Second edition of Saudi art biennale seeks to modernise Islamic tradition

Explore the transformative Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, showcasing traditional and contemporary art pieces challenging Saudi Arabia's image.

Under a vast canopy of tents in the Saudi city of Jeddah, religious artefacts are on display alongside contemporary art pieces, part of the kingdom’s bid to transform its ultraconservative image.

The second edition of the Islamic Arts Biennale, titled “And All That Is In Between”, features as its centrepiece segments of the “kiswa”, the black cloth embroidered with gold and silver that covers the Kaaba, the cubic building towards which all Muslims pray.

Hundreds more works are on display at the west terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport in the coastal city, including valuable objects on loan from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and the Louvre in Paris, and rare artefacts from the Vatican Library such as a medieval Quran in Hebrew script.

“This bringing together of the contemporary and the past really emphasises the change that Saudi Arabia is going through,” said Saudi artist Muhannad Shono, curator of the exhibition.

Home to Islam’s holiest sites, the kingdom has long been dominated by Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam that prohibits the representation of human and animal figures. As a result of the prohibition of such depictions in most Sunni Muslim schools of thought, geometric patterns came to be widely prevalent in Islamic art. But the biennale in Jeddah features medieval Persian illuminations, including royal portraits, as well as a fountain designed by Yemeni-Indonesian artist Anhar Salem whose mosaic tiles, assembled by colour using artificial intelligence, are made up of avatars sourced online.

“We have traditional conceptions of Islam and its history, which I feel we should begin to re-examine from a new perspective,” said a visitor.

Under his “Vision 2030”, de facto Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has sought to transform the kingdom’s image, weighed down by decades of repression and ultraconservatism.