Bait Muzna gallery is one of Muscat’s most well-known galleries, dedicated to promoting local, regional, and international art-talent; located in Old Muscat and situated in a traditional Omani house, its immediate surroundings and traditional space offers a historical backdrop to contemporary art players and their creations, thus creating an unique art experience. Recently, though, Bait Muzna underwent a renovation to emerge as an altered creative space prepared to host different kinds of art and create alternative ways for its visitors to engage with the works it will display. The gallery celebrated its grand re-opening on November 15th with an exhibition, New Territories showcasing leading contemporary Arab artists, Yousef Ahmad (Qatar), Mounirah Mosly (Saudi Arabia), and Ahmed al Bahrani (Iraq).
“Since the last two years, the gallery has stepped into the international art scene and has therefore received a higher demand for exhibitions locally and internationally. Our premises were unfortunately not sufficient to fulfill the demand so we had to extend [them],” says Ellen Molliet, Art Director, Bait Muzna of the purpose underlying the renovations. “Furthermore, as our focus is on Contemporary Art, we wanted a structure built according to the art we were going to feature.”
In the past, Bait Muzna had an open-air interior courtyard which has now been roofed in glass; while the skylight bathes the gallery with natural light, the air-conditioned premises means that the space can be used all year around, rather than being restricted to the winter-months. “The structure is such that one can visit the entire gallery in a circular movement, energy is flowing in each area; more importantly, one can still glimpse and sense the traditional elements and atmosphere of the original house,” Ellen says.
A restructuring of a gallery space may initially seem to be restricted to surface alterations; yet it instead allows an increased scope for experimenting with the way a work is displayed as well as impacting the size and genres of work exhibited. The renovations at Bait Muzna translated into an increased exhibition space - 500 square meters – resulting in the gallery being able to host larger solo and group exhibitions as well as international art events, encompassing lectures, workshops and presentations. In terms of exhibition space, the Bait Muzna gallery space now features three distinct exhibition areas what with increased ceilings as well, the latter alteration allowing for art work of greater size to be displayed. In addition, the flow and sheer quantity of space means that installation art too will figure on the gallery exhibition agenda.
Bait Muzna is also intent on introducing Omani artists to the international art scene, having recently exhibited at Art Paris-Abu Dhabi 2007 and 2008 and Abu Dhabi Art in 2009, to name a few instances. With many more exhibitions and related art events in the pipeline, Ellen hopes that the new Bait Muzna gallery will continue to play an elemental role in encouraging the artists in Oman. “We believe that art contributes strongly to the soul of a culture,” she emphasizes.
