Shadia Alem Explained

Shadia Alem
Birth Place:Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Website:https://www.shadiaalem.com/
Native Name:شادية عالم
Native Name Lang:ar
Other Names:Shādiyah 'Ālim
Known For:Sculpture, installation art, painting
Notable Works:The Black Arch - Venice Biennale
Alma Mater:King Abdulaziz University

Shadia Alem (; born in Mecca) is a Saudi Arabian visual artist. She is known for her sculpture, installation art, and painting. She lives and works between Paris and Jeddah.[1]

Early life

Shadia Alem was born in Makkah.[2] Her childhood was spent in Taif, where she reportedly painted on doors from a young age.[3] Her father was a calligrapher and her mother embroidered.[4]

Education

Alem graduated with a BA in Art and English Literature from King Abdulaziz University. [5]

Career

Since 1985 Alem's work has been exhibited nationally in Saudi Arabia and internationally. Some works are a commentary of the lives of women in Saudi Arabia, using form to demonstrate the anxiety that women may live under.[6]

Alem's work, Youm al-Suq, was selected by British Airways to appear on the livery of its aircraft in 1998.[7] [8] Her 2007 retrospective exhibition at Albareh Gallery demonstrated the development of her work from portraiture, to landscape, to photography.[9] She has also exhibited at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn,[10] at Amum in Tennessee,[11] in Istanbul as part of its 2010 Capital of Culture programme,[12] and at the 6th Berlin Biennale.[13]

Venice Biennale

In 2011, Saudi Arabia entered the Venice Biennale for the first time with Alem as the country's representative.[14] [15] [16] Her work, entitled The Black Arch, which draws on folklore, Islam and medieval travel narratives.[17] The work was made of up of a dark cube suspended on its point over a sea of iridescent spheres.[18] Visitors were encouraged to move around the work and the sphere represented travellers of all kinds.[19] It covered an area of 350 square metres; its scale as an installation has been interpreted as a challenge to spatial order.[20] The colour black was also key to the installation: as the colour of Ka'aba cloth, the colour of the silhouettes of veiled women and of the black stone.

In the same year, Alem was one of the artists chosen to feature in the British Museum's exhibition Hajj.[21] [22] However, 2011 was not just a year of achievement - it is also the year their mother died, 15 years worth of work was lost in a flood in Jeddah and computer failure lost five further projects.

Women and art in Saudi Arabia

In 2011, Shadia Alem and her sister, writer, were featured in Vogue Italia, discussing their work and the role of women in Saudi Arabia.[23] While Alem tackles gender issues through her work, her sister sees her writing as genderless.[24] In Alem's work Negative No More, the pre-and-misconceptions of Saudi women are commented on.[25] This installation consisted of 5000 photographic negatives, none of which feature women, to draw attention to the fact that women have been absent from Saudi Arabian political history.[26]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Shadia Alem Biography Athr Gallery . 2020-03-26 . www.athrart.com.
  2. Web site: Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World. edgeofarabia.com. 2020-03-26.
  3. Web site: Shadia Alem. Greenbox Dictionary of Saudi Arabian Artists.. www.greenboxmuseum.com. 2020-03-26.
  4. Web site: Collecting special: Pilgrims' progress. www.ft.com. 2020-03-26.
  5. Web site: Shadia Alem . ATHART . 2020-04-02.
  6. Book: Bates, Linda.. Transitions : an interactive reading, writing, and grammar text. 1998. Cambridge University Press. 0-521-65782-2. 2nd. Cambridge, UK. 244. 42457877.
  7. Web site: Youm al-Suq - Shadia Alem. 2019-01-31. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20190131170933/https://www.lockonaviation.net/images/info/infoyoum.jpg. 2019-01-31. 2020-03-26.
  8. Book: Saudi Arabia: The Monthly Newsletter of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. 1998. Information Office, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. en.
  9. Web site: Review: Shadia Alem – Albareh gallery : Gulf Weekly Online. www.gulfweekly.com. 2020-03-26.
  10. Web site: Shadia Alem. Languages of the Desert. universes.art. en. 2020-03-26.
  11. Web site: Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World. edgeofarabia.com. 2020-03-26.
  12. Web site: Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World. edgeofarabia.com. 2020-03-26.
  13. Web site: Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World. edgeofarabia.com. 2020-03-26.
  14. News: Cumming. Laura. The 54th Venice biennale – review. 2011-06-04. The Observer. 2020-03-26. en-GB. 0029-7712.
  15. Web site: Venice Art Biennale 2011. Magazine. Wallpaper*. 2011-06-07. Wallpaper*. 2020-03-26.
  16. News: Bharadwaj. Vinita. Contemporary Artists Rock the Boat Gently in Saudi Arabia. 2012-01-18. The New York Times. 2020-03-26. en-US. 0362-4331.
  17. Web site: Venice Biennale 2011: Saudi Arabia's The Black Arch. Dazed. 2011-06-08. Dazed. en. 2020-03-26.
  18. News: Smith. Sylvia. Arab art at Venice Biennale. 2011-09-07. BBC News. 2020-03-26. en-GB.
  19. Slabbert. Barend. Jordaan. June. 2016. Sustainable ARTiculation: Adapting significant interiors to contemporary art galleries.. International Education for Sustainable Development Alliance - Conference Proposal. en.
  20. Al-Sadu as a Way of Understanding the Sociospatial Practices of Contemporary Art by Saudi Women (Thesis) Khulod Mohammed Albugami http://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/8696/1/KA-final%20thesis_2019.pdf
  21. News: Butt. Riazat. British Museum to stage exhibition dedicated to hajj pilgrimage. 2011-07-19. The Guardian. 2020-03-26. en-GB. 0261-3077.
  22. News: Museum to stage Hajj exhibition. 2011-07-20. BBC News. 2020-03-26. en-GB.
  23. Web site: Shadia and Raja Alem - Vogue.it. www.vogue.it. it. 2020-03-26.
  24. Demerdash. Nancy. 148690561. 2017-08-07. Of "Gray Lists" and Whitewash: An Aesthetics of (Self-)Censorship and Circumvention in the GCC Countries. Journal of Arabian Studies. 7. sup1. 28–48. 10.1080/21534764.2017.1352162. 2153-4764.
  25. Kattan. Lina M.. 2015. The conflicted living beings: The performative aspect of female bodies' representations in Saudi painting and photography. PhD thesis.
  26. Al-Senan. Maha Abdullah. 2015. CONSIDERATIONS ON SOCIETY THROUGH SAUDI WOMEN'S ART. International Journal of Development Research. 5. 5. 3.

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