden is a site-specific garden project that is informed by the tension at the far edge of growth and the desert.

A Haunting (2021–2023)

A Haunting (2021–2023)

Tracey Moffatt

Tracey Moffatt’s visual style draws attention to the fractures lurking beneath societal facades and the violent, enduring legacy of Australian colonialism.

A Healing Path for Phantom Pain (2022) and other works

A Healing Path for Phantom Pain (2022) and other works

Kiluanji Kia Henda

Shaped by the experience of coming of age during the post-independence Angolan Civil War, Kiluanji Kia Henda reflects on the ruptures of colonial rule and conflict while framing Angolan identity within broader global historical narratives.

A Love Story

A Love Story

Amar Kanwar
2010

A Love Story is a miniature narrative in four acts where time becomes fluid as the image is distilled to its inner self.

A Man without a Country (2023) and other works

A Man without a Country (2023) and other works

Hyesoo Park

Hyesoo Park’s work takes inspiration from the social landscape of everyday life—overheard conversations, daily routines and common problems—offering insight into the psychological issues we face in a fiercely competitive society.

A Moment of the Sky/ Four Humours

A Moment of the Sky/ Four Humours

Tonico Lemos Auad
2016/2017

Tonico Lemos Auad’s work demonstrates here his interest in medicinal plants and herbs, and reflects the inspiration he draws from the natural environment, his surroundings and delicate architectural structures.

A Monument for the Living

A Monument for the Living

Marwan Rechmaoui
2009

A Monument for the Living is a human-scale replica of the notorious Burj al Murr, a derelict concrete high-rise that towers over downtown Beirut.

A New Product

A New Product

Harun Farocki
2012

During a five-decade career beginning in the mid-1960s, Harun Farocki created more than 120 films and installations that analysed the power of the image.

A Peculiar Family Album

A Peculiar Family Album

Amina Menia
2012

This video is based on materials from the personal archive of Jacques Chevallier, who was mayor of Algiers from 1953 to 1958, a key period in the architectural, social and political history of Algiers.

A Reverse Retrogress: Scene 1 (2013)

A Reverse Retrogress: Scene 1 (2013)

Mary Sibande

Mary Sibande engages counter- historical narratives and the language of dress to animate the stories of South African women and critique western imperialist depictions of their lives.

A Small Town at the Turn of the Century

A Small Town at the Turn of the Century

Simryn Gill
1999—2000

A Small Town at the Turn of the Century is a series of 39 type C photographs that were taken by Simryn Gill in Port Dickson in Malaysia, the town where she grew up.

A song connected from A Stage

A song connected from A Stage

mixrice
2006-2014

mixrice has worked with a community of migrant workers in Maseok, an industrial area outside of Seoul, since 2002.

A Typology of Houses

A Typology of Houses

Hala Al-Ani
2010

A Typology of Houses is a descriptive record of culture made manifest in the building vernacular of residential housing in Dubai.

Across the Chalk Line

Across the Chalk Line

Gary Simmons
2015

Across the Chalk Line (2015) is a public art project in the form of a junior-sized cricket oval designed for neighbourhood children.

Adriana Bustos: Various Works (2019)

Adriana Bustos: Various Works (2019)

Adriana Bustos

Adriana Bustos’ practice draws on ideas taken up in areas of anthropology, history, science, popular culture, fiction, biographical writings, and academic and intuitive knowledge.

African Independence and Palestine

African Independence and Palestine

Newsreel Archives of Soviet Television
1961—1971

Two thirty-five-minute videos assemble sequences borrowed from news reports from the archives of Soviet Television in the last century.

Afterwards (2017–2022)

Afterwards (2017–2022)

Jawad Al Malhi

Jawad Al Malhi’s multidisciplinary practice reflects upon the Palestinian social fabric, illuminating cyclical human movements and daily routines in East Jerusalem.

Agents, Crowds

Agents, Crowds

Matt Saunders
2010—2011

Matt Saunders scuttles boundaries between media to make works that balance between the painted and the photographic.

Ah

Ah

Charwei Tsai
2011

The artist writes the word ah in black ink on water.

Aha Āina Aloha (2016) and other works

Aha Āina Aloha (2016) and other works

Meleanna Meyer

At the intersection of art and activism, Meleanna Meyer’s practice draws from Hawaiian history, cultural anthropology, Indigenous linguistics, architecture and set design.

Air-Port-City

Air-Port-City

Tomas Saraceno
2007

Following in the tradition of Buckminster Fuller, Tomas Saraceno’s installation, sculpture, photography and video work challenge the conventional restrictions on the human habitat, and suggest new ways of perceiving nature.

