Sharjah Biennial 12: The Past The Present The Possible

It was instructive to see the 12th Sharjah Biennial (SB 12) a week after attending the preview of the ambitious 56th Venice Biennale on May 6, 2015. The Venice Biennale's principal exhibition, All the World's Futures, curated by Okwui Enwezor, enjoyed its fair share of praise and criticism due to its sheer audacity. It included the highest number of artists (about 137) in the biennale's history; assembled a breadth and depth of works and practices never seen before; and attempted to frame a new roadmap for the art world's future, in which the character and content of an artwork is, certainly, more important than the geography of the artist. Such great ambitions come fraught with challenges. The most striking was the juxtaposition of works, which in some instances appeared bombastic or uneven but ultimately reflective of the tenuous messiness and uneasiness that characterize the contemporary world, in line with Enwezor's interest in truly addressing "the state of things." In contrast, SB 12, held March 5 to June 5, 2015, took a mellowed approach in presenting similar arguments as the Venice Biennale but packed no less of a visual and intellectual punch.

Adrián Villar Rojas, Planetarium, 2015. Site-specific installation, Kalba Ice Factory, Sharjah Biennial 12, 2015. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. Courtesy kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; and the artist. © 2015 baumann fotografie Frankfurt a.M. Photo: Jörg Baumann

Adrián Villar Rojas, Planetarium, 2015. Site-specific installation, Kalba Ice Factory, Sharjah Biennial 12, 2015. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation. Courtesy kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; and the artist. © 2015 baumann fotografie Frankfurt a.M. Photo: Jörg Baumann

The Sharjah Biennial was established in 1993 as part of the second wave of art biennials of the global South that emerged in the early 1990s as a consequence of neoliberal globalization that led to the deregulation of the art world.¹ It has since become the most significant international art event in the Middle East and North Africa region. Following a change of direction in 2003 and new leadership under artistic director Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, the Sharjah Art Foundation was consequently created in 2009 to oversee the biennial and its ancillary platforms and activities. They include the March Meeting (an annual public forum for discourse and dialogue on arts, culture, history, and society), research and publications, production grants and commissions, artists' residencies, and an elaborate schedule of exhibitions that happens outside of the biennial's own March to June season every alternating year. All of this has solidified the preeminent position of the Sharjah Biennial in the region and on the international art calendar.

SB 12 had an expansive yet carefully delineated trajectory. Curated by Eungie Joo and her associate Ryan Inouye, and adopting the elegiac title The Past, the Present, the Possible as its theme, the exhibition considered the critical role of the past in shaping our present conditions and the possibility of a future that, perhaps, might push the linear "progressive" narrative of modernity in other directions. It explored the meaning of community and the idea of place as the spark for creativity and artists' imagination, focusing on Sharjah. Artists were commissioned to make new works that were inspired directly or indirectly by the lived experience in Sharjah.

My initial reaction after visiting some of the exhibitions on May 10 was the intellectual stimulation in a very concrete sense that SB 12 offered. This is a scarce commodity in an art world system with too many rote biennials that are often heavy on verbiage and thin on substance. This is not to say that SB 12 was totally exempt from the usual arcane biennial-speak. I did hear some of that during the March Meeting conversations. But, generally, there was something palpable and authentic that I encountered in most of the displays, something that was equally visible in the accompanying March