The ADACH Platform for Visual Arts in Venice will be designed as a
meeting point for discourse and artistic production, and as a survey
and analysis of the conditions in which contemporary visual art is
emerging in Abu Dhabi / UAE today. It is an official collateral event
of the 53rd Venice Arts Biennale.

The ADACH Platform for Visual Arts in Venice is a project created
under the artistic direction of Catherine David.

A dynamic dispositive of presentations and exchanges will introduce,
through a visual narrative, the conditions in which contemporary
culture and visual art are emerging in Abu Dhabi / UAE today. These
conditions are mainly an amazing urban development framework, a
multi-ethnic and multi-national population inventing new lifestyles,
a reorganization of the region and its economical and geo-political
dynamics and exchanges with the world, and development process
engaged with an unprecedented phenomenon of time acceleration.

Through a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble of discourse, moving and
still images, architectural forms and artworks the audience will be
introduced to a less ingenuous and/or cynical vision through an
original body of archival and recent photography, as well as artworks
realized by photographers and artists from the region and abroad. The
dispositif articulates the deconstruction of the simplistic idea or
binary clichés (Futuristic dream and paradise or Late capital
nightmare) many people still have about the region and its recent
developments.

Within the framework of the dispositive, the presence of the
omnipresent billboard, its significance and visual impact within
urban space will be introduced and questioned. Further, the
Laboratory will point out the working process, the experimental space
and exchange of ideas and imagery, where a number of artistic
proposals may co-exist and combine to suggest a broader view on
contemporary art in the region. Beyond this, a temporary 'cultural
lounge' will focus on what could emerge from the UAE laboratory and
cultural hub. In this context the role of ADACH Platform for Visual
Arts would be to respond to new cultural needs and situations over
passing the museum project and context, and invent new relevant
models for the region by offering the conditions for research,
education and esthetic discourse to develop.

In a separate initiative, the United Arab Emirates will establish the
official UAE Pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale, making it the first
Gulf nation to participate in this pre-eminent cultural event. The UAE
Pavilion is initiated and supported by the Ministry of Culture, Youth
and Community Development and is sponsored by the Emirates Foundation
and the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Curated by Tirdad Zolghadr
under the stewardship of Commissioner Dr Lamees Hamdan, the pavilion
entitled 'Its not you its me' is reflecting the very act of national
showcasing, artistic documentation and curatorial testimony.


For more information, please contact Brunswick Arts
Tel: +44 207 936 1271
Email: adach@brunswickgroup.com

**Interviews and images available**

Notes to Editors

- ADACH Platform for Visual Arts
in Venice

Venue Arsenale Novissimo – Thetis, Capannone 108

Access from Arsenale by shuttle boat
Public Boat Station Bacini - Public lines 41 – 42 - 51 - 52

Inauguration Period 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th
Opening Hours 10 am to 8 pm
Events Free Admission

3rd of June
from 3 to 4.30 pm : Preview - Discussion with the artistic
director Catherine David and the participants of the pavilion
4th of June
from 2.15 to 16:00 pm : Vernissage

Opening Period: 7th June – 15th October, 2009
Opening hours 10 am to 6 pm
Opening days Closed on Tuesday (With the exception of June 9)

Organizers and producers: The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and
Heritage (ADACH)

Participants: Ebtisam Abdul Aziz, Abdallah Al Saadi, Sami Al Turki,
Philippe Chancel, Donuts (graphic design/ Brussels), Mohammed Ahmed
Ibrahim, Mohamed Kazem, Dr. Abdelrahman Makhlouf, Ahmed Matter,
Kaiwan Mehta, Waël Noureddine, Juan Lucas Young and Carlos Alarcon
Allen (Sauerbruch Huttons architects/ Berlin),Hassan Sharif.


- Catherine David, Artistic Director ADACH Platform for Venice, 53rd
Venice Art Biennale
Catherine David is a Paris based art historian and curator. She
studied Linguistics and History of Art at the Université de la
Sorbonne and Ecole du Louvre in Paris.

From 1982 to 1990 she was Curator at the Musée national d'art
moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou and from 1990 to 1994 she was
Curator at Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, both in Paris, where
she organized several monographs and group exhibitions including:
Lothar Baumgarten; Passages de L'Image; Stan Douglas:Monodramas and
Television Spots; Marcel Broodthaers; Helio Oiticica; Robert Gober;
Jeff Wall and Chantal Ackerman: D'Est, among others.

From 1994 to 1997 David served as Artistic Director for documenta X
in Kassel, Germany, and from 1998 on is Director of the long-term
project Contemporary Arab Representations produced by Tàpies
Foundation in Barcelona.

In 2000 she organized The State of Things for Kunst Werke, Berlin.
Between 2002 and 2004 David was Director of the Witte de With
Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

In 2005-2006 she was fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin

In 2007 she organized a monograph exhibition of Bahman Jalali at
Tàpies Fondation in Barcelona and an interdisciplinary event:
Di/Visions: Culture and Politics of the Middle East at Haus der
Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.

Last spring she received the 2008 Bard Award for curatorial
excellence.

She is currently conservateur en chef à l'inspection générale des
Musées de France

- The ADACH Platform for Visual Art
The ADACH Platform for Visual Art was recently created in Abu Dhabi,
the United Arab Emirates and is the result of a vision and master
plan aiming at the development of a network drafted on a rhizome of
people and ideas through concrete projects: The creation of a
research centre to study, preserve, archive and publish the cultural
heritage of Arab modern art; to develop programs that support artists
and curatorial projects.

- ADACH
The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) is the
institution in charge of conserving and promoting the heritage and
culture of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It was established in October
2005 as an authority of the Government of Abu Dhabi.

ADACH is an organization with far-sighted aspirations - to harness
the pride of the people of the UAE through the development of its
cultural heritage, and to be the leading cultural development
organization in the region acting as a catalyst for reviving and
promoting Arab identity and cultural values. Internationally it is
contributing to the strengthening of intercultural dialogue and the
appreciation of different cultures by developing projects that
encourage the sharing of cultural traditions and experience.
http://www.adach.ae