UCCA Beijing Open Today, 10:00-19:00 (Final entry: 18:30)
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UCCA Edge Closed Today,
UCCA Clay Closed Today,
UCCA Edge
Ahmed Mater: Antenna
2025.3.8 - 2025.6.8
Ahmed Mater, Green Antenna, 2010, neon tubes. Courtesy the artist.
About
UCCA Edge, in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Culture, represented by the Visual Arts Commission, presents “Ahmed Mater: Antenna” between March 8, 2025, and June 8, 2025, the first large-scale, institutional solo exhibition of a Saudi contemporary artist in China. One of the most celebrated Saudi artists who has contributed significantly to the development of the Kingdom’s rich contemporary art scene and Visual Arts eco-system, artist Ahmed Mater examines and explores the social, cultural, and economic impact of the Kingdom’s evolving landscape on the individual, community, society, and the world through his practice across multiple media including photography, film, sculpture, and performance.
From March 8, 2025, to June 8, 2025, UCCA Edge, in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Culture represented by the Visual Arts Commission, presents “Ahmed Mater: Antenna,” a comprehensive retrospective exhibition of the renowned Saudi artist Ahmed Mater (b. 1979, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia; lives and works in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), the first large-scale institutional solo exhibition by a contemporary Saudi artist in China. Featuring over 100 artworks from Mater’s career to date, including the artist’s major series and milestones, this exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of his visionary artistic practice, formal and thematic explorations, and documentary reflections at the forefront of Saudi Arabia’s vibrant visual arts ecosystem in parallel to the rapidly evolving social and historical developments of his native land. A series of dialogues and public programs will accompany “Ahmed Mater: Antenna” during the exhibition period to introduce audiences to aspects of contemporary Saudi culture.
This exhibition is presented as part of the official celebrations surrounding the Saudi Chinese Cultural Year 2025. This year also marks the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and the People’s Republic of China. It follows on UCCA’s continued involvement in the Saudi art scene that began with its work on the first Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in 2021. Curated by UCCA Director Philip Tinari, “Ahmed Mater: Antenna” is presented by the Saudi Visual Arts Commission, one of 11 sector specific commissions under the Ministry of Culture. It is offered in a spirit of engagement and collaboration, and in the hope of creating new connections between audiences in Shanghai and contemporary art and culture in Saudi Arabia.
Born in 1979, a pivotal year in modern Saudi history, Mater grew up in Abha in southern Saudi Arabia and would later become part of the first wave of Saudi artists to exhibit overseas in the early 2000s. For over the past four decades, he has been documenting the seismic social and economic changes in Saudi Arabia as part of his artistic journey. With an archival urge to collect and categorize, Mater combines a Pop sensitivity to iconic source material, as encapsulated by his expansive body of work on view completed from the late 1990s to the present, including photography, installation, sculpture, video, painting, found objects, and designs for an upcoming large-scale land art intervention in northwestern Saudi Arabia’s AlUla. Central to the thematic explorations in Mater’s practice are notions of duality and ambiguity between tradition, natural sites and resources, change, individual experiences and collective forces, audiences and their frame of reference. Taking its title from Mater’s symbolically significant installation work Green Antenna (2010), this exhibition is also organized to reflect Mater’s preoccupation with the curiosity of connection and the possibilities of receiving and transmitting vital information, both for himself and on behalf of a wider community, within and outside of Saudi Arabia.
“Ahmed Mater: Antenna” begins in the 2/F galleries with a series of early career works that presage Mater’s future creative concerns. Before becoming an artist, Mater was trained as a physician and the influence of medicine is clearly visible in his early works. The “X-Ray” series (2003–2004), created while he was still practicing medicine, marked the beginning of his emergence as an artist blending Islamic cultural elements into his own abstract painting experimentations. In Empty Land (2012), Mater presents aerial views of infrastructures on print, representing the volatility of the abundance and decline of the oil economy in the region throughout the years. Debuted at the Venice Biennale in 2009, the long-running “Magnetism” series (2009–2024) is a major installation that uses the physical law of magnetic attraction as a visual metaphor to symbolize the pull of the Ka’aba and the Meccan pilgrimage for Muslims, foregrounding the dynamics relationship between attraction and repulsion, collectivism and personal space, and other unseen forces that shape human behavior. This series also includes a photographs and installation that takes the form of a book.
As Mater has once written, “Instead of making art for public spaces, I use public spaces to inform my art.” The 3/F galleries highlight Mater’s methods of examining the various facets of Mecca as a site that exists between the timeless and the ever-changing, the symbolic and the physical. The video Leaves Fall in All Season (2013) and the photographic “Desert of Pharan” series (2012–2015) reflect on the collective and the individual experience of Mecca through observing and documenting its pilgrims’ progression, commercial developments, and the evolving landscape and environment of the holy site. Mater began the large-scale project in the 2010s by collecting an array of old windows and over a hundred used objects from the city, each artifact a fragment of history and memory. The project eventually evolved to include a series of photographs and films, bearing witness to the city’s ambitious expansion.
Drawing viewers closer to the imageries and materiality of the forces that have shaped Saudi Arabia from his perspective, the 4/F galleries present two of Mater’s most renowned and ambitious body of work to date, as well as photographic series that grapple with the impact of historical influences and modern developments on individual perception. Deepening from Mater’s early exploration of the relationship between traditional Islamic culture and modern science, the “Illuminations” series (2013–2025) integrates elements of Islamic book craftsmanship and industrial engineering structures in a suite of works on paper. The photographic installations Desert Meeting (2021), Lightning Land (2017), and Fault Mirage (2016) activate archival images from pivotal moments in Saudi history. Last but not least is the works and studies in preview of the monumental Ashab Al-Lal, a massive site-specific land art installation commissioned for the Wadi AlFann (Valley of the Arts) in AlUla, a symbol of knowledge exchange and cultural dialogue.
Together, spanning the personal to the sweeping and monumental, Mater’s work offers a richly diverse visual lexicon to consider the epochal moments and cultural fabric, that through his work, characterize Saudi Arabia today. “Ahmed Mater: Antenna” invites viewers to re-examine the forgotten and overlooked historical details behind Saudi’s oil-driven development narrative, to revisit Mecca as a liminal space suspended between realities, and to reimagine the desert landscape as a space for the transmission of knowledge. In doing so, this exhibition is also offered in a spirit of engagement and collaboration fostering exchange between audiences in Shanghai and contemporary art and culture and Saudi Arabia.
About the Artist
Ahmed Mater, (b. 1979, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia; lives and works in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), is one of the most celebrated Saudi artists documenting and reflecting on contemporary society in Saudi Arabia. Forging an ongoing, complex mapping of the Kingdom, his practice explores collective memories to discover untold stories. The historical, geographical, and topical breadth of his research-led inquiries are sharpened by the incisive actions of his conceptual works.
Physician turned artist, Mater’s life has been lived poised at intersections, tracing fracturing fault lines of vying systems: past, present, and future; tradition and innovation. Using photography, film, sculpture, and performance, he maps, documents, and analyses these changes, examining the psychological impact on the individual, the community, and the world.
Mater’s solo exhibitions include “Symbolic Cities: The Work of Ahmed Mater” (Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, USA, 2016), as well as impactful solo presentations at the Brooklyn Museum, New York (2017); King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia (2018); Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy (2017); Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2017); and the Sharjah Art Foundation (2013), among others.
Mater's work has been featured in prestigious group exhibitions at renowned institutions including the British Museum, London (2006, 2012); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2011); Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (2012); and the Guggenheim, New York (2016). He has also participated in major biennials, including the Sharjah Biennial (2007, 2013), Cairo Biennial (2008), Venice Biennale (2009, 2011), and Kochi Muziris Biennale, India (2012).
His art is part of significant international collections, including The British Museum, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; and The Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Public Programs
On the exhibition’s opening weekend, UCCA will present a special conversation among artist Ahmed Mater, UCCA Director and exhibition curator Philip Tinari, and historian Wen Shuang, who specializes in modern China and the Arab world. The event will feature an artist talk by Mater and an in-depth conversation among the three speakers, exploring Mater’s artistic practice, the contemporary art landscape in Saudi Arabia, and its cultural context to delve into the growing significance of Saudi contemporary art within the broader narrative of global art history.
On the following weekend, UCCA Director Philip Tinari will offer insights into the curatorial vision behind the exhibition by leading a special guided tour. Through Ahmed Mater’s works, audiences have the opportunity to gain a deeper, more profound understanding of the historical and cultural landscape of contemporary Saudi Arabia, as well as the intersections of past, present, and future in addition to tradition and innovation, and heritage and globalization in his art. Throughout the exhibition period, workshops will further explore Saudi culinary culture. For the latest event information, please visit UCCA’s official website and social media such as the official UCCA WeChat account.
About the Saudi Ministry of Culture
Saudi Arabia has a vast history of arts and culture. The Ministry of Culture is developing Saudi Arabia’s cultural economy and enriching the daily lives of citizens, residents, and visitors.
Overseeing 11 sector-specific commissions, the Ministry works towards the support of and preservation of a vibrant culture that is true to its past and looks to the future by cherishing heritage and unleashing new and inspiring forms of expression for all. Find the Ministry of Culture on social media: X @MOCSaudi (Arabic); @MOCSaudi_En (English) | Instagram @mocsaudi
About the Saudi Visual Arts Commission
The Visual Arts Commission is one of 11 sector-specific commissions under the Ministry of Culture. Founded in 2020, it is leading the development of the visual arts sector in Saudi Arabia.
The Commission is working to nurture the talent of art enthusiasts, practitioners, and professionals in the Kingdom, and support the production and exhibition of artwork in all its forms, locally and internationally.
To learn more about the Visual Arts Commission, please visit https://visualarts.moc.gov.sa/en and the commission’s page on X @MOCVisualArts
Ticketing
Ahmed Mater: Antenna
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Exhibition Statement
Mihrab
The mihrab is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla—the direction of prayer, toward Mecca. In Ahmed Mater’s work, an airport security scanner is integrated into the form of a mihrab, reflecting on the surveillance and security measures that became part of daily lives for Muslims in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Early Works
Ahmed Mater was born in Tabuk, a city in northwestern Saudi Arabia near the Jordanian border. His father served as a sergeant in the army, while his mother was a painter and calligrapher. The exhibition opens with an early painting he created at age 16, depicting his hometown village, alongside a piece by his mother in the traditional Aseeri style, commonly used to decorate the interior walls of homes in the region.
Mater initially studied medicine. This background directly influenced his “X-Ray” series, which marked the beginning of his emergence as an artist. In this series, he blended X-ray imagery, his medical study notes, and traditional Islamic cultural elements into experimental abstract paintings. This approach enabled him to merge the past, represented by traditional Islamic motifs, with the present, embodied by the advancements of modern medicine. He also bridged two realms often regarded as fundamentally separate and fraught with tension: faith and science. This exploration would later evolve into his more recent “Illumination” series, featured later in this exhibition.
Empty Land
The rapid transformation of Saudi Arabia’s social and economic landscape has always been central to Ahmed Mater’s work. In Empty Land, he presents aerial views of silent streets, military bases, abandoned public projects, and discarded oil barrels. These structures, once thriving due to the growth of the oil economy, have now fallen into decline as the nation shifts its economic focus. Traces of former prosperity linger in the photographs, much like the once-full oil barrels. Reflecting on the work, Mater has observed: “The drive for development and progress is leaving behind a scarred and empty land where not just material things like buildings and cars are abandoned, but also traditional values and a connection to the land.” In portraying this abandonment, he also hints at a reality understood by his generation: the abundance brought by this precious resource will eventually run dry.
Magnetism
In his “Magnetism” serie, Ahmed Mater uses the physical law of magnetic attraction as a visual metaphor to symbolize the powerful pull of the Kaaba and the Meccan pilgrimage for Muslims. In the central installation, he places two magnets in opposition to each other: one visibly positioned at the center, the other hidden below the surface. Together, they exert both attractive and repulsive forces on the surrounding iron filings and create a swirling magnetic field. The resulting image resembles well-known photographs of the Kaaba during the holy season of hajj, encircled by masses of pilgrims. The series also includes photographs and an installation that takes the form of a book. Although deeply rooted in the artist’s cultural and religious background, Mater describes this work as secular. Instead, he employs a universal scientific principle to explore the relationship between spiritual experience and natural phenomena. The dynamic tension between attraction and repulsion serves as a metaphor for the interplay between center and periphery, tradition and progress, collectivism and personal space, and all the unseen forces that shape human behavior.
Green Antenna
For Ahmed Mater, the antenna has carried unique symbolic significance throughout both his upbringing and artistic career. As a child, he would often climb onto rooftops to adjust the family antenna, seeking better television signal reception. To him, this form symbolizes a bridge between a closed world and the outside, embodying the desire to explore different cultures, ideas, and lifestyles. This curiosity for connection became the driving force behind Mater’s artistic journey. It not only shapes his creative practice but also underscores his active role in Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art scene. As far back as his early studio practice and his work with Edge of Arabia—the cultural and artistic organization he co-founded in 2003 with Stephen Stapleton and other Saudi artists—Mater has played a crucial role in promoting dialogue and exchange between Saudi Arabia and the wider art world. He continues to inhabit this connective role today, working from a studio that also functions as an entry point to the Saudi art scene for visitors from all over the world.
Mecca
While Mecca is home to just a million permanent residents, it has been transformed to accommodate the needs of millions more pilgrims. During the 2010s, Ahmed Mater closely observed this holiest of Islamic cities, documenting the dramatic transformation of both its urban landscape and symbolic significance. Mater has collected an array of old windows and over a hundred used objects from the city, each artifact a fragment of history and memory. Gradually, his “Mecca Project” evolved into a series of photographs and films, bearing witness to the city’s ambitious expansion. His images capture a moment when cranes and construction sites came to dominate the cityscape. Old neighborhoods vanished while towering hotels rose in their place, as everyday lives and the once-in-a-lifetime moments of pilgrims continued to unfold amid the tumult. Perpetually caught between demolition and reconstruction, Mecca has become a liminal space, a city suspended between an urgent reality and an impossible future.
Ashab Al-Lal
AlUla, a desert region in northwestern Saudi Arabia, is a marvel of natural, historical, and cultural heritage. Wadi AlFann, or the Valley of the Arts, is an ambitious program of permanent land art commissions within AlUla’s monumental landscape, beginning with five artists invited to create site-specific works in dialogue with its remarkable geological formations and complex natural ecosystem. This initiative aspires to establish a new global cultural destination for contemporary art, set to unfold in 2025 and reach completion in 2027. As one of the first five commissioned artists, Ahmed Mater has developed a massive site-specific installation, Ashab Al-Lal. Presented here are models and sketches for this project. Inspired by the scientific and philosophical thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age, the installation explores the mythic space between subjective imagination and objective reality by generating a mirage within the sand dunes. Ashab Al-Lal takes its name from a Nabati poem, where the mirage—always fleeting and just out of reach—becomes both a guide and a reason to journey onward through the vast desert. The installation will feature a giant oculus embedded in the desert floor, where visitors will descend through tunnels. Their reflections will be transformed into a mirage hovering above the landscape. With this work, Mater challenges the notion of the landmark as a symbol of status and authority, instead reimagining it as a space for the transmission of knowledge.
Guncaps
American Western movies were widely screened in Saudi Arabia in the second half of the twentieth century. Cowboy culture became popular and had a profound impact on generations of Saudi children, including Ahmed Mater’s. At that time, a toy revolver could be found everywhere. By placing the red “guncap”—a rubber ring containing a tiny amount of explosive—into the magazine and then pulling the trigger, one could produce a “bang” sound as well as smoke. The “Guncap” series is made with sheets of this ammunition, attaching them to large wooden boards and spelling out a series of Arabic words. Among them are common greetings and expression of faith, such as “Peace” and “Allah is Great,” alongside words like “Freedom,” “Dream,” “Opinion,” and “People.” Taken together, these words reflect the artist’s thoughts on social transformation. The piece titled “1979” commemorates a pivotal year in the history of the Middle East that was also the year of the artist’s birth, closely linking history and personal memory. Writing in Arabic with toys from his childhood memories, Mater looks to revisit the influence of Western culture on the Saudi individual. He aims to move these basic ideas away from politics and the commodity economy, to “give them back to the people.”
Illuminations
In the “Illuminations” series, Ahmed Mater further deepens his exploration of integrating X-ray films—a symbol of modern science—with elements of Islamic traditional culture. Drawing inspiration from Islamic book arts—most notably Qur’anic manuscripts and scientific texts on mathematics, geometry, and astronomy from the Islamic Golden Age, renowned for their exquisite illuminated borders, calligraphic motifs, and chapter headings—he imbues his work with the same finesse, craftsmanship, and meticulous attention to detail. At the same time, he moves beyond the intimate scale of traditional manuscripts, adopting large-format or diptych paintings to create a distinct visual language. In the latest works of this series, he has gradually introduced images of satellites, cranes, and other engineering structures, further exploring the dynamic tension between science, faith, and tradition.
Fault Mirage
The archival images in Faux Mirage document pivotal moments in Saudi Arabia’s history, capturing both the Kingdom’s farthest reaches and its recent past, from its establishment in 1932 to the oil boom of the 1970s and 1980s. Topics include the rapid urbanization of Riyadh and the intense production of the oil fields, the onslaught of new buildings and cars in the wake of oil wealth, and scenes of daily life in a bygone era. Ahmed Mater deliberately overlays or misaligns the slides, creating a disorienting visual effect that evokes the illusion of a desert mirage. Through this displacement, the artist hopes to uncover new narrative possibilities about Saudi Arabia’s history, encouraging viewers to re-examine the forgotten and overlooked historical details behind its oil-driven development narrative.
Desert Meeting
In this installation, Ahmed Mater presents a series of pivotal moments in Saudi Arabia’s history. Before our eyes, we witness the first discovery of oil and the founding of Saudi Aramco, turning points that sparked the country’s economic development. Mater’s choice of an outdated TV shell as the display format highlights the role of the media in amplifying these events and their impact on the public, including himself.
Lightning Land
In Ahmed Mater’s view, the forces driving the drastic changes in the vast desert of Saudi Arabia since the mid-20th century are as unpredictable and powerful as seismic flashes. This immense, unforeseen force was first ignited by the discovery of oil, followed by the establishment of massive new urban centers. Drawing inspiration from this, he has created a series of works, including the photographic piece Land of Lightning and the “Fulgurite” sculptures on display. Naturally occurring fulgurites are formed when lightning strikes sand, causing it to melt and then rapidly vitrify, often taking on irregular, elongated shapes that resemble petrified lightning. In this work, Mater begins by using high-voltage power generation to simulate flashes of lightning, creating artificial fulgurites, which are then digitized and 3D printed.
UCCA Beijing
Open Today, 10:00-19:00 (Final entry: 18:30)
798, No. 4 Jiuxianqiao Lu, Beijing
Tel: +86 10 5780 0200
Fax: +86 10 5780 0200
UCCA Dune
Open Today, 9:30-19:30 (Final entry: 19:00)
Aranya Gold Coast, Beidaihe
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UCCA Edge
Closed Today, 10:00-19:00
2F, No. 88 Xizang Bei Lu, Jing'an District, Shanghai
Tel: +86 21 6628 6861
UCCA Clay
Closed Today, 9:00-18:00
West Entrance, Creative & Cultural Ceramic Avenue, Dingshu Town, Yixing City, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province
Tel: +86 0510 8767 9989
