As part of the activities of World Cup 2002 in Japan and Korea, famous Saudi artists will take part in the Babel 2002 exhibition at the National Museum of Contemporary Art-Korea, which starts on June 5.
Speaking on the occasion, Princess Jawahar Bint Majed Bin Abdulaziz, Chairman of The Al-Mansouria Foundation for Culture and Creativity, the Kingdom’s leading foundation for the promotion and support of the Saudi art and culture globally, said: “It is a great opportunity to display the outstanding art of Saudi artists. Participating Saudi artists will get the opportunity to showcase their works and a chance to export real Saudi art abroad and create dialogue, exchange views and deepen understanding.”
The Babel 2002 Exhibition will have two titles: “Race-Face,” where The Al-Mansouria Foundation will present “Jinniyat Lar,” the work of Shadia and Raja Alem, and in the language-dialogue category, Al-Mansouria will enter the work “Dialetique” by Mahdi Al-Jeraibi.
The works of 32 international artists are from the 32 nations that will participate in the FIFA 2002 World Cup. They will focus on the subject matter of human faces, letters and language. The project “Race-Face” will show works that demonstrate artists’ impressions of people of nations other than their own. On one hand the viewer will see individual and diverse appearances of himself, and on the other would be convinced of homogeniety of mankind.
The “Language-Dialogue” project will feature the works of artists who are concerned with the concept of communication. The artworks that reveal both the homogeneous and heterogeneous nature of letters and language will be evidence that visual arts can function as another communication channel, and one that transcends linguistic limitations.
According to officials of Al-Mansouria, Babel 2002 attempts to examine artistic responses to humanistic ideology that FIFA 2002 World Cup advocates in the celebration of an event where the whole world acts in concert. Entering the threshold of the 21st century, the many nations in the world should be reborn as one “Global Village” while transcending their differences of race, ethnic background and language. It is obvious that the process of globalization intends not to opress individualities but to respect the uniqueness and difference of individual entities.
Babel 2002 aims to attest to the fact that differences among various races and language can be reconciled with one another and co-exist within the realm of contemporary art. This exhibition will indeed function as a “World Cup” of arts.
