Half and half' is a satellite variation on the exhibition 'Second Time Around' curated by Vasif Kortun (Director of Programs and Research, SALT, Istanbul) for the Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates at the 54th International Art Exhibition/ la Biennale di Venezia and presented under the UAE Ministry of Culture, Youth and Community Development and with the support of the Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy and Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC).
Using 'half' of the exhibition scenography created for the UAE’s National Pavilion by Istanbul based firm Superpool, 'Half and Half' presents works by the three featured artists from the UAE Pavilion in Venice; Abdullah Al Saadi, Lateefa bint Maktoum and Reem Al Ghaith, and offers the Abu Dhabi Art audience an experience of the National Pavilion on display in Venice. Both exhibitions are developed and presented under the leadership of Commissioner, Dr. Lamees Hamdan.
"Half and Half" aims to not treat the exhibition with a curatorial conceit. Thus, the exhibition is primarily about three positions: one obstinate artist who does not care one way or another if he is in any exhibition as long as he is able to work in his own precise way; a very young artist whose installation practice speaks to the UAE in the most novel way probable; and one artist who has assimilated, and dehypostatized the transformation of her environs. The exhibition does not offer totalizing claims or weak sociology. Rather it seeks to present three distinct artistic positions.
“Half and Half” is based on “Second Time Around” which in itself refers to the UAE’s debut appearance at Venice in 2009. A newcomer to the la Biennale di Venezia, the UAE Pavilion found itself in a position of answering extensive and curious demands, which it addressed with a humorous self-criticality. The second Pavilion in turn was a sign of slowly coming of age. Purposefully modest, Second Time Around refers to the barebones of the exhibition. The attitude adopted in choosing the title is also echoed in the approach to the exhibition, where each artist’s work is presented in a dedicated setting.
Kortun elaborated, “No longer contextualized in what have become the absolute clichés of the international reception of the UAE, the UAE Pavilion for 2011 chooses to realize the theoretical foundation in the immanence of the works in the exhibition. The Pavilion is not curated around concepts, but around artistic positions, as if three independent projects form a coherent exhibition structure pivoting around the works of the artists, Reem Al Ghaith, Abdullah Al Saadi and Lateefa bint Maktoum.”