عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Culture

Art of the Kingdom Exhibition Highlights Saudi Contemporary Art on Global Stage

Art of the Kingdom Exhibition Highlights Saudi Contemporary Art on Global Stage
TT
TT

Art of the Kingdom Exhibition Highlights Saudi Contemporary Art on Global Stage

Art of the Kingdom Exhibition Highlights Saudi Contemporary Art on Global Stage

Saudi Arabia’s Museums Commission announced plans to launch a landmark exhibition on the art of the Kingdom, to bring Saudi contemporary art to the global stage, reported the Saudi Press Agency on Monday.

The exhibition will tour several countries, introducing international audiences to the vibrant art scene in Saudi Arabia and showcasing the Kingdom's most prominent contemporary artistic endeavors.

The exhibition is set to debut in Brazil in November, to coincide with the G20 Summit. This will ensure that Saudi art is showcased to a global audience during one of the world's most significant international events.

Following its inauguration in Brazil, the exhibition will return to Riyadh, where it will be hosted at the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art, in the Jax district, in early 2025. The exhibition will then travel to Beijing, where it will be presented at the National Museum of China toward the end of 2025.

The exhibition's inaugural edition in Brazil will feature works by some 15 Saudi artists representing diverse genres and generations. The artists will showcase installations, sculptures, oil paintings, and drawings, reflecting the richness and diversity of Saudi Arabia's contemporary art scene.

By organizing the exhibition, the Museums Commission aims to empower and promote Saudi artists by providing them with an international platform to display their creativity.

The initiative also seeks to elevate the Kingdom's cultural profile on the world stage, and highlight its growing influence in the global arts and culture arena.

Most Viewed

 
 
Culture

Morocco's Tribeswomen See Facial Tattoo Tradition Fade

Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse
Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse
TT
TT

Morocco's Tribeswomen See Facial Tattoo Tradition Fade

Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse
Amazigh women pose for a picture in the village of Imilchil in central Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains on September on August 19, 2024. Agence France-Presse

As a young girl growing up in the Atlas mountains, Hannou Mouloud's family took her to have her chin tattooed with the cherished lines that generations of Moroccan Amazigh tribeswomen wore.
"When I was six, they told me tattoos were pretty adornments," recalled the 67-year-old from Imilchil village of the once-common practice among women in North Africa's Amazigh groups, AFP reported.
Long referred to as Berbers, many tribespeople from the area prefer to be called Amazigh, or Imazighen, which means "free people".
Today, like in many of the Indigenous cultures across the world where facial tattoos were long prevalent, the practice has largely faded.
Many attribute the near-disappearance of facial tattoos to Morocco's changing religious attitudes in recent decades, with interpretations of Islam where inked skin and other body modifications like piercings are prohibited taking hold.
"We would use charcoal to draw the designs on our faces, then a woman would prick the drawing with a needle until blood came out," Mouloud told AFP, adding that they would rub the wound daily with a chewed green herb to deepen the tattoo's color.
The markings vary in design between the minority's tribes and were used to signify the wearer's origin while offering beauty and protection.
Being tattooed would hurt, said Hannou Ait Mjane, 71, and "we couldn't hold back our tears" but it "remains a tradition that our ancestors passed down to us".
Fundamentalism
Morocco has the largest Amazigh population in North Africa, with Tamazight, the community's language, recognised as an official language alongside Arabic.
According to the most recent census in 2014, more than a quarter of Morocco's 35 million inhabitants speak at least one dialect -- Tarifit, Tamazight or Tachelhit.
Abdelouahed Finigue, a geography teacher and researcher from Imilchil, told AFP that women often had their chins, foreheads or hands tattooed.
The designs held different meanings to the different communities.
"The woman, through her tattoos, expresses her beauty and her value as an individual independent of the man," he said, explaining what the different shapes can mean.
"The circle, for example, represents the universe and beauty, just like the moon and the sun which occupied an important place in local rites," he said.
But changing religious trends means fewer women are getting inked.
Bassou Oujabbour, member of local development association AKHIAM, said women with the markings have faced social pressure.
"Fundamentalists sometimes describe tattooing as the devil's book or as the first thing to be burned on the human body," he said.
"Some women even removed the tattoos long after getting them for fear of punishment after death."