Shaikha Al Mazrou in conversation with Asmaa Al-Shabibi
Author
Asmaa Al-Shabibi
Published
12 September 2022
The Plinth, 2021, Carrara marble, steel, 196 x 267 x 269 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi. Commissioned by Expo 2020 Dubai. Expo 2020 Dubai Collection
It’s been quite a busy year for you since your commission at Expo2020. You’ve had two public commissions in Al-Ulla, Saudi and a commission at Frieze Sculpture [coming soon/recently installed]. What was your first public artwork?
My first public work was for AFAC in Dubai, 2015, curated by Amanda Abi Khalil.
Your sculpture at Frieze is 4m high and [150cm] wide. When you started your career as an artist did you envisage you would work on such a large scale?
My work responds to the site, specifically for a public sculpture. I don’t think it’s about the dimension but rather a response to the landscape.
Other than scale, how is the process of planning a public art commission different to producing works for a gallery exhibition?
It’s so different, when making public art, there is a conscious effort to engage and collaborate in a public realm. The public art field consists of meaningful partnerships and relationships that might not be present in the final experience of the work. As an artist creating large public sculptures, I would like to highlight the fruitful collaborations while working with artisans from around the world.
We met in London at your Grad Show at Chelsea College of Fine Art in 2014. Frieze Sculpture is the first time you show in London after that. How have you evolved as an artist since then?
It is important for me to question my practice, reflect on past experiences and allow self critique to take its course. I find myself going back and forth between wanting to be either abundantly simple and annoyingly complex.
After your breakout show Expansion/Extension at Lawrie Shabibi in 2018 your sculpture metal works became your signature. When did you start the metalworks?
It’s a long process. I’m quite curious by nature to understand the maximum possibility of a medium I’m working with be it metal, resin, ceramics etc. I started working with metal work during my postgrad, transforming solid medium to liquid and vice versa such as casting and pouring metal.
Notwithstanding your metal works, the use of material in your practice is quite diverse: marble, metal, resin and wood. What excites you about using different materials?
Everything excites me about the materiality of a chosen medium, its history, its formula, its possibilities, its transformation, and nonetheless its capability to withhold and translate a concept.
Your next show solo show at the gallery is in November 2022. Are you experimenting with new materials?
Yes absolutely, I usually like to expand the material vocabulary in my work while maintaining a consistent understanding of the current medium.
I recall a conversation where we spoke about Rothko’s colour combinations and how you used them to reference some of your own colour choices. Your work in The Dubai Collection is reminiscent of Frank Stella’s 1960’s paintings. What draws you to artists from the 20th Century? What other artists inspire your choice of pattern and colour?
I am genuinely interested in art history and so I look at past art movements and how they can be reinterpreted today. My work borrows formally from minimalism arising from the ongoing discourse around materiality.
Your pieces (and sometimes even their titles) evoke rhythm and melody– I wonder what kind of music you listen to when you work?
My playlist is very eclectic
You have never stopped working in academia and are now visiting assistant professor at New York University, Abu Dhabi. What impact does teaching have on your own art?
I really enjoy teaching and giving back and contributing to the further development of art education in my country. Today, being an assistant professor at New York University Abu Dhabi is not a one-way process, but a reciprocal experience: I myself can learn a lot while instructing.
David Hockney once said “You might choose a medium because of a certain subject or do the same subject in a different medium and see how different they are. Limitations are really good for you”. What limitations have inspired your works?
A consistent self-destabilization of the familiar in order to feel the excitement of the unknown. I am interested in the veneer of my work, a bad copy of a mass-produced object, and its badness, the failure to be a perfect mass-produced object makes it strange, uncanny, and uncomfortable.
Which museum do you like to get lost in?
To start with the idea of getting lost in a museum is not a romantic idea for me if anything I would like to discover myself surrounded by artworks.
What is your desire for the artistic community in Dubai? Can you lead it?
I have always wanted to set up an Art Academy, I have been proposing the academy to multiple institutions since 2018.
Artwork Deep Dive: Naziha Selim 'The Warmth of Tea and a Mother's Embrace'
In this untitled work from 1996, Naziha Selim (1927-2008) paints a vibrant scene that features four Iraqi women in an intimate gathering. Seated around a table, they are veiled, dressed in bright colourful clothes, and each draped in a dark abaya (a loose-fitting full-length robe), which suggests that they may not be in a private space. The protagonist of this painting is a reclining figure nursing her baby, her breast exposed. Her veil shields her from the view of the women who sit behind her, huddled closely.
