Diriyah Biennale Reveals Artists for Third Edition

Diriyah Biennale Reveals Artists for Third Edition

The Diriyah Biennale Foundation has named the more than sixty-five artists set to participate in the third iteration of theDiriyah Contemporary Art Biennale. Titled “In Interludes and Transitions (في الحِلّ والترحال),” the exhibition will open January 30 in the JAX District, an industrial site turned arts complex in the historic town of Diriyah, near the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The event is being curated by artistic directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed and will feature over twenty new commissions.

At thetime of their appointment, Razian, deputy director and head of exhibitions and programs at Art Jameel in Dubai and Jeddah, and Ahmed, projects director of Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, voiced a desire to “explore how locally rooted histories and knowledges have transmitted and transformed through time.” The pair said that the Biennale would “serve as a platform for a multitude of artistic interventions, archives, and participatory models that offer dynamic ways to imagine and enact a world otherwise.”

Participants include historic international artists such as Filipino painter Pacita Abad (1946–2004) and Lebanese American poet and painter Etel Adnan (1925–2021); noted Palestinian American abstract painter Samia Halaby; and midcareer artists like Diné composer Raven Chacon, South African installation artist Dineo Seshee Bopape (Raisibe), Colombian American interdisciplinary artist Gala Porras-Kim, and Kosovar installation artist Petrit Halilaj. Among the artists in the emerging cohort are Saudi painter Lulua Alyahya, Singapore-based filmmaker Ho Rui N, and the Saudi publishing initiative Kayfa ta.

A full list of participating artists is below.

Pacita Abad

Pio Abad

Rand Abdul Jabbar

Abdullah Miniawy Trio

Etel Adnan

Yussef Agbo-Ola [Olaniyi Studio]

Leen Ajlan

Ahaad Alamoudi

Elyas Alavi

Afra Al Dhaheri

Shadia Alem

Mohammad Al-Ghamdi

Mohammed Alhamdan (7amdan)

Nouf Al-Harthi

Ramy Alqthami

Abdullah Al Saadi

Ruba Al-Sweel

Lulua Alyahya

Ismaïl Bahri

Taysir Batniji

Dineo Seshee Bopape (Raisibe)

Raven Chacon

Ayman Yousry Daydban,

Nolan Oswald Dennis

Rohini Devasher

Merve Ertufan

Ivana Franke

Rahima Gambo

Eric Gyamfi

Samia Halaby

Petrit Halilaj

Hazem Harb

Aziz Hazara

Ho Rui An

Alana Hunt

Kamala Ibrahim Ishag

Amaka Jaji

Kayfa ta

Yazan Khalili

Moshekwa Langa

Daniel Lind-Ramos

George Mahashe

Guadalupe Maravilla

Yu Ji

Théo Mercier

Nour Mobarak

Mochu

Nancy Mounir

Hussein Nassereddine

Daniel Otero Torres

Thao Nguyen Phan

Gala Porras-Kim 

Sarker Protick

Abdelkarim Qassem

Raqs Media Collective

K.P. Reji

Faisal Samra

Oscar Santillán

Amina Saoudi Aït Khay

Bogosi Sekhukhuni

Karan Shrestha

Elias Sime

Trương Công Tùng

Rajesh Chaitya Vangad

Wolff Architects

Agustina Woodgate

Müge Yılmaz

Yu Ji