IBA Stage: 15th Sharjah Biennial – Hoor Al Qasimi

Hoor Al Qasimi, President of Sharjah Art Foundation and International Biennial Association. Photography by Sebastian Böettcher

IBA Stage: 15th Sharjah Biennial
March 8th, 2023 (Wednesday)
3:30pm (Sharjah/GMT+4)

It is a great honor to have our President Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation and curator of Sharjah Biennial 15 as guest for our first IBA Stage in front of a live audience. The passion shown by Hoor Al Qasimi in leading IBA since her election to the presidency of the association in 2017 and her great experience gathered in twenty years of leadership of the Sharjah Biennial will make this a very special occasion. It will give us a great occasion to discuss her vision in developing Sharjah Biennial 15: “Thinking Historically in the Present”, her collaboration with the late Okwui Enwezor , as well as reflecting on the importance of this institution locally, regionally and globally.

Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, is a curator who established the Foundation in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts, not only in Sharjah, UAE, but also in the region and around the world. With a passion for supporting experimentation and innovation in the arts, Al Qasimi has continuously expanded the scope of the Foundation to include major international touring exhibitions; artist and curator residencies in visual art, film and music; commissions and production grants for emerging artists; publications and publication grants; performance and film festivals; architectural research and restoration; and a wide range of educational programming in Sharjah for all age groups.

In 2003, Al Qasimi co-curated Sharjah Biennial 6 and has remained Biennial Director ever since. She is currently curating the upcoming Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023). Under her leadership, Sharjah Biennial has become an internationally recognised platform for contemporary artists, curators and cultural producers. Her leadership in the field led to her election as President of the International Biennial Association (IBA) in 2017, an appointment that transferred IBA’s headquarters to Sharjah. In addition to her role at the Foundation, Al Qasimi also serves as the President of The Africa Institute and President and Director of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, which inaugurated its first edition in November 2019.

Since its establishment in 2009, Al Qasimi has curated major solo exhibitions at Sharjah Art Foundation, including CAMP: Passages through Passages (2022); Khalil Rabah: What is not (2022); Tarek Atoui: Cycles in 11 (2020–2021); Zarina Bhimji: Black Pocket (2020–2021); Amal Kenawy: Frozen Memory (2018–2019); the major retrospective Hassan Sharif: I Am The Single Work Artist (2017–2018), which travelled to KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2020), Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2020–2021) and the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Saint-Étienne, France (2021); Yayoi Kusama: Dot Obsessions (2016–2017); and Robert Breer: Time Flies (2016–2017). Other notable projects at the Foundation include 1980–Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates, originally curated for the UAE Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), and the solo exhibitions Simone Fattal (2016), Farideh Lashai (2016), Rasheed Araeen: Before and After Minimalism (2014) and Susan Hefuna: Another Place (2014). Among her co-curated exhibitions in Sharjah are The Otolith Group: Xenogenesis (2021–2022) and The Khartoum School: The Making of the Modern Art Movement in Sudan (1945–Present) (2016–2017).

In 2020, Al Qasimi curated the second Lahore Biennale. International exhibitions she has co-curated include Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: States of Oneness at Serpentine Gallery, London (2022–2023), which built upon a previous exhibition of Ishag’s work she co-curated for Sharjah Art Foundation (2016–2017) that traveled to Prince Claus Fund Gallery, Amsterdam (2019–2020); Bani Abidi: The Man Who Talked Until He Disappeared at MCA Chicago (2021–2022), which followed Bani Abidi: Funland at Sharjah Art Foundation (2019); the landmark exhibition Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige: Two Suns in a Sunset (2016), which debuted in Sharjah and traveled to Jeu de Paume, Paris; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and IVAM, Valencia; and When Art Becomes Liberty: The Egyptian Surrealists (1938–1965), Palace of Arts, Cairo (2016), and MMCA, Korea (2017).

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This very special event is made possible through the partnership of Sharjah Art Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art and IBA in occasion of March Meeting 23 which will take place in Sharjah between Tuesday 7th and Saturday 11th of March 2023.