Abraaj Capital Art Prize Winner: Taysir Batniji

By Christine on February 20, 2012

Born in Gaza in 1966, Taysir Batniji studied art at Al-Najah University in Nablus on the West Bank from 1985-92. In 1994 he was awarded a fellowship to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Bourges, France, where in 1997 he graduated with a DNSEP (Higher National Diploma in Plastic Expression).

Since then he has divided his time between France and Palestine, developing an interdisciplinary practice including drawing, painting, installation and performance often closely related to his heritage.

Since 2001 Batniji has focused on photography and video. He has participated in numerous international exhibitions in Europe and beyond, in 2011: ‘Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial)’, Istanbul, Turkey; ‘Future of a Promise’, collateral event of the 54th Venice Biennale, Italy; ‘Seeing is Believing’, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany and ‘Le monde n’est pas arrive’, Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris, France. Previous exhibitions have included: ‘This is Not Cinema!’, Fresnoy, France (2002), ‘Contemporary Arab Representations’, the 50th Venice Biennale, Italy (2003), ‘Transit’, Witte de With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2004), ‘The World is a safer place’, Globe Gallery, Newcastle, UK (2005), ‘Wanderland’, Kunstmuseen, Krefeld, Germany (2006), ‘Heterotopias’, Thessaloniki Biennial, Greece and Sharjah Biennial, UAE (both 2007). During the 52nd Venice Biennale Batniji was part of ‘Palestine c/o Venice’ (2009) and the following year ‘La Biennale Cuvee’, Linz, Austria (2010). Taysir Batniji is represented by Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg/Beirut and Galerie Eric Dupont, Paris. He lives between Paris and Gaza. (Source:  Abraaj Capital Art Prize)

Key Works

GHo809

GH0809 takes the brutal 2008-2009 Israeli assault against Gaza and resulting destruction as its point of departure.   The images, homes destroyed or damaged during the bombings, are displayed like real estate postings,  giving the viewer “an invitation to contemplate a reality far from the familiar, and beyond the scope of a journalistic report.”

Image:  Art Territories, Designing Civic Encounter

Image:  Art Territories, Designing Civic Encounter

Artist Statement for GH0809 from the Art Territories project Designing Civic Encounter

The title of GH0809 is an abbreviation of ‘Gaza Houses 2008–2009’; its letters and numbers resembling an illusory real estate company.

The project was conceived after the army of the Israeli occupation launched a war on Gaza in 2008–09. This war claimed the lives of many Palestinian civilians, most of them children, caused by the widespread destruction of houses and facilities.

A large percentage of Gaza’s inhabitants live below the poverty line. To build a house takes someone’s entire family’s savings; it is likely the most important achievement of their lives. From the beginning, the Israeli occupation has deliberately used the destruction of homes as a means of collective punishment for Palestinians, thus destroying the inhabitants’ memories, and causing displacement and massive upheaval.

As I have been denied access into Gaza since 2006, I delegated the task of photographing the houses to the journalist Sami al-Ajrami. In a documentary or ‘neutral’ way, we gathered specific data on these houses to accompany the pictures, presenting each just as in the window of a real estate office. We were able to gather more than 150 images, and facts about 33 houses, some of which had been completely destroyed, and some damaged.

What concerns me here is the treatment of the topic, as is always the case in my works that take on the situation in Palestine. I use a visual frame derived from daily life by evoking commercial advertising, but with altered content. In this contradiction between form and content is an invitation to contemplate a reality far from the familiar, and beyond the scope of a journalistic report.

My works are perhaps less concerned with a specific topic or situation, and moreover an inquiry into representation itself, testing new forms and techniques, or reappropriating existing forms, in an attempt to challenge familiarity, whether the image in question is journalistic, documentary or ‘artistic’. (Source:  Art Territories)

Drawings

I have had some difficulties in finding information about Batniji’s drawings, but I want to include some samples  because I really love them.  I’ve looked at pieces from these bodies of work many times now on Batniji’s website and I’ve become very curious about them.   It seems he uses drawings in the same way he uses photography and video, as a part of a documentary ritual, capturing his surroundings and getting closer to reality. (Source:  Art Palestine)

Pixels 2011

Untitled, 2010-2011

I can’t lie, I have a soft spot for sketches and drawings.  I’m so attracted to these macabre still life sketches.

