Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art hosts third Bienalsur exhibition in Diriyah

RIYADH: The Saudi Ministry of Culture and the National University of Tres de Febrero in Argentina are staging the Bienalsur contemporary art exhibition in Diriyah.

In its third season, the traveling Bienalsur, the International Contemporary Art Biennial of South America, is being held in the temporary hall of the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art in Jax, Diriyah, and will run until Dec. 31.

The exhibition, titled “Imagine: Fantasia, Dreams, Utopia,” offers imaginative creations by 26 renowned Saudi and foreign artists.

The artwork in the exhibition aims to alter how the viewer perceives space to reveal fresh or unexpected details that illuminate imagination and creativity.

Through the artworks on display, visitors can view the surroundings through a fusion of creativity and fantasy, taking them on an alternating voyage between reality and imagination.

The oldest palm tree in Saudi Arabia, a giant desert rose, and a display of other plants and archeology gathered from throughout the Kingdom, were on show at the exhibition, in which King Saud University Museum highlighted its expertise in flora and archeology.

One of the displays was the Biosphere Project, which has a mission to raise awareness about the fragility of the Earth and the need to take care of it.

The Earth is represented by an ecosystem made up of plants and other creatures contained in tightly sealed spheres producing their own food and releasing oxygen into the medium used by other creatures. This creates a symbiotic relationship in which the survival of each organism depends on the other.

One of the viewers of the exhibition, Shahad Alghamdi, who was visiting for the second time, thinks that it is important to have such art displays in Saudi Arabia and have generations growing up watching it.

“As a 25-year-old, I find great pleasure in entering art exhibitions such as this one, as they inspire me to think beyond my usual boundaries and explore other worlds. This is my second visit to the show, and I’m thrilled to see Saudi art among the other international pieces,” Alghamdi said.

In 2019, Saudi Arabia made history as the first Middle Eastern country to host the exhibition at the National Museum in Riyadh.

In 2021, Bienalsur returned to Saudi Arabia with installations at Jax District in Riyadh and Khuzam Palace in Jeddah, welcoming more than 20 artists from five continents, including five artists from Saudi Arabia.