2024 Tadweer Art Show in Doha Qatar

In February 2024, I spent two weeks in Doha exhibiting at the “Tadweer” art show. This was a show hosted by the Souq Waqif Art Center and was the second show I had participated in this exciting city. Once again I was in the company of other world-class artists and saw some amazing work! As with the last show, it was very well attended and busy during the evenings, and steady through the mornings. I met a lot of interesting people who came to view the art. I also ate wonderful food, did some shopping, and worked my butt off at the show! 😀

The show had a theme of recycled art and was divided into three sections. There was an area each for Metal, Wood and Paper art. I was exhibiting in the Metal area of course, but I also had my pencils on display in the Wood area. Thankfully, my associate, Art, was there as well to help manage the two spaces.

Before the show opened, there were anxious moments as artists awaited to see that their work had arrived and the crates were intact. For most of the work, there were no issues. One artist had her paper sculpture sitting under a bladder of water that thankfully the moisture barrier held back! An artist from Nigeria had some welding to do on a couple of his pieces. I had a few feathers to fix on the peacock.

The organizers had again produced a wonderful space, but had made some changes in concept from the last show. The biggest change was the use of a QR for each artist instead of item cards for each piece. Visitors commented that they didn’t know the artwork for sale, which led to some confusion. There were also issues with the prices on the website that QR codes led to, some prices were wrong and never fixed for the duration of the show. Each night, there was live music filling the air as thousands of visitors from around the world filed past. I did my best to talk to as many as I could and pose for photos next to my peacock sculpture. In fact, some people wanted to take a photo of ‘just’ the peacock, but I photo-bombed them!

As far as showing my work, this show was a success. But in the end, that is the only benefit of this show. The lighting was terrible at this show, with just some overhead lights far above the artwork and few scattered spotlights. My peacock looked ‘ok’ – but the brilliant colors were very muted. Art would show off the saws and use a flashlight so that people could see the details!

Let’s go back in time to 2019 when I was invited to the same show and had great success. I was the only artist to sell every piece and received a lot of compliments. It did a lot for me personally to feel that I ‘belonged’. I made some lasting friendships and met some heroes that I had followed online for years. It was a great show.

The following year, the Souq Waqif Art Center started planning a new show and I was to be invited back! I was asked if I could build a peacock that I had discussed at the last show. I was excited at the prospect of building a large piece and having it for sale at a big show like this! I soon started working on the peacock, planning how to build it, and starting some parts – as well as planning other pieces for the show.

But then Covid hit – and the show was canceled. I set the peacock aside and began working on other things. Eventually, the pandemic came to a close and the show was back on for 2024. I was ready to start on the peacock again! Over the course of a year, I made the peacock, a falcon sculpture, and a couple of new saws. As the year wound down, I carved a number of pencils specifically for the show and the Qatar market.

Now the show was live, the artwork was set up, and the artists were excited! There was a grand opening night, live music played each night and the crowds were strong. But something wasn’t right. NONE of the artwork was selling. None of the artists were getting serious inquiries about their work. A week went by and still nothing had sold. There was a great range of artwork from some of the top artists in the world. What was going on? The second week had gone by and still no sales, other than one small driftwood sculpture. I had sold a few small items in the ‘gift shop’ they set up, but no major piece was sold, and more importantly, no serious buyers had come through the show! In the 2019 show, we were told in advance that certain dignitaries were coming through and when other potential buyers were on site. For this show, there was none of that – other than the vague “There will be some buyers coming through this evening” (mostly to keep our interest in working the show).

If the worst part of the show was not selling anything, I could live with that. It was a show, not a guaranteed sales event.

First off, the sales prices were never corrected. So even if someone wanted to buy something – it would have been a confusing mess. But wait! That’s not the worst part! We found out shortly after the show ended that all of the artwork was brought in as “exhibit only” – which meant that it could not be sold. If a buyer wanted a piece, it would have to be shipped back to the country of origin and then shipped back again. OOHHHH – so THAT’S why there weren’t any sales this year!

Now let me talk about the pencils. When I was discussing with the Art Center about bringing my pencils, I designed display cases for them that would protect them and allow people to view them safely. That’s what I was expecting to have when I got there. After arrival, it seems that they changed their mind! They used my display design to build cases for a different artist and offered me a low shelf. This might have worked in a regular show, but the crowds were large and my pencils were VERY popular! I had a dedicated security guard to warn people not to touch, and Art was there most of the time as a second guard. Sometimes the crowd would be 3 people deep along 20 feet of displays and no amount of security could have seen everything. Soon a pencil was broken – people would like the glass case to get a better look, then breakage happens. I was told “Don’t worry, it’s all insured“. A second pencil was broken, and I was told the same thing. Then a protective rope was put up to keep people lined up to view the pencils, versus the ‘mob’ approach. A third pencil was broken! And then it was decided the pencils would not be accessible for close viewing. Still a fourth pencil was broken!

The whole time I was assured that the artwork was insured and not to worry. I’m sure you see where this going….

When I got back home, I sent an email to the Souq Waqif Art Center listing the damages and costs. They replied with a different story about how “All requirements and requests made by the participating artists were diligently met by he Souq Waqif Art Center ensuring the success of the exhibition.” Obviously, this is not true as we had discusses the display cases and they knew enough about this to build them for the other artist.

Also in this email: “The insurance contract for all art pieces only covered the shipping duration to and from the exhibition to the artists provided address. Thus the insurance company is not liable for any damages that occurred during the exhibition, and especially after the artist requested the safety barriers removed.” So the artwork was never insured at the show! WOW! And by the way, the artist did NOT request that the safety barriers be removed.

I replied to this email with screenshots of the conversations we had – but it was all for naught. They have ghosted me ever since, despite me sending dozens of emails over the past year.

In August, I FINALLY got my artwork back! Everything was intact except that the peacock had a broken neck. So again I wrote to the art center about being reimbursed for my time to repair this. Again I was ghosted and not even given the courtesy of a reply. I don’t take this personally as another artist I know was treated the same way when their artwork was damaged on the return trip. Other artists were forced to pay large amounts of custom duties to get their artwork back, and received little to no support from the art center.

So now it’s a year later and time for me to move on. I’ve written this blog for two reasons; first I wanted to vent, and second I wanted to warn any other artists who may be invited to a show hosted by the Souq Waqif Art Center to be aware of what has happened to other artists.

Whew! Glad to get this out and over with. 2025 is a new year and I DONE with this. Thanks for reading!

• Cin