Barakat Contemporary to introduce leading artists at Art Dubai

Seoul-based gallery Barakat Contemporary will participate in Art Dubai 2023 next month, showing leading artists the gallery represents from home and abroad.

The five-day event in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which launches on March 1, will display works of art from more than 400 artists in 40 countries across four sections: Contemporary, Modern, Bawwaba -- meaning "gateway" in Arabic -- and Digital. It is open to the public from March 3 to 5.

Among the 72 galleries participating in the contemporary art section, Barakat Contemporary will present works by four artists: Kim Yun-chul from South Korea, Ali Cherri from Lebanon, Turkish-born and Germany-based Nevin Aladag and Briton Shezad Dawood.

Some of the highlights on display include Cherri’s assemblage sculptures that are made from fragments of artifacts and Kim’s ever-so-slightly moving kinetic living sculpture.

Kim, the sole artist presented at the Korean Pavilion at last year's Venice Biennale, shows the possibility of creating a different kind of reality beyond the realm of human experience, based on his exploration of the essence of materials as the foundation of all things. Kim integrates science, technology, music and philosophy into his art.

Having moved to Germany at a young age, Aladag looks at everything from everyday objects to architectural styles and urban landscapes as material for her work, exploring the possibilities of sound as she experiments with various media, including installation, sculpture, video and performance.

Dawood, meanwhile, works across the disciplines of painting, film, sculpture, performance, virtual reality and other digital media to ask key questions of narrative, history and embodiment, interweaving stories, realities and symbolism to create richly layered artworks.

Based between Paris and Beirut, Cherri has worked on projects that have led him to explore a 5,000-year-old necropolis in Sharjah’s desert and reconstruct a Syrian astronaut’s historic journey to space in 1987. Regardless of the subject, Cherri's constant theme is how to bring about social change.

Art Dubai operates in collaboration with other cultural institutions in the UAE, such as the Jameel Arts Center, Ishara Art Foundation, Sharjah Art Foundation, Louvre Abu Dhabi and Maraya Art Center. Barakat Contemporary is among 16 first-time exhibitors at this year's prominent art fair in the Middle East.

By Park Yuna (yunapark@heraldcorp.com)