January 27, 2014 For immediate release

ART DUBAI ANNOUNCES GLOBAL ART FORUM 2014

Over 40 local and international contributors to participate in the eighth iteration of the Global Art Forum, titled ‘Meanwhile…History’

Global Art Forum 2014 features participants from the worlds of art, architecture, film, literature, history, theatre and commentary. Taking place over five days—March 15-16 in Doha and March 19-21 in Dubai—the Forum is known as the leading regional platform for cultural debate, and one of the most innovative of arts conferences, worldwide. In 2014, the Forum sets out to create an imagined timeline of turning points in history—significant decades, years or days that shifted an understanding of the world. Titled Meanwhile…History, the Forum also reflects on the philosophy and fiction of making history matter: each interview, discussion, presentation or commissioned project at Global Art Forum 8 is a point on this imagined timeline. As a whole, the Forum becomes a journey through known and unknown histories, of critical change and seismic moments. Meanwhile…History has been programmed by writer Shumon Basar; the curator-translator Omar Berrada, co-director of Dar al-Ma’mûn in Marrakech; and the artist and curator Ala Younis. The Global Art Forum was launched by Art Dubai, the leading international art fair in the Middle East and South Asia, at its inaugural fair in 2007. In 2014, the Forum is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), and is held in partnership with the Office of Strategic Cultural Relations at Qatar Museums Authority through their Years of Culture annual initiative. The Doha days (March 15-16) take place during the Qatar Brazil 2014 Year of Culture at Katara Art Center, while in Dubai, the Forum is located next to Art Dubai Modern, at Mina A’Salam, Madinat Jumeirah (March 19-21). “Meanwhile...History takes Eric Hobsbawm's adage, ‘A protest against forgetting,’ as its starting point,” says Shumon Basar, commissioner of the Global Art Forum. “As our experience of time accelerates, so does the build-up of history. Amnesia is built into this process by default. This year’s Forum is an occasion to time-travel to some of history’s blind spots.” Global Art Forum co-director Omar Berrada adds: “Within its context, the Global Art Forum is a unique event, for its idiosyncratic format, its eclectic approach to art and knowledge, and its enduring appeal. Through this year’s iteration, we hope to achieve world-class conversation and thought-provocation around topics that we think should be on everyone’s mind.” “It’s one of the few established annual meetings with a Middle East focus,” comments co-director Ala Younis. “The Global Art Forum is a unique event with an amazing constellation of topics and projects devised by artists, intellectuals and regional experts.” Meanwhile...History tours through Ibn Khaldun’s medieval treatise, the Muqaddimah; Soviet Orientalism; American Cold War paranoia; a hundred years of the art exhibition Documenta; several millennia of the pearling industry of the Gulf; the “Short Seventies” in the UAE and

across the world; as well as cultural experiments in Kuwait; Iranian art collections in Dubai; Africa in 1966; and creative lapses in storytelling and Facebook timelines. Free, and open to all, this year’s Global Art Forum will be simultaneously translated into Arabic/English, and will be live-streamed globally and to sites within the fair, thanks to the support of Ibraaz/Kamel Lazaar Foundation, the online partner of the Global Art Forum in 2014. The Global Art Forum’s fellowship programme Forum Fellows returns this year with a focus on curating, led by writer and curator Tirdad Zolghadr. This intensive programme of workshops enables exceptional upcoming curators from the Middle East to exchange ideas and experience. Fellows selected for the 2014 programme are: Amanda Abi Khalil (Beirut); Azar Mahmoudian (Tehran); Yasmina Reggad (Algiers); Yara Saqfalhait (Ramallah), and Ania Szremski (Cairo). The Forum Fellows 2014 programme is kindly supported by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC). The International New York Times is the international media partner of the Global Art Forum in 2014. Global Art Forum 8 features 40 contributors, including:

Rahel Aima, Editor, The State, Dubai

John Akomfrah, Artist, filmmaker and writer, London

Shiva Balaghi, Professor, Departments of History and History of Art, Brown University, Providence

Sulayman Al Bassam, Writer and director, Kuwait/London

Omar Berrada, Writer, translator, co-director of Dar al-Ma’mûn and co-director of Global Art Forum 8, Marrakech

Jocelyne Dakhlia, Professor, L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Catherine David, Art historian and independent curator, Paris

Okwui Enwezor, Director, Haus der Kunst and director of the Visual Arts Sector of the 56th Biennale di Venezia, 2015

Marina Fokidis, Independent curator-writer and founding director of the Kunsthalle Athena & South magazine

Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Author and academic, London

Frauke Heard-Bey, Historian, Abu Dhabi

Adina Hempel, Assistant professor, College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University and head of research for the National Pavilion of the UAE Venice Architecture Biennale 2014, Dubai

