Made a mountain on a man-made island
On the front facing side of the mountain is a printed image of a mountain which is deceiving, as at a distance it looks like its three dimensional when its actually a flat printed surface.
Icelandic artist Arnar Ásgeirsson and Palestinian artist Yazan Khalili created a mountain on a man-made island in Dubai as an installation for Absolut at the Art Dubai art fair this March. The installation, titled, The Island, was only up for four days but created quite a stir.
Worked on the proposal with a Palestinian artist
"Yazan Khalili, who lives and works in Amsterdam contacted me. He had been commisisioned to make a proposal for an installation at Art Dubai and wanted me to work with him," explains Ásgeirsson, who resides in Berlin. "Together we came up with the idea of a flat mountain, a proposal that was selected. Yazan worked as an architect for a short while in Dubai when he was younger and knows the city well. It was, however, the first time that I visited Dubai but I knew that there's massive construction there. For a while, 25% of all construction cranes were in Dubai, which highlights the sitution there."
A man-made island on the list of Unesco World Heritage sites
The Absolut bar was only up for four days, during the art fair and was situated in a sort of medieval fort on a man -made island. Ásgeirsson explains that the fort turned out to be a public lavatory and that the island turned out to be only twenty years old. "We heard that residents were trying to get the island on the list of Unesco World Heritage sites which we thought was hilarious. These circumstances seem quite typical for Dubai, they just build and build into the desert with no respect for the environment around. I heard that they're building a replica of Central Park, only bigger." Ásgeirsson explains that the idea behind the mountain was inspired by the ideologism rampant in Dubai, to reflect a fake world where man-made islands are intended to go on the world heritage list. "If we accept that this is a real island and that a public lavatory is a fortress, we can also build a mountain."
The fake city of Dubai
The mountain measures 21 x 15 metres and is held up by scaffolding. The bar was situated inside the scaffolding. On the front facing side of the mountain is a printed image of a mountain which is deceiving, as at a distance it looks like its three dimensional when its actually a flat printed surface. In the middle of the mountain is an entryway through the mountain where you see the raw scaffolding and wood holding up the construction. "The idea was to make a fake front, something that looks fantastic from a distance but when you get closer to it you see the reality. Just like Dubai. The inequality in Dubai is quite shocking. The wealth and the excessive supply of cheap labour," says Ásgeirsson.
Icelandic artist Arnar Ásgeirsson resides in Berlin and his work involves videowork, drawings, installations and sculptures with performative aspects.
Born in 1981, Birzeit University graduate Yazan Khalili works in and out of Palestine. Using photography and the written word, Khalili unpacks historically constructed landscapes, often borrowing from cinematic language.