Airmail Paintings

Airmail Paintings

Eugenio Dittborn
2002—2008

The following is a text in progress, dating back to 1985 and now published in its eighth state; it is the Ars Pictorica of the Airmail Paintings:

Al Araba Al Madfuna

Al Araba Al Madfuna

Wael Shawky
2012

Dressed like grown men, with glued-on moustaches and dubbed with the voices of adults, a group of boys retell a story by Egyptian writer Mohamed Mustagab.

Al Zannoba Journey

Al Zannoba Journey

Abdullah Al Saadi
2013

Abdullah Al Saadi presents a series of works produced during his SB12 commission Al Zannoba Journey (2015). This project continues previous journeys the artist has undertaken over several years and records the landscape he encounters and his experience in nature.

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck: Various Works (2018)

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck: Various Works (2018)

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck

With exhibition format and other museological methodologies as his medium, Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck’s multifaceted practice incorporates the activities of a researcher, archivist, historian and curator.

Ali Jabri: Selected Works

Ali Jabri: Selected Works

Ali Jabri
1989–2001

SB13 pays homage to Ali Jabri in a presentation focusing on his lesser-known collage works.

Aline Baiana: Various Works (2019)

Aline Baiana: Various Works (2019)

Aline Baiana

Aline Baiana’s SB14 installation draws parallels between the construction of hydropower plants in Brazil and Lebanon, both of which would endanger rivers and the areas of biodiversity they support.

All Quiet in Vikaspuri

All Quiet in Vikaspuri

Sarnath Banerjee
2015

Sarnath Banerjee is a storyteller who creates freehand sketches and drawings that incorporate text as well as film.

All that is unknown

All that is unknown

James Webb
2016

James Webb’s interdisciplinary practice examines the depths of audiovisual culture.

Alone

Alone

Daniel Aulagnier
2001

An Opaque Wind

An Opaque Wind

Haegue Yang
2015

In her work, Haegue Yang has employed ready-made objects.

Anarcheology

Anarcheology

Christoph Keller
2014

Anarcheology (2014) delves into Christoph Keller’s time spent in the Amazon and his thinking about archaeology.

Anatomical Study

Anatomical Study

Runa Islam
2013

Runa Islam counterpoints two lines of enquiry for Sharjah Biennial 11, utilising the exhibition space as a stage on which to culminate one series of works, and simultaneously to start another.

Anglo-Arabian

Anglo-Arabian

Marwa Rustam
2010

In the Arab world, where people are major consumers of technology but not involved in any aspect of its production, most individuals equate progress with the acquisition of modern equipment.

Anlagen

Anlagen

Uschi Huber
2001/2006

Uschi Huber’s work centres around the use of photography and video, creating both her own series of images as well as working with already existing pictorial material.

Antoine Catala: Various works  (2014–2020)

Antoine Catala: Various works (2014–2020)

Antoine Catala
b. 1975, Toulouse, France
Lives and works in New York

Antoine Catala examines everyday communication tools and the ways in which humans use and consume media.

Anwar Jalal Shemza: Various Works (1961–1969)

Anwar Jalal Shemza: Various Works (1961–1969)

Anwar Jalal Shemza

Sharjah Biennial 14 presents 13 of Shemza’s works created between 1961 and 1969, surveying his diverse influences during this transitional period and the decisively modern diasporic perspective examined through the prism of both Islamic and Western aesthetics.

Anwerlarr angerr (Big yam)
(1996) and other works

Anwerlarr angerr (Big yam) (1996) and other works

Emily Kame Kngwarreye

An Anmatyerre elder and lifelong custodian of women’s ‘dreaming’ sites in her clan country of Alhalkere, Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910–1996) developed an abstract visual language centred around ancestral spirits and Australian Aboriginal cosmology.

Anxiety Napkins

Anxiety Napkins

Ross Simonini
2013-2017

An artist, writer and musician, Ross Simonini is well known for his interviews, dialogues and writings about artists, philosophers, thinkers and actors.

Any Way the Wind Blows (2018–2019)

Any Way the Wind Blows (2018–2019)

Tracey Rose

Best known for her performance work that embodies a feminist perspective, Tracey Rose often conceives of rich characters who inhabit tableaus as visceral, complex and unnerving as the worlds from which they are torn.

Arazzo

Arazzo

Claudia Losi
since 1996 -

Claudia Losi’s work, moving between an emotional approach and a more conceptual one, shows her strong interest in historical change and the complexity of natural phenomena, with attention to scientific and literary disciplines.

Arcadia

Arcadia

Deborah Poynton
2011

Arcadia (2011) is an installation comprising eleven large paintings, two of which are on exhibit at Al Hamriyah Studios.

Arcadia (2023)

Arcadia (2023)

John Akomfrah

Through his experimentation with the moving image, John Akomfrah delves into themes of memory, identity, postcolonialism, temporality and the politics of aesthetics.