Butheina Kazim, Fulbright scholar of Media Culture and Communication, New York University, New York/Abu Dhabi

Kristine Khouri, Researcher and writer, Beirut

Masha Kirasirova, Assistant Professor and Faculty Fellow of History, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi

Ahmad Makia, Editor, The State, Dubai

Farah Al-Nakib, Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Gulf Studies, American University of Kuwait, Kuwait

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Curator, co-director of exhibitions and programmes and director of international projects, Serpentine Gallery

Todd Reisz, Visiting assistant professor, Yale University School of Architecture and editor of Al Manakh and Portal 9, Amsterdam

Shuddhabrata Sengupta, Artist and writer, Raqs Media Collective, New Delhi

Justin Stearns, Assistant professor of Arab Crossroads Studies, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi

Brett Steele, Director, Architectural Association School of Architecture, London

Adam Szymczyk, Director, Kunsthalle Basel and artistic director of documenta 14, 2017, Basel

Michael C. Vazquez, Writer and editor, New York/London

Marina Warner, Writer, London

Ala Younis, Artist, curator and co-director of Global Art Forum 8, Amman

Tirdad Zolghadr, Writer and curator, New York

The Global Art Forum 8 also features a range of commissions, including new projects by the Gulf-based artists Sarah Abu Abdallah, Raja’a Khalid and Hind Mezaina. For more information and the latest updates, please visit artdubai.ae, become a Fan of Art Dubai on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @artdubai.

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NOTES TO EDITORS

Global Art Forum takes place: March 15-16, 2014 at Katara Art Center, Doha March 19-21, 2014, at Art Dubai, Mina A’Salam, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai Titled Meanwhile…History*, the Forum focuses on an imagined timeline of turning points in history—significant decades, years, days, minutes or seconds that shifted an understanding of the world. The Forum includes live talks, presentations and debates, plus commissioned projects and research. *The title of the Forum is conceived by Qatari artist and filmmaker Sophia Al-Maria

GLOBAL ART FORUM PARTNERS

The Global Art Forum was launched by Art Dubai at its inaugural fair in 2007. In 2014, it is presented by the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), and is held in partnership with the Office of Strategic Cultural Relations at Qatar Museums Authority through their Years of Culture annual initiative. The Doha days of the Global Art Forum take place at Katara Art Center as part of the activities of Qatar Brazil 2014 Year of Culture. In Dubai, the Forum is located next to Art Dubai Modern—the new gallery hall dedicated to twentieth century art from the Middle East and South Asia—in the Mina A’Salam, Madinat Jumeirah.

The International New York Times is the international media partner of the Global Art Forum. The Forum’s online partner is Ibraaz/Kamel Lazaar Foundation; the Forum will be live streamed via ibraaz.org as well as artdubai.ae. The Forum Fellows programme is supported by the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC).

Further information about Global Art Forum 8, the schedule of talks and the participants’ biographies is available here: http://www.artdubai.ae/global-art-forum/2014 For photos, please visit the Press Gallery section on our website: http://www.artdubai.ae/press-images