Untitled Gaza 2004

These drawings have a snap-shot quality about them that I really like.  There is a mystery in these drawings; with their documentary feel, are they real moments or imagined… fact, feeling or vision?

Video

Me 2

Me 2 is a video shot at after US invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” plays at a street fair while Batniji spins around his apartment.

I’ve taken “I Will Survive” as an a personal-anthem many, many times.  I remember putting it on in 1993 for my college roommates first night out in drag, and again on many tipsy nights dancing and cosmically directing those words at some boyfriend or crush who had broken my heart, things that threaten emotional security, but not necessarily physical.   Because of the personal connection to this song, watching this video for the first time was like getting punched in the heart…. experiencing the horrific and seemingly unstoppable nature of the war-beast and subsequent disorientation and terror, while channeling the powers of self, the only thing  we truly have agency over.

(There’s something in this project that has me thinking about the  Native American Ghost Dance, a 19th century movement in the American Indian tribes of dancing ecstatically until collapse to summon the spirits of ancestors to restore the Indian nation, replenish the buffalo, and bring peace with the settlers taking over their homeland.)

(You can view this work and the one below by clicking on the images below, and then clicking on the image beside the description of the work on Batniji’s website, launching the video player.)

“This video  is a superimposition of two simultaneous shots. I turn while looking at myself turning. I’ve chosen this impromptu movement as a personal reaction against the war and its violent, even immoral, representation by the media.”

Transit

The video Transit by Taysir Batniji tackles the issues of borders. The Palestinian artist presents a silent slide show, made up of photographic images, that he made clandestinely at border passages between Egypt and Gaza. The photographs of people waiting are alternated with black screens, metaphors for emptiness and the passing of time, reflecting the difficult and often impossible conditions of mobility for today’s Palestinians. The video addresses notions of travel and displacement as well as the situation of being between two cultures and identities.

Source: Taysir Batniji

In His Own Words

Excerpted from Canvas Magazine’s interview with the 2012 ACAP winners.

What is your artistic approach and how is it influenced by the diverse media you use?  My work is open to all media. I do not limit my creativity to specific media because I believe all disciplines allow me to express my ideas. As a Palestinian living between Gaza and France, my work is greatly influenced by the current context of my homeland.

Personal vs. Collective: what do you want to impart to the audience through your work?  I am trying to find a connection between my life as an artist and the present situation in Palestine. At once a personal as well as a collective experience, many of my projects use Palestine as a departure point. It is personal because I experience the situation on a daily basis and it is collective because what is taking place in Palestine has affected a multitude of people. Through my work as in my life, I am consistently moving between two worlds and two ways of life. The personal is affected by the collective. We are living in a different context in Palestine. It is a very contradictory situation but it is inspiring at the same time for my art because it is has a deep human dimension.

How does it feel to be a recipient of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize?  For me it is a really great opportunity considering the recognition of the award and the possibility that the work gives me now to be able to do my work. The Prize also provides me with financial help in order to be able to create. I have many other projects the same time so it will be a very busy period over the next few months. I feel a lot of pressure but also great pleasure in winning this award.

Up Next:  Nat Mueller

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Hello Year of the Dragon: San Francisco’s 2012 Chinese New Year Parade

By Christine on February 15, 2012

San Francisco’s Chinese New Year Parade

The 2012 Chinese New Year Parade through San Francisco celebrated happiness, prosperity, sincerity, togetherness, rebirth and fertility. The star of the show is  the famed Gum Lung, a 250-foot dragon carried by over 100 men.

picture to gif

how to make gif

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Abraaj Capital Art Prize Winner: Risham Syed

By Christine on February 13, 2012

Risham Syed’s practice critically focuses on the remains of cultural/historical inheritance and its perceived authenticity in present-day Pakistan.

