24 Jul 2011, Posted by charlie in EXHIBITIONS, No Comments.
DUBAI THEN
Thirdline Gallery (Gallery 1), Downtown Pavilion, Dubai
19 May – 20 August 2011
At the Downtown Pavilion in Dubai, Charlie Koolhaas presents Dubai Then, the follow-up to the Dubai Next exhibition (Vitra Museum, Germany, 2008). On display is the original Dubai Next installation (see Dubai Next post) for which Charlie had photographed the city’s intricacies, discordances and mixes to bring together the multiplicity of Dubai. Also exhibited in Dubai Then are new photographs of Dubai, creating an energetic amalgam from her glimpses of how the city grew into its boom and then coped with the economic crisis, the way it reinvents and evolves, re-asserts itself and lives with transition.
Dubai Then is a historical narrative. It shows Dubai as a city that had defined itself as centre for opulence, and must now reconcile its ambitions with the visual manifestations of recession; the emptiness of skyscrapers abandoned by companies gone bankrupt or building works on standstill. Charlie’s photographs bring to light the way different individuals assert themselves in such an environment, tensions and the spontaneous moments of harmony within the disorder. It tells a story of a city that seems to be defined by the diversity of its inhabitants, yet by observing the same space over time we witness the incredible social melding and drive of the city.
Combining the old and new photographs of Dubai in the Downtown Pavilion is an extension of this manifestation: the Downtown Pavilion was recently established as gallery spaces in premises that were the offices of developers who went bust. Old and new Dubai is to be found in the location and the exhibition itself.
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