Further details have been announced about the AlUla Contemporary Art Museum, the Lina Ghotmeh-designed institution that will open in the AlUla culture and heritage site in northwest Saudi Arabia.
The announcement, which revealed the institution’s name and its curatorial vision, was made on 1 February at the launch of Arduna, an 80-work group show held in a temporary exhibition site in the AlUla oasis—the eventual site of the contemporary art museum. Arduna focuses on the relationship between humanity and nature, with works by Wassily Kandinsky, Dana Awartani, Etel Adnan, and Tarek Atoui, among others. The show was co-curated by the teams of the AlUla Contemporary Art Museum and the Centre Pompidou, and according to the AlUla museum is operating as a preview of future plans. Its theme reflects one of the forthcoming museum’s principle curatorial strands.
“The three pillars for this institution—and for AlUla—are heritage; the environment and the landscape; and community,” Candida Pestana, the director of the AlUla Contemporary Art Museum, tells The Art Newspaper. “We want the artists to work with the community, with understanding the land, and with understanding where we are in AlUla.”
AlUla was a major crossroads for multiple civilisations, due to its location on the Arabian peninsula and its oasis. It is also home to the World Heritage Site of Hegra, a complex of tombs built by the Nabateans from the first century BC to the first century AD.
Hegra, AlUla, Saudi Arabia
Photo: Jonathan Irish
Pestana emphasise how the museum would take a specific approach to collecting—acquiring and exhibiting works from across the career of particular artists, including their archives, which will be digitised for public exhibition and available in hard copy to researchers.
“I don’t want the archive to sit at the back of the museum,” she says. “The strategy of the collection is based and centred on the artist him or herself. We are creating a long-term relationship with artists. They’re becoming part of the collection and will be represented on all spectrums, in terms of having finalised works, unrealised projects, archival material such as studies, documentation, and so on.”
The contemporary art museum will join AlUla’s other arts programming strands, such as Wadi AlFann, its programme of large-scale permanent artworks in the desert; Desert X AlUla, its biennial; and the craft practices it supports through AlJadidah Arts District. The artists announced so far for Wadi AlFann are Ahmed Mater, Manal Al Dowayan, James Turrell, Agnes Denes and Michael Heizer. Production on these works is currently under way, though their timeline has already overshot the initial expectations for a 2024 opening. Material related to this project will be housed in the museum, where it will also be expanded upon.
“We are collecting Al Dowayan’s early works and works not connected with Wadi AlFann,” Pestana says. “In order to understand what she’s going to do in Wadi AlFann, you need to understand her practice. We have the drawings that she does with the community in her workshops; we have publications with her; we have works they are connected to the history of the development of the Kingdom, and with women’s history and identity.”
The museum’s collecting parameters will span international as well as Arab regional and Saudi artists. The aim is for around 60–70% of the collection to be represented by regional artists, with approximately 30% international artists, according to press materials provided by the museum.
No date has been given for the opening, and the size of the museum is also yet to be determined, though the building is expected to be complete by the end of Vision 2030. In 2023, the Centre Pompidou were announced as partners for the museum, which is part of a larger intergovernmental agreement between France and Saudi Arabia signed five years earlier. According to Pestana, each partner will collaborate in a different way. The Pompidou will work with the Saudi museum on publications and in curatorial and academic research. The Arduna show is a forerunner of this approach, having been co-curated by Pestana and Ftoon AlThaedi from AlUla and Anna Hiddleston and Noémie Fillon from the Centre Pompidou.
Lina Ghotmeh Studio, drawings as part of the architecture competition for the AlUla Contemporary Art Museum (2023)
Lina Ghotmeh Studio
Pestana says the museum’s collection strategy will take “decades” to build. “We want to position ourselves as an institution where you delve into the works of artists,” she says. “It’s something that you build slowly and slowly. In 40 years, hopefully you have a complete understanding of what this institution is. In five years, we’ll have a little bit, but it will still be the beginning.”