She received a BFA in Painting from the National College of Art, Lahore (1993) and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (1996).

Solo shows include: Lahore 2010, Rohtas Gallery, Lahore (2010), And the Rest is History, Talwar Gallery, New York (2010), Canvas Gallery, Karachi (2008). Her work has been exhibited in group shows including: The Rising Tide, Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi (2010-11), Ar (2009)t Dubai, (2010), Resemble/Reassemble, Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon, India, Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress, Politics and Identity in Pakistani Art, Talwar Gallery (2008), Conversations 1, Elementa Gallery, Dubai (2007), Landscape and Outside the Cube, National Gallery of Art, Islamabad, (2005), ’58 Years of Pakistani Art, Alhamra Art Gallery, Lahore (2004), Playing with the loaded gun, Apex Art, New York (2002) & Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2004) 2nd Fukuoka Triennale, Museum of Asian Art, Fukuoka, Japan (2002), in Threads, Dreams and Desires, The Harris Museum, Preston, UK (1998). She was awarded the Stephenson Harwood Award (1996), Charles Wallace Trust Scholarship, UK (1996) and the Cite’ International des Arts, Paris, France (1995).

She is currently an Assistant Professor at the School of Visual Art, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, Pakistan, where she continues to live and work. Risham Syed is represented by Talwar Gallery, New York.  (Source:  Abraaj Capital)

Key Works

Risham Syed is interested in history and how it connects itself with the present moment.  She has used images from art history (repainted in acrylics, creating a plastic object or conceptual piece) domestic items, fabrics and textiles, and other objects, all having nuanced meanings in contemporary Pakistani society, to play with often-unchallenged ideas of gender and social roles, colonial legacies, social/collective psyche, and manifestations of the human desire to fit it  by cultivating the appearance sophistication, prosperity, and power.

“The most apparent thing is a domestic space that comes through from these constructions. It’s a metaphor for roles, persona, pretenses, power play, control, etc. Domesticity is a tool that I use to connect various issues with the larger picture. You see a quiet wall lamp with a small painting under it but on close inspection the painting is of disturbance or violence.” (Verve)

The Indians Viewing the Landscape, (Image:Uddari Art Exhibition)

“Indians Viewing the Landscape, 2010, a modified rendition of Thomas Cole’s eponymous nineteenth-century painting of two Native Americans looking out at an idyllic pastoral setting. The work hovers just above the floor, at the “eye level” of two ornate miniature chairs satirically completing the installation. Engaging the Hudson River School through British-born Cole and displaying the work in New York also suggests something of the complex relations among America, Britain, and its colonies in the period. Syed’s exploration of these topics aptly calls attention to the less studied relationship between Victorian history and South Asian Muslim cultures, and offers a lens into complex issues of both past and present in contemporary Pakistan.”  (Art Forum)

The Cushion (Image:Uddari Art Exhibition)

Tent of Darius  (Image:Uddari Art Exhibition)

Landscape 0208  (Image:Uddari Art Exhibition)

Landscape 0223  (Image:Uddari Art Exhibition)

“Homes are a reflection of one`s ideas/ideals about life. I use homes as a metaphor of our worldview. They are also reflective of our collective psyche that manifests itself in the form of white houses, or Mughal jharokas or Swati carvings—I’ve been intrigued by the idea and used `ideal homes` or `trendy homes` in my work to comment on the crossroads we are in history.” (Dawn.com)

Untitled VI (Source: Rohtas Gallery)

“In this particular series I’m looking at the back walls of houses of the new burgeoning housing schemes in Lahore. These are supposed to be new ideal middle class homes/houses/buildings and their back walls are a reality one cannot escape…”

Untitled VII  (Source: Rohtas Gallery)

Read More

Click Image to go to: The Idea of a House (scroll to the article)

In Her Own Words

Excerpted from Canvas Magazine’s Interview with the 2012 ACAP winners.

