The Night is No Good

THE NIGHT IS NO GOOD

لـــــــيـلـلا رادغ

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Batool Alshomrani

Fahad bin Naif

Aziz Jamal

THE NIGHT IS NO GOOD

The Night is No Good is a group exhibition that presents the works of three Saudi artists; Batool Alshomrani, Fahad bin Naif, and Aziz Jamal. The exhibition prompted the artists to venture into a personal and self-reflective journey to explore individual notions and symbols of grief, memory, and belonging. The show features new commissions by bin Naif and Alshomrani as well as a never before seen iteration of the piece by Jamal. The works investigate, through various mediums, the disorienting feeling of returning to something unfamiliar; by examining both the distance from the incident or place and the longing for its return to a previous state. A futile attempt at making peace with a reality that does not exist but also can no longer exist.

At the core of the show is forgiveness; an honest reconciliation with shifted realities. For the artists, forgiveness in this context is recognized as a form of true liberation from detrimental hope. The works mark a burial of hope for the past to be altered and the absolution of the future from its implications. The show is cathartic and diaristic in its approach yet intentionally hopeless. The works are intended to be viewed as a meditation on the personally sacred and often negligible conditions.

In Alshomrani’s Untitled series (2010 - Present), the artist intervenes on found book pages using pigments to redact the excerpted pages. The work allows the viewers to construct their own narrative of what remains from the original page, often only a number, title, or even a ghost of it all. From the viewers' own personal associations to the content, the placement and pairing of the individual frames also allow for new meanings to emerge between the consecutive and legible phrases and numbers. The recurring pendulum clock, a personal and symbolic emblem for the artist, threads Al-Shomrani's newest work to the series' very beginning in 2010.

Fahad’s diptych, 4 Decades or Matloub Hussain (2022), is a tribute to its namesake, Matloub Hussain, a Yemeni immigrant who spent over 40 years as the gatekeeper at the colloquially known “Ship Building”. The residential building has been the subject of recent extensive documentation and urban investigation. The blurry diptych represents the binary relationship between the building and its gatekeeper, the imperceptible homogenous state that both enter once an association on a wider city level is made and the inseparable and entangled connection between Matloub and his ship.

In Aziz’s single-channel video Clashing Omens (2020), which is projected so that the birds are almost lifesize, there is an ominous feeling that is exacerbated by the sound of the crows. The artist employs the crows as a symbol of void, as crows usually congregate in areas after they are abandoned. The lack of context in the video is deliberate by the artist as the placelessness allows the viewers to project their own interpretations.

Batool Alshomrani

Batool Alshomari (b. 1985, in Washington D.C, USA) is a multidisciplinary artist who has a steadily progressing career and is considered one of the first and few female performing artists from Saudi Arabia. Other than performance Alshomrani works across various mediums; experimenting with audio, installation and paper based 2D works. While initially many of her works were performance based, her most recent pieces have been with works on paper. Batool’s Untitled series is a seminal body of work for Alshomrani that has been ongoing since 2010. She intervenes on carefully curated found book pages. With the use of pigment, Batool redacts the text and images completely on these pages, often only leaving page numbers and titles. The absence of the content on the pages allows for the viewers to construct their own narratives and make the association with the little information remaining as well as between the pieces in the collection. Grandfather clocks are featured heavily in this body of work, which has been present since the inception of the series.

Alshomrani gained her Bachelor of Arts from Marymount University (2008); an MFA from George Washington University (2010) in Fine and Studio Arts. Moving to New York in 2010, she was part of the Whitney Museum of American Art Internship Program as a curatorial intern for curator Chrissie Iles, and simultaneously worked as an artist. In 2012 Batool performed for Marina Abramovic's ‘Bed for Human Use’ at Luciana Brito's Galleria during the Armory Show.

Alshomrani has participated in several group exhibitions both locally and internationally including, ‘Verbal Input|Visual Output’, curated By Caranine Smith and Susan Sherwood Gallery 102, Washington, DC (2010), Rhizoma: 55th Venice Biennale (2013), ‘Insert Range Here’ in ATHR, Jeddah (2015). She held a solo exhibition titled ‘Trance Tunnel’, a site-specific installation Gallery 102, Washington, DC (2010). She won the 700-650 nm First Place Award at Gallery 102, Washington, D.C (2012).

Batool Alshomrani, Mansions of the Soul, 2022. Book page, 21 x 14.5 cm.

Fahad bin Naif

Fahad bin Naif (b. 1989, in Jeddah, KSA) is a multi-disciplinary artist, whose work subject matter mainly derives from examining the local urban fabric of his home city, Riyadh. He combines socio-economic issues with the collective memory of architectural interventions and extracted realities drawn from civic structures, using Riyadh as the anchoring thread of his practice as a whole.

