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Abu Dhabi Art Hub provides all facilities for artists to stay and create art

Artists in residence have been going on for decades elsewhere in the world, but here, the move is unique to Abu Dhabi Art Hub (ADAH), an art centre that pushes creativity, cultural and financial boundaries!

Last week an art exhibition opened in Abu Dhabi’s Musaffah industrial area. The four exhibiting artists came all the way from Mexico, spent a month in Musaffah, where they created the artworks that are now exhibited.

The thought might raise eyebrows, yet they are not the only ones. Artists from France, Germany, US, Saudi Arabia and Japan have done exactly the same thing.

Artists in residence have been going on for decades elsewhere in the world, but here, the move is unique to Abu Dhabi Art Hub (ADAH), an art centre that pushes creativity, cultural and financial boundaries!

At the far end of Musaffah’s dusty, noisy and mad with traffic streets, in the red and white building of ADAH, we met the art centre’s founder, Ahmed Al Yafey, to find out about this story of passion, vision and ultimately success.

Once upon a time...?

Ah, yes, the big question!

About six years ago I was having this land with my partner and I was in the real estate business at that time. You know, the market was down and, at the same time there were a lot of activities going on in Abu Dhabi. One of them was on Saadiyat island — the Cultural District with museums.

I put the two together, I thought I need to make something different from real estate here and, at the same time, I was thinking of this new government development in art and culture.

Inside me I was very passionate about art, so I thought it would be very interesting to see if I can make business in the art field.

The challenge at that time was what to do. Is it insured? Is it feasible? All these basic questions were there. It was very hard for many reasons; one of them was that we don’t have a really good example here in Abu Dhabi of art business and, at the same time, I was new myself in this field.

It was a big puzzle for me, so I hired an expert Australian company, which did three investigations, rather than a study.

The first was a survey of the private sector investing in art in the region. It was very interesting to find that there is no match. There are either art galleries or some kind of a set up in industrial areas like Al Quoz in Dubai that only present some exhibitions.

The second investigation was worldwide, from the Far East to Europe and North America, again about the private sector investing in art and that was interesting. We found many structures, many styles, many types, and it confirmed to us that as an art centre, not an art gallery, industrial areas can and should be suitable.

The third investigation was a little weird because it was about studying the history or questioning why art was flourishing at certain time for a certain place. One of the interesting things that we found, which gave us the idea for one of the elements that we have here, it was the community. For example, the artists in the beginning of the 20th century in Montmartre — it was not the wealth, it was not politics, it was the community that made them successful. The artists living together in one place challenged and encouraged each other’s creativity. All these things gave us the elements to put in the conceptual design and build this place.

What is the concept of ADAH?

We are an art hub that allows all types of visual art and art initiatives, using cross-cultural tools to connect and build bridges through art.

It’s an interesting experience that leads us to be one of the new movement, using culture, and the public and art as means of showing identity and creativity.

The concept is a combination of ideas picked from all over the world, and from the name itself, you can see we are and work as a hub. It’s unique in the region and we challenge other similar centres around the world. For instance, the residency, we challenge others by being more interactive, creating different programmes. We want to have our own identity, create our own culture.

What is behind ADAH’s main doors?

Everything, the centre, the galleries, the apartments are built purposely by us.

When we designed the concept we decided it’s good to have diversity. The first thing to catch the art community with was to build nine furnished apartments, right here, behind the centre, each with an attached working studio for artists.

Based on this artists’ community, we created a programme called “Art I Country”. Every month we invite artists from one country or a group of countries to stay here for one month. We give them an orientation tour for one week, then they are free to create art works based on their inspiration and experience here.

They don’t have to pay for the residency programme. It’s free. They get everything they need — accommodation, driver, even the art tools and materials. We sponsor their stay, but in exchange we take some artwork they create.

We invite artists based on embassies and other organisations’ recommendations. Sometimes, artists themselves write to us requesting residency. We look at their portfolio and, if they are good, we invite them.

We opened in October 2012 and so far we had more than 250 artists from 50 countries. I think we are now one of the biggest art collectors in the region, having more than 2,400 art works, which we exhibit everywhere, in hotels, here and, of course, we try to sell it.

You have an art cafe, an art shop, an art studio available for rent. How else can you make a living out of art?

More recently, we created UAE Art Bank. What we are doing — and this concept exists since the 70s — is to rent, or sell, artworks to organisations. We started this programme about eight months ago and we had customers like Formula 1, Adnoc and Dubai Culture.

We also generate income from creating art offices with license for artists who want to come and open art businesses here.

We also have exhibitions and now we have a small art museum — the first private art museum in Abu Dhabi.

And then there is the desert hub...

Yes! During the orientation week, we used to take the artists to the desert. I have a place in Liwa, near Qasr Al Sarab, and they were getting excited about it and kept asking ‘why isn’t there an art centre here, in the desert?’ So we created an art centre in Liwa.

We opened the Liwa Art Hub in March 2014. Here we do art by country, over there we do art festivals. Last year we made four festivals. We try to create a new approach for art in these festivals, making relations between art and science, for example, art and culture or art and environment.

In Liwa too we have accommodation for artists, there is a 150 metres swimming pool, garden, art gallery and a workshop for artists.

Any regrets?

No!!!! Except, maybe, the financial side.

silvia@khaleejtimes.com