Arrancar los ojos (2023) and other works

Arrancar los ojos (2023) and other works

Gabriela Golder

Gabriela Golder examines the intersection between labour and memory from a wide variety of sources— political, mythical and medical—to highlight the aftereffect of violent state actions.

Art Exhibition: Readymade Representations 1954—2009

Art Exhibition: Readymade Representations 1954—2009

Khalil Rabah
2011

While many Western critics have emphasised the national, religious and ethnic origins of Khalil Rabah’s preoccupation with boundaries and containment, his work engages with more conceptual and universal questions relating to the shifting borders of narrative, history and space.

As British as a Watermelon (2019)

As British as a Watermelon (2019)

mandla

In mandla’s work, identity-based struggles emerge from the artist’s attempts to reconcile different forms of exclusion, both within the artist’s family and adoptive environment.

As They Say (Kif Ma Yi Qulu)

As They Say (Kif Ma Yi Qulu)

Hicham Ayouch
2011

Set in the lush Rif mountains of northern Morocco, As They Say spans the length of a weekend camping trip where a father and his son hike in a forest to fish in a beautiful lake.

Astrid Klein is best known for her large-format black and white ‘photoworks’—composite images composed of magazine and newspaper photographs subjected to different printing and processing techniques in the darkroom.

Astrid Klein: Various Works (1987–1998)

Astrid Klein: Various Works (1987–1998)

Astrid Klein

Astrid Klein is best known for her large-format black and white ‘photoworks’—composite images comprised of magazine and newspaper photographs subjected to different printing and processing techniques in the darkroom.

AT THE RISK OF THE REAL

AT THE RISK OF THE REAL

Cinthia Marcelle
2015

AT THE RISK OF THE REAL (2015) expands on Cinthia Marcelle’s engagement with labour, industrial production and the reciprocity between art and daily life.

At the Time of the Ebb (2019)

At the Time of the Ebb (2019)

Alia Farid

Through videos, drawings, installations and public interventions, the work of Alia Farid explores contemporary urban life against the background of the complex colonial histories of Kuwait and Puerto Rico, her two countries of origin.

Attempt 137 to Map the Drive

Attempt 137 to Map the Drive

Graziella Rizkallah Toufic and Jalal Toufic
2011

Keywords: videotaped in Beirut’s central district circa 2000; Toufican ruins; labyrinth; drive (also in the sense of Trieb).

Autoconstrucción

Autoconstrucción

Abraham Cruzvillegas
2015

Autoconstrucción, or ‘self-building’, is an ongoing body of work by Abraham Cruzvillegas that consists of structures in a constant state of construction, destruction, rebuilding and open-ended motion.

Autoxylopyrocycloboros

Autoxylopyrocycloboros

Simon Starling
2006

Autoxylopyrocycloboros documents a performance or, perhaps better, an action that took place on, and ultimately in, the waters of Loch Long on the West Coast of Scotland.

Autumn of 85 (1987) and other works

Autumn of 85 (1987) and other works

Kimathi Donkor

Kimathi Donkor reimagines mythic, historical and everyday encounters across Africa and its global diasporas, addressing the erasure of Black subjectivity and Black historical figures from western canonical art history.

Axis of Power

Axis of Power

David Spriggs
2009

Alongside works entitled Entropy and Dark Matter, David Spriggs presented the large site-specific installation Axis of Power at Sharjah Biennial 9.

Ayacucho (2017–2022)

Ayacucho (2017–2022)

Ángela Ponce

Ángela Ponce’s photography grapples with social issues, political conflicts, disability rights and collective memory in the Latin American context.

Ayouha al Arabe is a montage of sonic raw materials in search of remixers to turn it into revolution rock / dub / electro / poetry / ambient sound / a social media soundtrack — or what you will.

B Series

B Series

Tarek Al-Ghoussein

The ongoing construction of the ‘Defense Barrier’ in Palestine continues to cause worldwide outrage.

Bait Blak (2022–2023)

Bait Blak (2022–2023)

Destiny Deacon

Destiny Deacon is a multidisciplinary Indigenous artist descended from the KuKu Yalanji and Erub/Mer peoples of Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands respectively.

Balinji (1997) and other works

Balinji (1997) and other works

Queenie McKenzie

Queenie McKenzie (1915–1998) depicted the Aboriginal experience through bold autobiographical canvases that offer insight into life on the remote cattle stations of the East Kimberley region in early twentieth-century Australia.

Barbara Kasten Various works (1986–2017)

Barbara Kasten Various works (1986–2017)

Barbara Kasten

Spanning nearly five decades, Barbara Kasten’s conceptual practice has centred around photography and an exploration of the nature of perception, often manifested through the interplay of two- and three-dimensional spaces.

