The theme for Desert X AlUla 2024 – on until 23 March, the latest land art exhibition from the California-founded Desert X organisation – is making the invisible visible, with the title ‘In the Presence of Absence’. The desert being a place of winds and mirages, dust-clouded perception and desire’s imaginative projections, the 18 commissioned artists – including Giuseppe Pennone, Kimsooja and Ayman Yossri Daydban – played with notions of illusion. All were awed by the landscape and had moments of doubt in their capacity to contribute something worthy. AlUla’s desertscapes are so dramatic that the context is not a backdrop but dominates the senses, rendering everything manmade insignificant. The better human efforts are humble gestures and endearing attempts. Festival co-curator Marcello Dantas (alongside Maya El Khalil) says: 'The works here need the landscape for their power. It doesn’t get more site-specific.'
