Ahmed Mater show at Christie's offers a glimpse of Saudi artist's giant AlUla installation

Ancient Arab nomads thought they could see water on the horizon of the parched desert, and their poems about this were passed on through generations to young Saudis today.

Poems about these mirages inspired the Saudi artist Ahmed Mater to create an installation in the desert of Saudi Arabia’s oasis city of AlUla.

Marble models on display at Christie’s auction house in London give a glimpse of the monumental work, which is set for completion next year.

They show people walking through a long corridor into an urn-shaped building. This is, in fact, a giant circular mirror box – set to be 45 metres in diameter – where visitors inside the hall are reflected as holograms to onlookers outside the building.

Other mirror boxes encased in orange alabaster cylinders are also on display – the material appears to be a nod to the ancient marble tiles found at the bottom of Mecca’s Al Kaaba. The installation’s name, Ashab Al Lal, is a nod to the vernacular Nabati language of the Arabian peninsula.

Entitled Chronicles, the non-selling exhibition at Christie’s celebrates the work of Mater, who is one of Saudi Arabia’s leading contemporary artists.

The country’s oil-led transformation and its status as a centre of Muslim spirituality are some of the subjects Mater explores in his work.

The exhibition traces how the self-taught artist went from bucolic paintings of his mother’s village in the southern region of Assir, to humorous performances with a cow that had been dyed yellow with saffron, and the larger-scale installations, photographs and mixed-media collages he is known for today.

“Art is one of the only things that allow us to look back and to see the future or to make us expect or think about the future. It's really philosophy,” Mater told The National ahead of the exhibition’s opening in July.

“Art connects us to story, to time, to feeling. Art is poetic also. It carries this poem from the past until today.”

Mater gained international recognition for his Magnetism (2009) installation, in which grains of iron were used to mimic the “spiritual force” of millions of pilgrims to Makkah performing the Tawaf, an act of prayer that involves circling around Al Kaaba.

The iron is made to radiate around a small black cube, pulled upwards and in a circular motion by an unseen magnetic force.

Using aerial and wide-lens photography, his large scale views of Makkah reveal the enormous industry that powers the pilgrimage site – from crowded flyovers to sedate hotel rooms and a row of cranes stationed above the site.

The series’ title, Desert of Pharan, is taken from the ancient name of Makkah. “While Makkah is home to more than a million residents, it is being transformed to cater to the needs of millions more pilgrims,” a description of the series says.

Mater sheds light on the side streets of the old city which has been forgotten in the massive construction boom to accommodate pilgrims.

Human Highway (2010) shows pilgrims walking across Makkah’s Jamarat Bridge and other passageways. Viewed from above it appears like an “anonymous river of people led by a shared mission”, the description says.

In a dizzying two-channel video installation, the streams of workers in yellow helmets are placed alongside footage of a man dangling from a crescent moon sculpture three or four times his height as it is lifted high above ground by a crane.

Old window panes collected by the artist from Mecca’s now-demolished old homes also appear in the exhibition.

The fate of the world’s Muslims who have faced increased surveillance since 9/11 is one that worries Mater. His installation Boundary transforms an airport security scanner into an ornate wooden mihrab, a niche in the wall of a mosque that points towards Makkah.

Originally trained as a doctor, Mater’s early artistic experiments involved incorporating X-rays of his own body into Islamic illuminations. Using gold-leaf, tea, pomegranate and coffee, he produced miniatures and calligraphy with references to medieval Islamic sciences.

Over time, Mater has combined these techniques to reflect on Saudi Arabia’s modernisation, and new additions to this series include drawings of the Al Ula installation, as well as fragments of satellites dishes, oil drills and construction sites from his photographs.

Yellow Cow reveals a playful side to the artist – through a series of continuing performances and installations inspired by the Quran’s longest chapter, Surah Al Baqarah.

Here, a yellow cow advertising dairy products appears in graphic posters created by Mater, as well as a fictional shop installation, where milk bottles containing the yellow cow logo are sold.

The work, which includes the saffron-dyed cow being walked through Aseer, inserts the ancient story into a contemporary consumer society.

In recent years, Mater has dedicated efforts towards supporting Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning arts scene. His studio in Riyadh, which I visited in 2022, is a hub and art library for young creatives.

His artworks and sketches are often strewn among books and workspaces. Many of these might have been discarded or lost had they not been noticed by the exhibition’s curator, Ridha Moumni of Christie’s.

Part of the studio is also a dedicated space for local craftsmen. At the time of my visit, two musicians were busy making and repairing qanuns, trapezoidal string instruments traditional to Saudi Arabia as well as the wider Middle East, Balkans and the Caucasus.

“Ahmed Mater is not afraid of dealing with very sensitive topics,” said Dr Moumni, who leads the auction house’s Middle East and Africa department.

Describing Mater’s artistic journey as an “odyssey”, he advised exhibition visitors to look out for the hidden stories which the work “unearths”.

“Mater invites us to rethink urban and natural environments, unearth hidden histories, envision potential futures and ponder profound beliefs,” he said.

“His artistic responses to the swift transformations within Saudi Arabia’s complex social and cultural context invite us to discover fascinating narratives of an evolving land and reflect on its multifaceted identity."