“We find beauty not in the thing itself, but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates,” Jun'ichiro Tanizaki writes in his 1933 essay In Praise of Shadows.
The work profoundly affected modern Japanese design and aesthetics. It challenged western ideals and influence, inspiring architects and artists to embrace the interplay of light and shadow. At a time when Japan was adopting technologies and customs from the West, Tanizaki's essay was a sobering appreciation for tradition.
Art Here 2025 draws from this concept. It bridges the Japanese sensibility with similar, regional philosophies, exemplified architecturally by the latticework of the mashrabiya.
The exhibition at Louvre Abu Dhabi features six shortlisted works for the annual Richard Mille Art Prize. It will be running until December 28, around which time the winner of the award will be announced.
While the annual exhibition and competition have brought together contemporary art from Mena before, this year it includes contributions and participation from Japan for the first time.
“I wanted a theme that, on a fundamental aesthetic level, connects the design and ornamentation of the mashrabiya and the shoji screens of Japan that diffuse light,” curator Sophie Mayuko Arni says. “The Gulf and Japan are both rooted in tradition. In a hyper-globalised capitalist world, they maintain tradition, and that is their strength.”
The artworks on display respond to the theme of shadows in several surprising ways. They range from craft-led to conceptual, concretising shadows and trapping them into resin cubes or compressing them in a strobe light that envelops the viewer.
In Tree Studies, Hamra Abbas presents an installation of 31 stone tiles, which creates shadow-like images of tree foliage on lapis lazuli. The silhouettes shimmer in the gold and grey veins of the stone, evoking a sense of movement and dynamism. The trees depicted in the tiles focus on those found in Pakistan and the UAE, from acacia, olives, pomegranates and cherries to date palms and the ghaf.
The work was inspired by the prevalence of gardens in Islamic art, Abbas says. “The garden is always present, whether in textile, metalwork or stone inlay,” she says. “The work is entirely made with lapis, cut and inlaid. It is then polished to a point where the surface becomes almost mirror-like. I encourage people to touch it.”
Ryoichi Kurokawa, meanwhile, shows how light and shadows shape our perceptions through his audiovisual installation skadw-. In the work, a single vertical beam interacts with billowing fog, pulsing then strobing to produce shadows and create a meditative, almost ethereal experience.
The shadows, devoid of physical objects informing them, aim to embody the Japanese concept of Ma, or the beauty of emptiness, negative space and intervals.
“This is a very interesting artwork in the Art Here context,” Mayuko Arni says. “We haven't had audiovisual works too many times before.”
The work is also interesting in that it is presented in an area that many visitors to Louvre Abu Dhabi will not have entered before, a narrow corridor that branches off from the museum’s outdoor spaces. Once inside, the work submerges the viewer in light and darkness, as well as the abstract shapes that emerge from the fog.
Another work that makes use of a new space is Rintaro Fuse’s A Sundial for the Night Without End.
The installation is displayed on the terrace of the museum, its signature dome serving as the backdrop on one side, and the Abu Dhabi skyline spread out on the other. The work is crafted from polished stainless steel, reflecting viewers and surroundings. Three gnomons – the upright poles used in traditional sundials – emerge from the installation, each with a corresponding dial.
“Each pole is pointing to a different North Star,” Fuse says, adding that arranging the gnomons accurately required meticulous calculation to determine where the previous North Star, Thuban, was positioned and where the next, Errai, will be in 4,000 years.
“Together, they represent past, present and future,” the Japanese artist says.
Emirati artist and musician Jumairy is presenting Echo. The work is a circular pool-like installation, fitted with motion sensors that cast teal digital shadows on the reflective surface. An upright glass flower is in bloom on one side.
“It is, in a way, a continuation of his previous body of work dealing with water, which was presented in the first edition of Manar Abu Dhabi,” Mayuko Arni says. “It was a highlight in Lulu Island. The waves rolling up the shore synchronised with a light and sound installation. For the artist, who stays anonymous, the sea holds all the answers.”
The installation at Art Here alludes to the writings of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his notions of the shadow self. Echo prompts visitors to reflect upon their unconscious selves and repressed emotions. However, the story has another inspiration.
“This is a work inspired by the myth of Narcissus and Echo,” Mayuko Arni says. “Echo fell in love with Narcissus, but was rejected by him. As a curse, Narcissus kept looking at himself in the water, slowly died and became a flower. The piece, however, is called Echo, for the real hero of this journey here. Because what if Echo loved herself enough not to lose herself in this limerence?”
The architectural duo Yokomae et Bouayad, made up of Takuma Yokomae of Japan and Dr Ghali Bouayad of Morocco, are presenting an installation that mimics the shadows cast in nature, specifically those of clouds and branches.
The work features lightweight mesh forms perched atop long thin poles that rock and sway with the wind. These movements produces shadows of shifting shapes and patterns through the day. The Choreography of a Cloud, Dancing Shadows becomes all the more alluring when you consider it as a pavilion, which the artists do, and it suddenly appears as a fragmented interpretation of an architectural body that is traditionally considered holistic. Inversely, it also invites you to think about the multitude of mesh poles as a single object.
“Our idea was to imagine an architecture that speaks through shadows and light,” Bouayad says. “In a similar way that nature offers an ever-changing movement of its elements, we want visitors to experience shadows that can be different every day and every night. A visitor can come here continuously, and they will never experience the same space twice.”
The piece responds to the structure of the museum’s dome, its curvature and the way sunlight is filtered through its openings. “By contrast, and in discussion with the dome, we wanted an architecture that actually moves, and where we can experience the patterns through the movements of the mesh.”
Finally, Jordanian-Palestinian artist Ahmed Alaqra is presenting I remember. a light, a sculptural installation of translucent resin cubes, each of which has a specific silhouetted form.
The work is informed by Alaqra’s childhood, growing up in Sharjah and Dubai. The forms are drawn from analogue photographs taken in the two emirates. They include lattice patterns cast by a palm, the edge of a stairwell and other shapes that are manifested from the interaction between light and urban spaces.
“As kids in the 1990s, as things were being built, I remember very well the way we were moving about Sharjah and Dubai, following the traces of shades that existed in our cities because it was so hot,” Alaqra says. “We moved according to the movement of the sun.
“Over a combination of thousands of images that I have of high contrast and photography, I extracted the shadows of these different textures, the unintentional shadows that we used to follow all around. I extracted them from images, reproduced them, deformed them and then cast them.”
In essence, Alaqra is making shadow into a material object. He manipulates and distorts the nebulous forms before 3D-printing them using a powdered substance. Several of the forms are encased in resin cubes, and as sunlight streams through them, the shadows “are released”, the artist says, returning back to immateriality. “It’s about thinking of shadow as a material rather than as a fleeting moment,” he says.
Collectively, the six works investigate how shadows shape perception and inform our understanding of a space, while also touching upon personal and cultural dimensions. They also instil new meaning to familiar spaces around the museum – as well as ones previously inaccessible to the public.
“The artworks are relevant to the space, to the institution,” Manuel Rabate, director of Louvre Abu Dhabi, says. “The artists are not chosen based on their previous bodies of work, but because of the consistency of their proposals to the theme, and then there is a full production process that results in something that fits in the space.”
Since launching in 2021, Art Here and the Richard Mille Art Prize have grown from an initiative exclusively open to UAE-based artists and expanded to include GCC and the wider region, and now Japan. Rabate says he expects the platform to continue along this trajectory, which resonates with the museum’s core mission.
“Louvre Abu Dhabi is really a universal museum, and by finding simple thematics such as Shadow, we can explore and see what it means in Japan while also examining its regional connotations.”
