Dakar
Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.94 million in ...
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the no ...
i citizenship, who is currently based in Berlin. Her work employs various media, including video,
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
s,
installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often calle ...
and
performances
A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Management science
In the work place ...
. She's had several solo exhibitions, for instance in
Haus der Kunst
The ''Haus der Kunst'' (, ''House of Art'') is a non-collecting modern and contemporary art museum in Munich, Germany. It is located at Prinzregentenstraße 1 at the southern edge of the Englischer Garten, Munich's largest park.
History
N ...
in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
and
Sursock Museum
The Sursock Museum ( ar, قصر سرسق), which is officially known as the Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum, is a modern art and contemporary art museum in Beirut, Lebanon.
History
In 1912, the wealthy and prominent Lebanese aristocrat Nicolas I ...
in
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
. Her works have also been part of group exhibitions in internationally renowned museums, including the Musem of Modern Art in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
and
Palais de Tokyo
The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern win ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
. Recurring themes in Al Qadiri's work are
petrostate
A petrostate or oil state is a nation whose economy is heavily dependent on the extraction and export of oil or natural gas. The presence alone of large oil and gas industries does not define a petrostate; countries like Norway, Canada, and the ...
s and
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...
.
Biography
Al Qadiri was born in Senegal, where her father was a diplomat. Her mother,
Thuraya Al-Baqsami
Thuraya Al-Baqsami (born 1952) is a Kuwaiti artist and writer.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baqsami, Thuraya
1952 births
Living people
Kuwaiti women artists
Kuwaiti contemporary artists
Kuwaiti writers ...
worked as an artist, and her older sister,
Fatima Al Qadiri
Fatima Al Qadiri ( ar, فاطمة القديري; born July 1981) is a Senegalese-born Kuwaiti musician and conceptual artist.
Biography
Fatima Al Qadiri is the daughter of Mohammed Al Qadiri, a former Kuwaiti diplomat and writer, and Thuraya ...
, would later become an artist and musician. In 1985, the family moved back to Kuwait, where they lived through the 1991
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
. Al Qadiri moved to Japan at age 16, where she studied for ten years. In 2010, she obtained her PhD in Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts, with a dissertation called 'The Aesthetics of Sadness in the Middle East'.
Career
In 2013 Al Qadiri founded the Gulf art collective GCC, together with her sister,
Fatima Al Qadiri
Fatima Al Qadiri ( ar, فاطمة القديري; born July 1981) is a Senegalese-born Kuwaiti musician and conceptual artist.
Biography
Fatima Al Qadiri is the daughter of Mohammed Al Qadiri, a former Kuwaiti diplomat and writer, and Thuraya ...
Khalid Al Gharaballi
Khalid (variants include Khaled and Kalid; Arabic: خالد) is a popular Arabic male given name meaning "eternal, everlasting, immortal", and it also appears as a surname.Sophia Al Maria
Sophia Al Maria (صافية المرية) (born 1983) is a Qatari-American artist, writer, and filmmaker. Her work has been exhibited at the Gwangju Biennale, the New Museum in New York, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture i ...
,
Aziz Al Qatami
Aziz ( ar, عزيز, , is an Arabic male name. The feminine form of both the adjective and the given name is Aziza.
''Aziz'' in Arabic is derived from the root ''ʕ-z-z'' with a meaning of "strong, powerful" and the adjective has acquired its m ...
,
Barrak Alzaid Barrak (Arabic: برّاك) or Al-Barrak (Arabic: البرّاك) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak (born c. 1933), senior Saudi cleric
*Abdulrahman bin Abdullah Al Barrak (born 1956), Saudi academic
*Mu ...
, and Amal Khalaf. GCC is a reference to the English abbreviation of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an economic and political consortium of Arabian Gulf nations. In 2016 she started a residency at the
Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten
The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts) was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam. It is a classical academy, a place where philosophers, academics and artists meet to test and exchange ideas and knowledge. The school supports ...
in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
Haus der Kunst
The ''Haus der Kunst'' (, ''House of Art'') is a non-collecting modern and contemporary art museum in Munich, Germany. It is located at Prinzregentenstraße 1 at the southern edge of the Englischer Garten, Munich's largest park.
History
N ...
in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
,
Kunstverein Göttingen Kunstverein may refer to:
Germany
* , an art association, founded in 1986 in Aachen
* Kunstverein Arnsberg, an association for contemporary art in Arnsberg
* , an art association in Karlsruhe
* , an art society which operates the Kunsthalle Bremen ...
, Gasworks in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
Palais de Tokyo
The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern win ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
and
MoMA PS1
MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution located in Court Square in the Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, New York City. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the ...
Van Abbemuseum
The Van Abbemuseum () is a museum of modern and contemporary art in central Eindhoven, Netherlands, on the east bank of the Dommel River. Established in 1936, the museum is named after its founder, Henri van Abbe, who loved modern art and wante ...
in
Eindhoven
Eindhoven () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of North Brabant of which it is its largest. With a population of 238,326 on 1 January 2022,Jameel Arts Centre in
Dubai
Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics ...
have works of Al Qadiri in their permanent collection.
Recurring themes
Petrostates
Pearl
A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium ca ...
s and
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...
are recurring motifs in Al Qadiri's work. Her grandfather was a singer on a pearl diving boat, which was Kuwaits main industry before the country became a
petrostate
A petrostate or oil state is a nation whose economy is heavily dependent on the extraction and export of oil or natural gas. The presence alone of large oil and gas industries does not define a petrostate; countries like Norway, Canada, and the ...
. With her work, Al Qadiri tries to preserve collective memories in the risk of disappearing. In several works, Al Qadiri connects pearls to oil, as they both have the same
iridescent
Iridescence (also known as goniochromism) is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. Examples of iridescence include soap bubbles, feathers, butterfl ...
colour. The work ''Spectrum I'' is an example of this. Another example of the petrostate motif is the sculpture ''Empire Dye'' (2018). It shows a sea shell of the Murex snail in bright violet colour, and substantially enlarged in size. The colour refers to the colour of the alarm at oil rigs that flashes when it is about to explode. Al Qadiris sculpture acts as a warning signal for the current climate crisis.
Gender identity
Another recurring theme is
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...
. In several of her performances, Al Qadiri can be found cross-dressing. She states that it acts as 'a vehicle for transformation and chameleon-ism'. An example is her performance ''Abu Athiyya (Father of Pain),'' in which Al Qadiri portrays the southern Iraqi singer Yas Khodhor. Her fascination for drag can be traced back to her youth in Kuwait, where women are housebound for safety reasons. She started to link being male to being powerful, and wanted to become like them. In her teen years, she would often have a buzz cut and wear fake moustaches. While she does not do drag anymore, her works are still filled with it. Also, a lot of her video art is narrated by deep male voices, for instance ''Behind the Sun'' (2013) and ''Rumours of Affluence'' (2012).