The curators of an ambitious new quadrennial in Qatar—entitled Rubaiya Qatar—have revealed more details about the exhibition which opens in November across the Qatari capital Doha, featuring more than 50 artists and over 20 new commissions.
Artists confirmed so far include Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Sophia Al Maria, Mohamed Bourouissa, Ade Darmawan, Alia Farid, Naiza Khan, Dala Nassar, Lydia Ourahmane, Marina Tabassum, and Rirkrit Tiravanija. Historic objects drawn from Qatar Museums—including items discovered on the Cirebon shipwreck, a tenth-century merchant vessel salvaged in 2003 in Indonesia’s Java Sea—will also feature.
The inaugural event, entitled Unruly Waters, will be held at the Al Riwaq venue in the city and across sites in Qatar. It will examine the oil-rich state’s “past and present role as a geopolitical hub”, said Sheikha Alanood Al Thani, the director of Rubaiya Qatar, in a statement.
The quadrennial title comes from the influential novel of the same name by the environmental historian Sunil Amrith which was published in 2018. The exhibition will explore “water as a motif through which to understand the ways in which geography, ecology, history and human activity have shaped Qatar’s place within global networks spanning Asia”, add the organisers.
The quadrennial will have four curators: Tom Eccles (executive director, Center for Curatorial Studies and the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College); Ruba Katrib (chief curator and director of curatorial affairs, MoMA PS1), Mark Rappolt (editor-in-chief of ArtReview and ArtReview Asia), and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (chief curator, Singapore Art Museum).
Eccles says in a statement: “The quadrennial exhibition introduces a new type of transnational, transdisciplinary program to Doha, rooted in issues that affect both Qatar and the wider region. The artists exhibiting broadly represent the diverse nationalities that live in Qatar, while their work reflects the shared geographical, environmental and social realities of today.”
He tells The Art Newspaper there will be “a few Qatari artists as well as artists who work here… Sharjah has dominated this region in terms of biennials with an excellent programme. So we thought, what can we do differently from Sharjah? It is also about building [cultural] infrastructure and the programme leading up to the Art Mill museum”—a reference to the long-awaited Modern and contemporary art institution due to open in Doha around 2030.”
The quadrennial programme will see exhibitions, commissions, public art projects, residencies, and publications organised every four years.
