The Sultanate of Oman will present its first National Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia from 23 April – 27 November 2022 under the patronage of His Highness Sayyid Theyazin bin Haitham Al Said, Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth.

The inaugural exhibition in Venice brings together the work of three generations of Omani artists whose practice spans five decades of modern and contemporary visual art in Oman. Exploring the dynamic and intergenerational dialogue of Oman’s art movement over the past fifty years, the multimedia display will reveal the breadth of Oman’s cultural history and unique traditions in the visual arts on an international scale.  The Sultanate’s participation in the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale  di Venezia, along with an accompanying series of national programmes, aims to have a profound impact for Omani culture on the world stage and locally.

The exhibiting artists represent an unbroken thread of influence in Omani art from the last fifty years to today. They include: Anwar Sonya, a pioneer of modern Omani art since the 1970s, one of the founders of the Youth Studio, an important teaching institution; Hassan Meer, artist and founder of the experimental art movement The Circle, whose exhibitions from the late 1990s gained an international following and influenced another generation of artists; Budoor Al Riyami, a pupil of Sonya’s and a contemporary of Hassan Meer, whose current practice focuses on photography and video installation; Radhika Khimji, an internationally renowned artist interested in textiles, construction and personal narratives, who was also a member of The Circle, and Raiya Al Rawahi, a leading curator and artist of the young generation, who died in 2017 at the age of just 30. In Venice a group of her final works will be shown.