Beyond: Emerging Artists 2021 exhibition at Palazzo Franchetti in Venice, Italy coincides with the Biennale Arte 2022. For its first iteration in Italy, the 2021 Beyond: Emerging Artists is showcasing the commissioned artists Christopher Joshua Benton, Maitha Abdalla and Hashel Al Lamki, who were supported by guest curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, co-founders of multidisciplinary curatorial platform Art Reoriented.
The Beyond: Emerging Artists initiative invites local and international curators to work with UAE-based emerging artists of their choosing in a year-round programme, enabling and supporting the artists to hone their skills and develop their professional practice. Participating artists are provided with a budget and curatorial support to create ambitious new works that are exhibited through Abu Dhabi Art.
As this exhibition travels from Abu Dhabi to Venice, the artist’s works have been adapted to the space at Palazzo Franchetti.
Combining film, installation, and sculpture, Benton’s The World Was My Garden works with the palm tree as a metaphor for migration, labour economies and the history of slavery in the Gulf.
Abdalla’s Too Close to the Sun encompasses sculpture, works on canvas and photography covering intertwining themes including the wildness of human nature, the archetype of the feminine psyche, and the untamable character of wild animals.
Al Lamki charters various realms from the natural to the built and the imagined in order to foreground the scarcity of the earth’s resources and the way that these events impact the human psyche.
Beyond: Emerging Artists is on show at Venice’s Palazzo Franchetti until 22 May 2022.
Info is extracted from the press release.