Working across multiple mediums, Bin Naif’s interdisciplinary practice sees the use of large-scale installations and interventions, video works, photography and graphic design, all driven by his research of the urban landscape. His project EXODUS, a migratory city that hosts those in constant transience, employs the use of digital collage accumulated into one larger artistic volume, winning the Bartlett’s Gold Prize (2017), and was subsequently featured in numerous publications. In 2020, Fahad won the third cycle of the prestigious Ithra Art Prize for his work Rakhm, meaning ‘incubation’ in Arabic; a lifesize installation of a functioning greenhouse that nurtures local and indigenous flora, the work was debuted at Art Dubai 2020.

Fahad earned a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Central Saint Martins - University of the Arts London, and has a Master’s degree in Urban Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture – UCL.

Bin Naif has participated in multiple exhibitions, most notably 21,39's ‘I Love You Urgently’, curated by Maya Elkhalil with his installation (in collaboration with Alaa Tarabzouni) Al Manakh, You Will Be Missed (2020), and most recently, the curated show ‘The Mountains Quiver in Anticipation’ (2022), at Hayy Arts in Hayy Jameel, Jeddah. Salamatak (2022) curated by Maryam Bilal, Al Meftaha, Abha and JAX, Diriyah. He was involved in the group show ‘POACHED’ (2019) with his typological photography series Where Pat Lives. He curated three shows ‘The Quest for Our Next Concern’ (2019/2020) and the individual exhibitions ‘Next Wednesday’ with artist Huda Alnasser and ‘The Artists’ Rooms’ with Mohammed Alfaraj, Sarah Abu Abdallah and Sara Abdu (2021).

Fahad's work is a part of the national collection at the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Ithra.

Fahad is the co-founder and shares the multidisciplinary artist-run studio, exhibition space and creative house VERY PUBLIC in the Diplomatic Quarters, in Riyadh with Alaa Tarabzouni.

Image of the "Ship Building." Courtesy of British Pathe Cinema.

Aziz Jamal

Aziz Jamal (b. 1992, in Dhahran, KSA) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice ranges, across various disciplines, from sculpture, video, drawing and installation. Based in Khobar, KSA, where he lives and works, his art is created in flashes of inspiration, overlooking the ruminations of more traditional research based art.

Jamal works skillfully across various mediums such as sculpture, ceramics, audio, digital prints, and video, using unorthodox materials to enhance his creativity, translated through his practice into his playful art. His works are informed by observations and aesthetics of the incongruous-lacking harmony or provoking surprise. Employing found and handmade materials, he documents scenes that contain contradictions, suggesting shifting social realms or the passage of time. Domesticity is a common theme in his practice, combining found objects both at home and discarded materials from the streets, simultaneously creating a juxtaposition between the familiar and unfamiliar, shaping the gaps in between to create a new narrative.A singular vein of inspiration that is translated into his wider body of work is the overarching theme of consumerism, whereby his materials reference the context that they are derived from, and the environments they are found in. They form unique hallmarks that form a physical, temporal and spiritual connection to a fixed point.

Aziz earned his BFA from East Washington University, Washington State in 2018, as well as having attended multiple art residencies; the Berlin Art Institute residency 2021 and Al Balad residency program in 2020.

Aziz has contributed in numerous group shows including 21,39’s ‘I Love You; Urgently’, Saudi Art Council, Jeddah (2020), ‘POACHED’ (2019) at VERY PUBLIC (formerly studio AF.), Riyadh; ‘Zamakan’, Ithra Contemporary Art Exhibition, (2019); where his work, Play-Playground, won the prize for Open Call for emerging artists.

Still images from Aziz Jamal, Clashing Omens, 2022. Single channel video, 02:41.

ABOUT ACC

ATHR’s Collectors Circle (ACC) was created to cultivate a contemporary art collector’s culture and community through a diverse program of exhibitions, panel talks and studio-visits. ATHR’s Collectors Circle brings together a dynamic group of art professionals and enthusiasts to foster engagement around art collections and collecting. The aim is to inspire a new generation of art collectors and to provide educational and social networking opportunities for aspiring young collectors. It aims to bridge the gap between art enthusiasts and the art world through inquisitive and meaningful discourse.

Image of Matloub Hussain. Courtesy of Saleh Matloub Hussain.

Image of Matloub Hussain. Courtesy of Saleh Matloub Hussain.

Batool Alshomrani, Symbolic, 2022. Pigment on book page, 21 x 14.5 cm.

Batool Alshomrani, Nightshade, 2022. Pigment on book page, 21 x 14.5 cm.

Still image from Aziz Jamal, Clashing Omens, 2020. Single channel video, 02:41.

Still image from Aziz Jamal, Clashing Omens, 2022. Single channel video, 02:41.

Image of Matloub Hussain. Courtesy of Saleh Matloub Hussain.

Batool Al Shomrani, Why Are we Here?, 2022. Pigment on book page, 5 pieces: 19 x 13 cm.