SHARJAH- The Sharjah Art Foundation, SAF, announced on Sunday that this March it is set to present "the most ambitious exhibition in the Middle East to date" that explores art in the age of the internet.

Curated by newly appointed SAF Director of Collections and Senior Curator Omar Kholeif, who also served as co-curator of Sharjah Biennial 14, 'Art in the Age of Anxiety' brings together a truly global group of contemporary artists to explore the ways our everyday devices, technologies and digital networks have altered our collective consciousness.

The exhibition presents more than 60 works spanning sculpture, prints, video, virtual reality, robotics and algorithmic programs developed by more than 30 international artists including Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Cory Arcangel, Wafaa Bilal, Cao Fei, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Joshua Nathanson, Trevor Paglen, Siebren Versteeg, UVA, Guan Xiao and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. "Art in the Age of Anxiety explores critical questions in contemporary art and society through the work of a diverse group of artists from around the world," said Hoor Al Qasimi, Director of Sharjah Art Foundation. "We are delighted to inaugurate Omar Kholeif’s tenure as Senior Curator and our first Director of Collections with this important exhibition."

Art in the Age of Anxiety conjures the bombardment of information, misinformation, emotion, deception and secrecy that invades online and offline life in the age of digital technology. It aims to illuminate the 'post-digital' condition - the manners and behaviours found in a world altered by the rise of digital technologies - and posits speculations for our future. Kholeif said, "This is an exhibition that grew out of my own anxiety about the future. It completes over a decades’ worth of research exploring how artists explore, deconstruct and materialize the polemical issues raised by our accelerating society," "There are no easy answers here.

Rather, this exhibition posits questions as experiences that physically and viscerally confront the viewer with their very own complicity in our everyday technological society. We look forward to seeing, hearing and feeling how our audiences will respond to the context that we have created with this special exhibition," the SAF Senior Curator added. The exhibition represents the culmination of more than a decade of research on the subject by Kholeif, who has previously curated internationally touring exhibitions such as 'I Was Raised on the Internet' (MCA Chicago, 2018) and 'Electronic Superhighway' (Whitechapel Gallery, 2016) and authored and edited seven books on the subject, including 'You Are Here: Art After the Internet' (HOME and Space, 2018) and 'Goodbye, World! Looking at Art in the Digital Age' (Sternberg Press, 2018). Art in the Age of Anxiety opens 21st March 2020, concurrent with the opening of SAF’s annual March Meeting, and remains on view through 21st June 2020.

© Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2020.