Christie’s fine art and luxury auction house unveils highlights from the forthcoming mid-career retrospective of leading Saudi contemporary artist Ahmed Mater, taking place at Christie’s headquarters in London from 17 July – 22 August. Featuring more than 100 works spanning paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture, video, and installation from his artistic career to date, Ahmed Mater: Chronicles represents an odyssey into the artist’s visionary practice.
Curated by Dr Ridha Moumni, Chairman, Christie’s Middle East and Africa, the exhibition will highlight the major milestones of Mater’s career, from unseen early abstract paintings, to the celebrated Illumination series, as well as pivotal works from the Desert of Pharan project. The artist’s site-specific commission, for Wadi AlFann, AlUla, will take centre stage with sculptures and studies related to the Ashab Al-Lal project, alongside new works such as Magnetism Book, presented to the public for the first time.
The exhibition represents a unique moment to witness the transformations of the social and cultural landscapes of Saudi Arabia whilst reflecting on the region’s multifaceted identity. Through his practice, Mater documents and analyses these changes and imagines possible prognoses for a land of unprecedented religious, social, economic, and political influence, taking into consideration the psychological impact on the individual, the community, society, and the world.
Ahmed Mater: Chronicles, is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the artist to date, bringing together different stages of the artist’s career and revealing his unique path as a chronicler of his homeland’s materiality and spirituality.
Exhibition Highlights, selected by Dr Ridha Moumni, Curator and Chairman, Christie’s MENA, include:
(Illustrated above left on page 1), Magnetism Book, a new work from Ahmed Mater’s iconic ‘Magnetism’ series. Drawing inspiration from the Holy Qur’an and religious texts, Mater uses magnets and iron filings to symbolise the sacred verses, highlighting the spiritual forces that uphold human faith. Variations of the original Magnetism installation have been exhibited at prominent institutions worldwide including the British Museum, London; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha and Brooklyn Museum. (Illustrated above right on page 1), Boundary, takes the shape of a mihrab, the niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates qibla, the direction of prayer. Mater has mutated the mihrab into an airport security scanner, reflecting on surveillance and security operations that have become part of daily life for Muslims.
An extraordinary preview of Ahmed Mater’s site-specific installation commissioned by Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, AlUla, will be taking centre stage (illustrated below left), Ashab Al-Lal will explore the mythic space between subjective imagination and objective reality by generating a mirage within the desert landscape of AlUla, North-West Saudi Arabia. Mater is one of the first five artists commissioned to create site-specific land art installations for Wadi AlFann, which will start welcoming visitors in 2025. Exhibited alongside Ashab Al-Lal sculptures will be a group of Illuminations and studies related to the project, including Illuminations I (illustrated below right), which was previously exhibited at the House of Architectural Heritage, Bahrain, and at AlJadaidah, Arts District in AlUla.
(Illustrated below left), Talisman X-ray Blue (Torso) is part of the artist’s celebrated Illumination series, in which the artist fuses past and present and bridges subjects often conceived as irreconcilable: faith and science. Drawing inspiration from the Islamic arts of the book, Mater employs gold leaf, tea, pomegranate, coffee, and other materials traditionally used on the pages of Islamic manuscripts. Although typically a small and intimate art form, Mater expands the scale of his illuminated page and creates a different sense of intimacy by incorporating human X-rays.
(Illustrated below right) Lightening Land shows an enormous lightning bolt hitting the desert landscape with an oil field on the left and a Bedouin tent on the right. Through this erratic and unpredictable flash of force, the artist highlights the tensions of land caught between past and future, tradition and innovation, heritage and globalisation and considers their impact on both an individual and societal level.
Another iconic work featured in the exhibition is Evolution of Man (illustrated second row below). This comments on the rapid evolution of Saudi Arabia since its discovery of oil in 1938, which transformed the Kingdom’s economic, political, social, and religious landscape. The morphing of a gas pump into a man, gun to its head, reflects on a foreboding prognosis – that of the risks to the environment, social fabric, and ultimate threat of cycles of destruction.
Dr Ridha Moumni, Chairman, Christie’s Middle East & Africa comments, ‘It is an extraordinary privilege to present an odyssey into Ahmed Mater’s visionary practice, the first mid-career retrospective dedicated to one of the leading cultural voices of the Middle East. Mater’s captivating journey invites us to rethink urban and natural environments, unearth hidden histories, envision potential futures and ponder profound beliefs. His artistic responses to the swift transformations within Saudi Arabia’s complex social and cultural context invite us to discover fascinating narratives of an evolving land and reflect on its multifaceted identity.’
Ahmed Mater, remarks, ‘It is a great honour to present my artistic journey at Christie’s historic headquarters in London this summer. It is especially poignant for me to exhibit in London, almost 20 years after the first presentation of my work outside Saudi Arabia at the British Museum in 2005. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to reconnect with the city and its dynamic art community through this immersive and comprehensive exhibition of my practice. I have been witnessing Christie’s dedication over the years to promote art from the region and it is a distinction to be aligned in this respect, and build an educational and cross-cultural dialogue.’
Works on loan throughout the exhibition are courtesy of Ahmed Mater’s studio (Saudi Arabia); Wadi AlFann, Valley of the Arts, Royal Commission for AlUla (Saudi Arabia); Royal Commission for AlUla Contemporary Art Collection (Saudi Arabia); Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation, DAF (Lebanon); Barjeel Art Foundation (Sharjah, U.A.E.); Athr Gallery (Saudi Arabia) as well as from private collections.
Christie’s and Ahmed Mater would like to thank Wadi AlFann, AlUla for their contribution to this exhibition, along with our exhibition supporting partners Athr Foundation, Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), SUR Multi Family Office and The Tamer Family Foundation. Christie’s would also like to thank The Visual Arts Commission, Saudi Arabia for their support of the exhibition publication.
Press release from Christie’s
Image: Ahmed Mater. Lightning Land. 2017 © Ahmed Mater. Image courtesy of the artist
