Contemporary artist's works explore ever-evolving Saudi Arabia

The first large-scale solo exhibition by a contemporary Saudi artist in China, Ahmed Mater: Antenna, celebrated its opening on March 7 with the scent of cardamom-flavored coffee at UCCA Edge in Shanghai.

Mater, 46, is one of Saudi Arabia's most important contemporary artists. The physician-turned artist has documented and scrutinized the realities of contemporary Saudi Arabia for decades. Using a wide range of media from painting and photography to sculpture and installations, he creates conceptual works that explore collective memories of Saudi history — from the oil boom to the rapid transformation of society.

The exhibition, running until June 8, is a mid-career retrospective featuring more than 100 artworks, including Mater's major series and milestones, offering a comprehensive overview of his practices, formal and thematic explorations and documentary reflections at the forefront of Saudi Arabia's vibrant visual arts ecosystem in parallel to the rapidly evolving social and historical developments of his native land, according to Philip Tinari, director of the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art.

Presented by UCCA Edge in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Culture represented by the Saudi Visual Arts Commission, the exhibition is part of the official celebration surrounding the Saudi Chinese Cultural Year 2025, as this year marks the 35th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relations between China and Saudi Arabia, according to Dina Amin, the CEO of the visual arts commission.

UCCA, one of the leading institutions for contemporary art in China, has been involved in the Saudi art scene for many years. Tinari recalls his first meeting with Mater at Art Basel Hong Kong in 2014 and his first visit to Saudi Arabia in 2019. In 2021, Tinari curated the first Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale when he invited a dozen Chinese artists to participate in the exhibition.

As the world becomes more diverse, it is important that China and non-Western countries engage in cultural exchanges and dialogues on equal footing, Tinari says.

As visitors step into UCCA Edge, they will find a mihrab in the reception hall. The structure appears as a decorated gateway or pavilion found in a traditional Chinese garden, but walking through it, a string of red lights light up around the gate, accompanied by an audio alert.

The second-floor galleries display the artist's early works. The X-Ray series of paintings were created from 2003 to 2004 when he was still practicing medicine. In these paintings, he blends Islamic cultural elements into abstract experimentation. The Empty Land series consists of photographs showing the volatility of the abundance and decline of the oil economy through the years. The Magnetism series are installations that symbolize the Meccan pilgrimage for Muslims.

The title piece Antenna is inspired by Mater's childhood memories of climbing onto the roof of his family's house to lift a battered TV antenna to the evening sky.

"The antenna carries unique symbolic significance throughout both my upbringing and artistic career," he says. Moving the antenna to find a signal beyond the mountainous horizon made him feel like a young explorer searching for contact with the outside world.

"Like many of my generation in Saudi Arabia, I was seeking ideas, music, poetry — a glimpse of a different kind of life. This spirit of creative exploration, curiosity, and reaching out to communicate across the borders surrounding me have defined my journey as an artist," Mater says.

Walking to the third floor, visitors will find more installations and large projects. The Lightning Land project was inspired by fulgurites, a glass tube formed by sand struck by lightning, which causes the sand to melt and then rapidly vitrify, forming irregular elongated shapes resembling petrified lightning. Mater found in the immense and unpredictable force of nature a metaphor for the forces driving Saudi Arabia's changes. He used high-voltage power generation to simulate flashes of lightning to create a series of sculptures.

The UCCA also presents a miniature replica of a project he created in 2022 called Ashab Al-Lal, a large-scale site-specific land art installation located in the Valley of the Arts in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.

Studying the formation of a mirage, a natural phenomenon that appears in the desert, Mater simulated the bending of light rays. When visitors descend a tunnel into a subterranean chamber in the 65-square-kilometer valley, people walking in the faraway desert will see their apparition in mirage.

In some of the other cultures in the world, people consider the mirage as an unrealistic illusion that is deceiving and disappointing, but in his culture, the mirage is a traveler's guide and a picture of hope, Mater tells the media.

Mater's works have been featured in prestigious institutions around the world, such as The British Museum in London, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and the Guggenheim in New York. His art has also joined the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in the United Kingdom, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the United States, and the Centre Pompidou in France.

If you go

Ahmed Mater: Antenna

10 am to 7 pm (final entry 6:30 pm), March 8 to June 8

UCCA Edge, 2F, 88 Xizang Road North, Jing'an district, Shanghai 021-66286861

zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn