Postlude Volume 1: The Post Oriental Odyssey

The Post Oriental Odyssey is an unprecedented GCC-based artists group exhibition. A selection of GCC born artists will explore the influence of cultural identity inMiddle Eastern contemporary art in an attempt to elucidate what remains an enigmatic movement.

The show features emerging artists from Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar and will showcase various installations, works on canvas, new media, photography and performance art.

For this series, curated by Mohamed Reda, the artists have researched the effect of “Orientalization”, the re-orienting, and the neo-orientalizing framework that dictates the movement of the Middle Eastern art scene. Whether or not such an effect is a direct or indirect influence on the production and reproduction of their works, ideas, and identities as artists, will be studied in the identification of post-colonialism, the legacy of the orient and the commercial art market’s penchant for oriental exoticism.

This show will identify where the space for experimentation and dialogue is when it comes to the artists’ need to revolt against a mainstream in order to secure an authentic artistic signature and whether or not the local art space can become the real playground for experimentation, dialogue and critical discourse, free of any prerequisites. Artists will explore the internalized identification of postcolonialism and the established image of the oriental legacy, the commercial art market favoring the exotic and how occidental development works as an influence.