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Saudi Arabia’s art scene, long constrained by restrictions and dismissed as a hobby, is now drawing institutional support as the kingdom looks to project its culture globally. Art Bridges, a new government initiative from the Visual Arts Commission, will from this month send 10 Saudi artists, curators, and cultural leaders to Japan, Scotland, South Korea, and Spain for weeklong residencies over the next six months.
“We want to provide doors of access and entry, enabling direct conversations and first-hand discovery between Saudi creatives and their peers abroad,” Dina Amin, the commission’s CEO, told Semafor. The program is part of a bigger cultural and economic transformation, with the government aiming for the overall culture sector to contribute 3% of GDP by 2030 as part of efforts to diversify the economy away from fossil fuels.
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Manal’s view
A decade ago, a Saudi pursuing a career in the arts was practically unthinkable. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, students were instructed to scratch out eyes or draw lines through necks in their drawings because depicting the human form was considered “haram.” Art was tolerated as a pastime, not a profession.
Today, in Riyadh’s Jax District and Jeddah’s Hayy Jameel, a new gallery, workshop, or residency seems to open every week.
For decades, this Saudi art scene was only evident abroad. At the Saudi government-backed Intermix residency in Paris, I saw French visitors crowd around paintings and installations, their reactions carrying intrigue, almost disbelief, that these works had come from Riyadh and Jeddah. I witnessed a similar scene in Venice last year where Manal AlDowayan’s Shifting Sands: A Battle Song — examining stereotypes long attached to Saudi women — drew thousands to the Saudi pavilion.
On paper, cultural exchange can sound like a lofty concept. But standing in that Paris gallery, watching a Saudi artist like Hayfa Algwaiz spark conversations with strangers who had never set foot in the kingdom, it felt concrete. The stereotype of Saudis as Bedouins on camels is slowly being replaced by a more complex, layered identity.
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Painting, sculpture, and traditional crafts are not new to the kingdom. Modern and contemporary practices began emerging in the 1950s and 1960s. “The art scene has always been there, even if it didn’t have the institutional support structures we see being built today,” Amin said.
What makes this moment distinct, she added, is the ecosystem, from residencies and mentorships to international exchanges. The long-term goal is to cement Saudi art globally, with its history mentioned in every art history book that’s “yet to be written.”
Room for Disagreement
Not everyone sees Saudi’s art boom as a straightforward cultural opening. Daniel Kany, a US art critic invited to the kingdom by Aramco in 2017, argued that corporate-backed shows made headlines, but the powerful and most critical work came from independent studios. The state-funded art is still dominating the scene, and risks turning culture into a branding exercise. Still Kany said it would be a mistake to dismiss state patronage and exchanges, noting they provide opportunities for Saudi artists to address gender, politics, and society in ways that would have been unimaginable even a decade ago.
Notable
- Jeddah’s Islamic Arts Biennale, launched in 2023, is a break from a decade ago when public art was rare, and put the city alongside Cairo, Doha, and Istanbul in the regional art circuit, wrote Bloomberg’s Christine Burke.
- Saudi Arabia is making culture a pillar of Vision 2030, with private galleries like ATHR pushing the sector onto the global stage, according to the Harvard Business Review.