Digital contest calls for fusion of American art with Qatari culture

Qatar-based artists and enthusiasts will have the opportunity to showcase their creativity in a digital art competition, which forms part of Qatar – USA Year of Culture 2021. Organised by Qatar Museums (QM), this unique activity urges “participants to be innovative, flexing their artistic talents while also being creative, fun, vibrant, and exciting” as it aims to “bring the two cultures together”.

“We invite you to create a digital work of art that expresses and is inspired by 20th Century American Pop-Art and Pop artists, and their vibrant and diverse mainstream culture, while also using Qatari society and culture as a muse. Artists must merge these concepts, creating a cultural exchange between American art and Qatari culture,” QM told Culture Pass members in an email yesterday.Four winners will receive vouchers worth up to QR5,000 for In-Q, an online museum gift shop (stores at Museum of Islamic Arts, National Museum of Qatar, and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art) owned by IN-Q Enterprises, which is the commercial arm of QM; and Cass Art, QM’s art supply store located at Fire Station: artists in residence.QM noted that artists can submit a maximum of three art pieces before September 30 and “submissions should be culturally appropriate”. No age restrictions and the size of artwork is flexible, but the resolution must be 300dpi. As part of the celebration, filmmakers and cinephiles in the country can also take part in an online workshop organised by the Doha Film Institute (DFI). Titled 'Watching the Classics with Richard Pena: The Modernist Impulse', it aims to provide a deeper understanding of film history.DFI noted that Pena was the programme director of the Film Society of Lincoln Centre and the director of the New York Film Festival from 1988 to 2012. At the Film Society, he organised retrospectives of many film artists, as well as major film series devoted to numerous national cinemas. The workshop will comprise three sessions – scheduled on August 23, 30, and September 6 (each focuses on an undisputed world cinema classic) between 5.30pm and 7.30pm (Doha time). Lab fee costs QR250 and Culture Pass members are entitled to a 10% discount.“In the weekly sessions, Professor Pena will present a given film within its aesthetic, economic, technological and social/political context, detailing each director’s formal techniques while teasing out the implications of these artistic and technical decisions,” DFI said.DFI urges participants to watch the films, which can be accessed at different streaming services, before each lecture.The first session, dubbed ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’/1959/Alain Resnais/France, Japan, focuses on a French actress who travels to Hiroshima to work on a “film about peace” while the second session -- ‘Ivan’s Childhood (Ivanovo Detstvo)’/1962/Andrei Tarkovsky/USSR – talks about ‘the Thaw” – “a period of gradual opening up of the Soviet cultural and social space following the death and denunciation of Stalin.”The third session – ‘Eclipse (L’eclisse)’/1962/Michelangelo Antonioni/Italy – discusses “the third and boldest part of a very loosely conceived trilogy of films about postwar Italian society.” DFI noted that this workshop, which will be delivered in English, is open to applicants over 18 years old.