How does it feel to win the Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012?  It is exciting because it is something that stays in your in head once you have submitted the proposal. It is great that we have this opportunity where you have a fund that helps different artists realise their individual projects. The thing is, winning ACAP doesn’t just reward your proposal with a prize, it also helps you develop your body of work. Through this prize, I am also being introduced to this region and fellow artists, which is another interesting aspect of the process.

You live in Lahore, Pakistan. How does the country’s socio-political context inform your paintings?  In my paintings, which also incorporate other media, I tackle themes that are linked to my life, experiences and surroundings in Lahore. My oeuvre is related to topics pertaining to history, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, and how the events that occurred back then are still impacting our everyday lives today, both in Lahore and the rest of the world. I compare the socio-political situation then versus now. I usually come up with a basic idea and eventually, the work takes on a life of its own. The piece for ACAP is based on my previous works.

Will your 2012 ACAP piece be the first time you work so closely with a curator?  Yes, definitely. It will be an interesting process as I usually work on my own without any external input. It is a tight deadline, so as I am producing the work in Pakistan; Nat Muller [ACAP 2012 curator] and I will be communicating via phone and Skype. We will also try to meet in person as often as possible in the next few months.

Next Up:  Taysir Batniji

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The DAS Spring Goddess at London Fashion Week, In Stores Now

By Christine on February 11, 2012

Source: Haute Muslimah

OK, I’m a bit behind 0n posting these images since DAS showed their Goddess collection at  London Fashion week  in September, participating as emerging-talent designers for the House of Evolution runway show. (Source:  Under Your Abaya)   Since DAS recently announce on their Facebook Page that their spring collection is now available at  Harrod’s (ss of February 2, 2012), it seems like a great time to share some images from their Spring collection.

” The S/S ’12 ready-to-wear collection, designed entirely by Reem and Hind, is called “Goddess”, taking inspiration from the strong, regal and fine women of Ancient Greece and Rome. The pieces incorporate interesting details such as draping, cut out details, metal panels (to give the illusion of armour), layered fabrics and Grecian straps, in a colour palette of soft pastels like sea blue, marble grey and pink blush.” (Under Your Abaya)

Images from:  Candy and Couture

I absolutely love this collection, and I like the addition of separates.  My favorite piece:  the gray dress I opened the piece with.  My favorite separate: the armored leggings.

To read a full review of the collection, check out this article in Khaleej-esque.

 

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Abraaj Capital Art Prize Winners: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige

By Christine on February 7, 2012

Image: Doha Film Institute (DFI)

The Doha Film Institute produced this video portrait of Joana and Khalil as part of I AM FILM.  This is a great introduction to the duo, their projects, and raison d’être.

Below, their full bio provided by Abraaj Capital Art Prize:

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige are Lebanese artists and filmmakers. For the last 15 years they have focused on the images, memory and history of their home country, Lebanon.

Together they have directed documentaries such as Khiam 2000-2007 and El Film el Mafkoud (The lost film), and feature films such as Al Bayt el Zaher (1999) and A Perfect Day (2005). Their last feature film Je Veux Voir (I want to see), starring Catherine Deneuve and Rabih Mroue, premiered at Cannes Film festival in 2008. It was awarded ‘Film Singulier’ by French critics.  Their films have been enthusiastically received, won many awards in international festivals and have enjoyed releases in many countries.

They have created numerous photographic installations, among them: Faces, Lasting Images, Distracted Bullets, The Circle of Confusion, Don’t walk, War Trophies, Landscape of Khiem, A Fareway Souvenir and the multifaceted project Wonder Beirut.

Their artwork has been shown in museums, biennials and art centers around the world and are part of important public and private collections, such as Musee d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, FNAC France, Guggenheim, New York, Centre Georges Pompidou, France and the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE. They presented their most recent art project, Lebanese Rocket Society, Elements for a monument (2011) at the Sharjah Biennial and Biennale de Lyon.

