Art Dubai 2024

Wednesday, 28 February – Sunday, 3. March 2024

Madinat Jumeirah Conference & Events Centre
Johara Hall – Stand E 4

Our fair presentation is dedicated to the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and his main work The Critique of Pure Reason in particular to the chapter about “Transcendental Aesthetics” written in 1781. In it, he describes that all phenomena, which appear to us as reality, are in fact subjective and not objective, as we may be tempted to think. And this is also the appeal and fascination of visual art.

Kant explains: “Our intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena.” and further “Objects as phenomena cannot exist in themselves, but only in us.” as well as “We know nothing more than our mode of perception, which is peculiar to us.”

The shortest way to sum up the Critique of Pure Reason of the philosopher Immanuel Kant is “I feel – I think”, not incidentally the title of an artwork by Lore Bert.

We want to attract the fair visitors to our booth by means of the visual appearance of the artworks presented. If the visitors decide to enter the booth, they are invited to also enter into a more profound dialogue with the concepts employed by the renowned international artists we present.

Lore Bert caters to the visitors hearts and senses by the beauty inherent in her works, but she also appeals to their intellect by means of the works’ relation to history, science and geometrical forms employed. Lore Bert is a master of paper art. She works with her preferred material in many different ways. She creates relief objects from thousands of small ›crumpled‹ squares of Japanese paper, gouaches in soft, earthly colours, colourful collages or cotton wool-filled banner works made from papier cushions. Her presentation in our booth on next years Art Dubai will focus on her beautiful works with Arab ornaments, an important element in her vocabulary of forms for a long time.

Mohammed Kazem – who needs no introduction anymore – is a well-known conceptual artists from the United Arab Emirates, who is also represented in a extensive solo exhibition in the world famous Ludwigmuseum im Deutschherrenhaus in Koblenz, Germany this year. Kazems works, which cover a broad spectrum from painterly execution to sculptures and installations, often deals with positions and locations. Where things and places are – in absolute as well as in relation to each other – are questions which preoccupy the artist. Mohammed Kazem will contribute some of his most recent Coordinate works to our presentation at Art Dubai 2024.

Joseph Kosuth – who is rightfully called the pioneer of American conceptual art – values the artistic idea over the physical realization of artworks. He devoted himself intensively to the study of Philosophy and uses language as an artistic tool. Similar to Minimal Art, he reduces the artistic intervention and replaces visual representation with language. In our booth, he will present one of his legendary Quoted Clocks To create them, he starts with a simple wall clock and emblazons it with a quote of his choice. The exemplar to be shown was created by him exclusively for the show In the Change of Time in La Galleria in Venice in 2022.

The South Korean artist Nam Tchun-Mo is attributed to the Dansaekhwa art movement in his country. Dansaekhwa works are radically abstract as well as monochrome in colour. This makes them comparable to the European ZERO movement. Formally, Nam Tchun-Mo’s works are largely reduced to the basic element of the drawn line.

The German painter Raimund Girke is a kind soul to Nam Tchun-Mo, as he pursues similar goals but in the medium of painting. He, too, creates monochrome works – White in Girke’s case – which are completely abstract formally, focusing on the colour exclusively. In search of order, he analyzed color layering, color movement, and structure, letting his painting result entirely from technique and process. Girke had emphasized that it was not the liberated gesture but the disciplined rigor and the objective statement that interested him. “White is emptiness, immateriality, calm and silence”, the artist had written about his painting once.

The Italian ZERO artist Turi Simeti – who worked with the famous ZERO avant-gardist Lucio Fontana – is also known for his monochrome works with minimalist and clear forms. Simeti chose the oval to be his shape of choice, adorning his canvas works with it. Furthermore, even though painterly in nature, those works are reliefs actually, raising from the canvas into the third dimension. We will present a beautiful red canvas as well a noble bronze sculpture of the Sicilian.

As was outlined above, all of our artist are related to the ideas and ideals of ZERO in one way or the other – either directly or intellectually. Those ideas were developed in the wake of World War 2, but regarding the times we live in, they are as releveant as they have been in a long time. Key words of ZERO art are “Purity”, “Beauty”, “Silence” and “Peace”. Those virtues are what we bring to the UAE with our fair presentation.