Manjari Sihare shares details of a forthcoming public lecture on the Sharjah Biennale in Mumbai organized by the Asia Society

Mumbai: The Sharjah Biennale 11 is currently on until May 13, 2013. The Biennale organized by the Sharjah Foundation is an internationally-acclaimed exposition of contemporary art that takes place every two years in Sharjah, U.A.E., where the works of art spread across the city. Curated by Yuko Hasegawa, this Biennial reassesses and challenges the Westerncentrism of knowledge in modern times and reconsiders the relationship between the Arab world, Asia, and the Far East, through North Africa and Latin America.  The exhibition features work by more than 100 artists, architects, filmmakers, musicians and performers, including Indian participants Amar Kanwar, Raqs Media Collective, Studio Mumbai, and CAMP; and foreign artists Francis Alÿs, Matthew Barney, Olafur Eliasson, Yang Fudong, Ernesto Neto, Elizabeth Peyton, Anri Sala, and Wael Shawky.

For those who cannot make it to the Biennale, this public lecture (details below) is a goodopportunity to learn about this international exposition.

Sharjah Biennial 11
Re:emerge –Towards a New Cultural Cartography

Speakers:
Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, President and Director, Sharjah Art Foundation
Judith Greer, Associate Director of International Programmes, Sharjah Art Foundation
Moderator:
Girish Shahane, writer and curator

Friday, 22 March 2013, 06:30 – 8:00 pm.

Registration begins at 6:00pm  Venue: Auditorium, National Gallery of Modern Art, Sir Cowasji Jahangir Public HallM G Road, Fort Mumbai – 400032    

RSVP REQUIRED: [email protected]  (priority will be given to Asia Society members)

Information about the speakers:

Hoor Al-Qasimi, President of the Sharjah Art Foundation, is a practicing artist who received her BFA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London (2002), a Diploma in Painting from the Royal Academy of Arts (2005) and an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London (2008). She is on the Board of Directors of MoMA PS1, New York and Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, and was on the curatorial selection committee for the 2012 Berlin Biennial. Her recent curatorial projects include ‘Drift’ — an exploration of urban and suburban landscapes (2011), and the upcoming ‘In Spite of it All’ (2012). A solo exhibition of her photographic work ‘Off Road’ opened recently at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno.

Judith Greer is the Associate Director of International Programmes for Sharjah Art Foundation. Greer previously worked as International Director at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Co-author of Owning Art: The Contemporary Art Collector’s Handbook (2006), she lectures internationally on the topics of collecting, arts patronage and the Middle East art and cultural world. A long-serving trustee of Artangel, UK, she was a juror for the 2007 Max Mara Prize for Women Artists and, in 2009, was on the jury for the Dubai-based Sheikha Manal Foundation Prize for young Emirati artists.

Girish Shahane has degrees in English literature from Elphinstone College, Bombay University and Oxford University. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He was editor and later consulting editor of Art India magazine. He has written on visual art, film and cultural politics for leading publications, and contributed columns to Time Out and Yahoo! India. He has lectured at institutions like the NGMA and NCPA in Bombay, the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, the Tate Modern in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and is on the faculty of art history courses run by Jnanapravaha and Bhau Daji Lad Museum. Exhibitions curated by him include The Presence of the Past (NCPA, Bombay, 1998); Art / Technology (Max Mueller Bhavan Gallery, Bombay, 2000); Legacy: A-vanguard (Gallery Threshold, Delhi, 2010); and Home Spun (Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, 2011).