Beej

Beej

Vikram Divecha
2017

Vikram Divecha’s work develops around ‘found processes’—those existing forces at work within state, social, economic and industrial spheres that go largely overlooked.

Before my birth

Before my birth

Adrián Villar Rojas
2012

The practice of Adrián Villar Rojas is marked by large-scale, site-specific interventions that incorporate his fascinations with battling ecosystems, physical decay, unlikely rebirth and man’s interference in it all.

Beirut Caoutchouc

Beirut Caoutchouc

Marwan Rechmaoui
2004

First shown in Sharjah Biennial 7 and now part of the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Beirut Caoutchouc is one of Rechmaoui’s best known works.

Beirut, Autopsy of a City

Beirut, Autopsy of a City

Lamia Joreige
2010

This project proposes possible reconciliations between the task of the archaeologist and that of the poet, between modern images and ancient texts.

Below the Surface

Below the Surface

Ravi Agarwal
2012

The earth is no longer mere land: it is the sociopolitical terrain of our species.

Beroana (shell money)

Beroana (shell money)

Taloi Havini
2015/2017

For SB13, Taloi Havini explores a form of shell-based currency known as beroana, which was used on Buka Island in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.

Between Five Stools by Mike Salomon

Between Five Stools by Mike Salomon

Solvej Dufour Andersen
2004

Sometimes, there’s this thing where I almost feel like . . . I see especially Africans, . . . that I almost see them as though I’m white myself.

Beuys Underground

Beuys Underground

İnci Eviner
2017

In a practice spanning some 40 years, İnci Eviner has explored the perspective of women, processes of organisation and the formation of subjectivities.

Beware of this Artist

Beware of this Artist

Ramin Haerizadeh
2010

In his new body of works Ramin Haerizade depicts multiple reproductions of the self, as fractured, mirrored, morphed, amorphous, cross-gendered, bestial, a Kafkaesque indeterminate creature with a distinctly evolved phallicism.

Billy Sings Amazing Grace (2013)

Billy Sings Amazing Grace (2013)

Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates is a visual artist, archivist, curator and musician whose practice explores Black identity and history through material investigations into labour, spirituality, vacancy and spatiality.

Black and White

Black and White

Waheeda Malullah
2008―2009

Malullah works with installation, photography and video often investigating the new roles being adopted by contemporary Islamic woman.

Blood of Two

Blood of Two

Matthew Barney and Elizabeth Peyton
2009

This installation includes a video that documents a collaborative performance by Matthew Barney and Elizabeth Peyton at DESTE Foundation Project Space on the island of Hydra, Greece, in 2009, as well as elements that were first exhibited there.

Blue and Red

Blue and Red

Zhou Tao
2014

Zhou Tao’s videos explore means to create a dialogue between moving images, addressing the inner workings of systems and topologies through careful study of specific events in manifold perspective.

Blue Building

Blue Building

Marwan Rechmaoui
2015

Marwan Rechmaoui approaches the methodical study of cartography and urbanisation through works tempered by sensuality and wit.

Boundary Work

Boundary Work

Mandy El-Sayegh
2017

For her SB13 commission, Boundary Work (2017), Mandy El-Sayegh assembles new and previous works, presenting a concatenation of materials.

Brick Sellers of Kabul

Brick Sellers of Kabul

Lida Abdul
2006

Lida Abdul’s “Brick Sellers of Kabul” approaches the complex process of reconstruction in Afghanistan, producing a subtle reflection that could be perceived and considered as a comment on social negotiation and transformation.

Bridge of Hesitation (2021–2022)  and other works

Bridge of Hesitation (2021–2022)  and other works

Anju Dodiya

Anju Dodiya’s visual language encompasses references spanning the cross-cultural history of painting, from Indian miniatures to French medieval tapestries, alongside elements of autobiography, allegory and mythology.

Bruno Pacheco’s work is deeply invested in both the representational and art historical possibilities inherent within the medium of painting, often exploring the limits of colour, form and composition.

Bubble

Bubble

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA
2013

We propose a temporary pavilion for Calligraphy Square in Sharjah, consisting of transparent bubbles.

Burden of Proof (2022)

Burden of Proof (2022)

Barbara Walker

Barbara Walker’s figurative art practice interrogates past and contemporary manifestations of issues at the intersection of racial identity, belonging, class, power and body politics.

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa

Ziad Antar
2010

Shot with Black and White Negra 120 negative expired in 1976

Burning Chair

Burning Chair

Takashi Ishida
2013

Takashi Ishida is perhaps best known for his ‘drawing animation’, a technique in which he creates lines by hand and then shoots them one frame at a time.

Cairo Stories…

Cairo Stories…

Judith Barry
2010—2011

Cairo Stories… continues an on-going series of ‘as-told-to’ recorded stories, based on personal interviews.

Next