In November 2018, Dubai inaugurated the Jameel Arts Center, one of its first contemporary art institutions. Since then, this centre has regularly hosted projects and exhibitions. Yet Second Hand is the first group exhibition. It seeks to explore the materiality of the work of art through a series of sculptures, installations, assemblages, drawings, photographs, paintings, and performances. Eighteen artists and collectives, of which Adel Abdessemed, Diana Al-Hadid, Vikram Divecha, Keita Miyazaki, and Mario García Torres, are seeking to bring a fresh perspective on these issues. How so? By reversing the relationship between the material used to create an object and the resulting representation, through the prism of social, political, cultural and economic challenges. Raising hopes that each and every object may indeed have a real future; that from planned obsolescence they may find a second life in expert hands. In those of the artist ?

Installation view of “Second Hand,” 2019, at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai. MOHAMED SOMJI/COURTESY ART JAMEEL

Find all the articles from Impact Art News n°10 – July-August 2019