The director of the Sharjah Biennial has been removed from his post, which he has held since 2004. After a controversy internal to the foundation involving an offensive image that remains unknown, Ruler Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, asked for Persekian's resignation, as gulfnews.com reports.

Persekian's post involved close collaboration with the Sharjah government since he was appointed as artistic director.

Persekian has this to say to The National: “It was very, very abrupt. It completely knocked me over. It was the result of people objecting to the content of one artwork.”
“It was foolish of me, I had not looked at it carefully because I couldn’t, there were so many works and so many things to produce––films and books and publications and videos, a million things I didn’t go through. I’m not in the habit of checking everything, and people just didn’t like what they saw in that work and took it out on me personally.”

So far, as artforum.com reports, he has declined to reveal which work caused the issue, while saying it has now been removed from the show.

Jack Persekian