Shadia Alem

Shadia Alem or Shādiyah 'Ālim or in Arabic: شادية عالم (born in Mecca) is a Saudi Arabian artist, painter and photographer.

Shadia Alem
Born1960
Mecca
NationalitySaudi Arabian
Alma materKing AbdulAziz University
Notable work
The Black Arch - Venice Biennale
Websitehttps://www.shadiaalem.com/

Early life

Alem was born in 1960 in Makkah.[1] Her childhood was spent in Taif, where she reportedly painted on doors from a young age.[2] Her father was a calligrapher and her mother embroidered.[3]

Education

Alem graduated with a BA in Art and English Literature from King Abdulaziz University. [4]

Career
G-GBTA B737-436 British Airways - Youm al-Suq artwork

Since 1985 Alem's work has been exhibited nationally in Saudia Arabia and internationally.[1] Some works are a commentary of the lives of women in Saudi Arabia, using form to demonstrate the anxiety that women may live under.[5] Alem has been sponsored by the Almansouria Foundation and some of her work is now in its collection.[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, Saudia Arabia entered the Venice Biennale for the first time with Alem as the country's representative, in collaboration with her twin sister, the writer, Raja'a Alem.[14][15][16] Their 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.[3]

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.[3]

She lives and works between Paris and Jeddah.[23]

Women and art in Saudi Arabia

In 2011, both Alem and her sister were featured in Vogue Italia, discussing their work and the role of women in Saudi Arabia.[24] While Alem tackles gender issues through her work, her sister sees her writing as genderless.[25] In Alem's work Negative No More, the pre-and-misconceptions of Saudi women are commented on.[26] 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.[27]

References
  1. "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  2. "Shadia Alem. Greenbox Dictionary of Saudi Arabian Artists". www.greenboxmuseum.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  3. "Collecting special: Pilgrims' progress". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  4. "Shadia Alem". ATHART. Retrieved 2020-04-02.
  5. Bates, Linda. (1998). Transitions : an interactive reading, writing, and grammar text (2nd ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 244. ISBN 0-521-65782-2. OCLC 42457877.
  6. "Shadia Alem | Almansouria". almansouria.org. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  7. "Youm al-Suq - Shadia Alem". 2019-01-31. Archived from the original on 2019-01-31. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  8. Saudi Arabia: The Monthly Newsletter of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. Information Office, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. 1998.
  9. "Review: Shadia Alem – Albareh gallery : Gulf Weekly Online". www.gulfweekly.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  10. "Shadia Alem. Languages of the Desert". universes.art. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  11. "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  12. "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  13. "Edge Of Arabia - Contemporary art and creative movements from the Arab World". edgeofarabia.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  14. Cumming, Laura (2011-06-04). "The 54th Venice biennale – review". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  15. Magazine, Wallpaper* (2011-06-07). "Venice Art Biennale 2011". Wallpaper*. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  16. Bharadwaj, Vinita (2012-01-18). "Contemporary Artists Rock the Boat Gently in Saudi Arabia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  17. Dazed (2011-06-08). "Venice Biennale 2011: Saudi Arabia's The Black Arch". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  18. Smith, Sylvia (2011-09-07). "Arab art at Venice Biennale". BBC News. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  19. Slabbert, Barend; Jordaan, June (2016). "Sustainable ARTiculation: Adapting significant interiors to contemporary art galleries". International Education for Sustainable Development Alliance - Conference Proposal.
  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. Butt, Riazat (2011-07-19). "British Museum to stage exhibition dedicated to hajj pilgrimage". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  22. "Museum to stage Hajj exhibition". BBC News. 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  23. "Shadia Alem | Biography | Athr Gallery". www.athrart.com. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  24. "Shadia and Raja Alem - Vogue.it". www.vogue.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2020-03-26.
  25. Demerdash, Nancy (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. doi:10.1080/21534764.2017.1352162. ISSN 2153-4764. S2CID 148690561.
  26. Kattan, Lina M. (2015). The conflicted living beings: The performative aspect of female bodies' representations in Saudi painting and photography (PhD thesis).
  27. 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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