GLOBAL ART FORUM 2014: DIRECTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES Shumon Basar (Global Art Forum 2014 commissioner) was director of Global Art Forum 6 in 2012, and commissioner of Global Art Forum 7 in 2013. He is director of Format at the AA School, London; Editor-at-Large at Tank magazine and Contributing Editor at Bidoun magazine. Shumon is writing a novel set in Dubai, and a non-fiction book called The Age of Earthquakes with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Omar Berrada (Global Art Forum 2014 co-director) is a writer and translator and co-directs Dar al-Ma’mûn in Marrakech. Previously, he hosted shows on French national radio and public programs at the Centre Pompidou. With Yto Barrada he recently edited Album –Cinémathèque de Tanger, a multilingual book about film in Tangier and Tangier on film. Ala Younis (Global Art Forum 2014 co-director) is an artist and curator. Younis curated ‘National Works’ for Kuwait's first national pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia (2013). Her publication projects include Needles to Rockets (2009), Tin Soldiers (2012), and the publishing initiative Kayfa ta co-founded with Maha Maamoun. She’s on the advisory board for Berlinale’s Forum Expanded (2014). ABOUT THE GLOBAL ART FORUM PARTNERS The Dubai Culture and Arts Authority The Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) was launched on March 8, 2008 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President & Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai. Dubai Culture plays a critical part in achieving the vision of the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 of establishing the city as vibrant, global Arabian metropolis that shapes culture and arts in the region and the world. The organisation has announced several initiatives that strengthen the historic and modern cultural fabric of Dubai. These include: Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Patrons of the Arts Awards: A first-of-its-kind regional initiative to honour patrons of the arts from around the world for their valuable support in encouraging and strengthening the cultural scene of the Emirate; Sikka Art Fair: An annual art fair aimed at promoting Emirati and local artists in the UAE; and Dubai Festival for Youth Theatre: An annual festival that celebrates and fosters the art of theatre in the UAE. dubaiculture.ae Qatar Museums Authority Qatar Museums Authority connects the museums, cultural institutions and heritage sites in Qatar and creates the conditions for them to thrive and flourish. It centralizes resources and provides a comprehensive organization for the development of museums and cultural projects, with a long term ambition of creating a strong and sustainable cultural infrastructure for Qatar. Under the patronage of His Highness the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamid Al-Thani, and led by its Chairperson, Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, QMA is consolidating Qatar’s efforts to become a vibrant center for the arts, culture and education, in the Middle East and beyond. Since its foundation in 2005, QMA has overseen the development of the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Future projects include the Al Zubarah World Heritage Site Visitor Centre opening in 2013 and the launch of the highly anticipated National Museum of Qatar in 2016. About Qatar Brazil 2014: Following Qatar Japan 2012 and Qatar UK 2013, Qatar Brazil 2014 is a year-long cultural exchange programme dedicated to connecting people in the State of Qatar and the Federative Republic of Brazil through culture, community, and sport. Through a year full of thought-provoking activities, both nations strive to strengthen bilateral relations and create lasting partnerships between institutions and individuals. www.qma.org.qa Katara Art Center Katara Art Center is an independently run contemporary art center dedicated to multi-disciplinary art, design, and creative initiatives, projects, and practices and collaborations. KAC is committed to supporting Doha-based creatives, building a collaborative, ground level platform for art and design, encouraging and inspiring local and regional creative communities through our program. kataraartcenter.com

Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture - AFAC - is an independent regional initiative that offers financial and professional support to emerging and established artists from the Arab region and to cultural institutions engaged in supporting the contemporary Arab art and culture scene. Founded in 2007, AFAC is active in 18 Arab countries and opens annual calls for Literature, Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Cinema, Music and RTR (Research/Training/Regional Events), as well as special programs that support Creative Writing, Documentary Filmmaking and Documentary Photography. AFAC encourages sustainability in the arts and culture sector through public and private investments, and though entrepreneurial business practices. arabculturefund.org International New York Times The International New York Times is a leading international news source for opinion leaders and decision-makers around the globe. International New York Times features the journalism of The New York Times, tailored for a global audience, with dedicated newsrooms in Paris, London, Hong Kong and New York. It is printed at 38 sites throughout the world and distributed in more than 180 countries. International New York Times succeeds the International Herald Tribune, a publication based in Paris since 1887. international.nytimes.com Ibraaz/Kamel Lazaar Foundation Initiated by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, Ibraaz is the leading on-line forum for visual culture in North Africa and the Middle East. It publishes a bi-annual Platform and monthly rolling content, in both written and video format. The Kamel Lazaar Foundation provides a forum for dialogue about visual culture across North Africa and the Middle East. Through research and publishing initiatives, support for exhibitions, artists, conferences, educational seminars, and the development of its collection, the Foundation is dedicated to promoting creative thought leadership in the visual arts. ibraaz.org kamellazaarfoundation.org ABOUT ART DUBAI

The eighth edition of Art Dubai takes place March 19-22, 2014.

Art Dubai is held in partnership with The Abraaj Group and is sponsored by Cartier and Emaar. Madinat Jumeirah is home to the event. The Dubai Culture and Arts Authority is a strategic partner of Art Dubai and supports the fair’s year-round education programme.

Known as one of the most global and innovative of art fairs, Art Dubai 2014 includes 84 galleries from 36 countries—from the world’s most influential galleries to dynamic young artspaces across three gallery programmes, offering audiences the opportunity to discover the work of more than 500 artists through histories and across geographies.

Alongside the gallery halls, comprising Contemporary, Modern and Marker, the fair’s extensive not-for-profit programme includes artists’ and curators' residencies; site-specific works and commissioned performances (Art Dubai Projects); an exhibition of works by winners of the annual The Abraaj Group Art Prize; the critically-acclaimed Global Art Forum and Campus Art Dubai—the free Saturday School for curators, artists and cultural workers living in the UAE. artdubai.ae For media enquiries, please contact: Mayssa Jaroudi Muhanad Ali

Press and Marketing Manager, Art Dubai Arabic Press and Marketing Manager, Art Dubai mayssa@artdubai.ae muhanad@artdubai.ae +97143842008 +97143842008 Farah Al Sharief

Press and Marketing Coordinator, Art Dubai farahalsharief@artdubai.ae