They are the authors of numerous publications and university lecturers in Lebanon and France, members of the board of Metropolis Cinema and co-founders of Abbout Productions with Georges Schoucair. Hadjithomas is also a board member of the Ashkal Alwan Academy, Home Workspace. They are represented by CRG Gallery, New York, In Situ Fabienne Leclerc, Paris and The Third Line, Dubai and live between Beirut and Paris. www.hadjithomasjoreige.com

Please Note:  Home Workspace, a 10-month interdisciplinary arts program that targets emerging artists who wish to develop their formal, historical, and critical skills and practice in a supportive environment in Beirut, is accepting applications for 2012 through February 28th, 2012.

Lebanese Rocket Society

Part of an ongoing, multi-faceted artwork, Lebanese Rocket Society includes videos, installations, archival images and a  film.

In the 1960′s, a little-known group that called themselves The Lebanese Rocket Society, was founded at Haigazian University to beef-up the Science Club.   Turning their attention to rocketry,  this group of students, mostly freshmen, built and launched the rockets that mark the Arab World‘s entry into the space race.  While they saw their success and reputations grow, by 1967, the group abruptly disbanded.   These days, many people do not know about or remember the wonderful scientific achievements that made Lebanon part of the thrilling exploration of space travel.

 

“We are not interested in nostalgia for the 1960s,” says Hadjithomas, “we are more interested in how we perceived ourselves as Arabs in the 1960s. What were our notions of modernity, science and knowledge? What was our faith in all that and why did it disappear?”

Source:  Kaelen Wilson-Goldie’s fantastic, must read article in the National.

This image, a reproduction of a 1964 postage stamp produced by the Lebanese postal service,  commemorates the 21st anniversary of Lebanese Independence, and depicts one of HU’s Cedar rockets.  Read the full article here: HU produced the 1st rockets shot in the Arab world

The 8-meter replica of the Cedar IV is the most famous of the high-performance projectiles that were launched over Lebanon in the 1960s, (only to disappear in the Mediterranean immediately thereafter) is shown here at the Sharjah Art Museum as part of the 2011 Sharjah Biennial. (Source: The National)

8-meter replica of the Cedar IV at the 2011 Sharjah Biennial

This is one of the only photos of the rocket I have without my (then) 3 year-old son in it. He was, of course, fascinated with this piece! In fact, my son had a blast at the 2011 Sharjah Biennial.

Most of my images are versions of this.

Another component of this project is a Golden Record of the Lebanese Rocket Society, comprised of  sounds from the period, that are broadcast from a loudspeaker hidden inside the model rocket.   Inspiration came from the Voyager Golden Records, discs on board both Voyager probes that are carrying the sounds of the Earth into the solar system.  (Source: New Scientist)

Je Veux Voir (I Want to See)

Je Veux Voir (I Want to See) 2008  International actress and film star Catherine Denueve plays a version of herself, a celebrity actress in Beirut for work.  In this story, our protagonist doesn’t want to avoid danger and the ugliness of politically-driven aggression and destruction, she wants to see it for herself.  The setting is Lebanon in the aftermath of the 2006 Israel bombings.  With her driver, actor Rabih Mroué, and a film crew, played by Hadjithomas and Joreige, the crew sets off on a quasi-vision-quest that blurs the lines between fiction and reality.  Je Veux Voir premiered at Cannes Film festival in 2008,  and was awarded Best Singular Film by the French Critics Syndicate.

I was unable to find a trailer with English subtitles, so here it is en français.

Wonder Beirut

Between 1968 and 1969, Abdallah Farah took glamorous images of Beirut to promote it in the eyes of the world, and to Lebanon itself, as modern and sophisticated, a cosmopolitan Mediterranean Riviera.  Farah’s images are so timeless, they are  still sold in tourist shops in Lebanon today.

In 1975, the Lebanese civil war broke out, and with that, Farrah started burning his prized images in secret.

Performing “pyro-cartography” to the negatives , removing buildings from the scene as they were bombed and burned in real-life.  In the 1990′s, Hadjithomas and Joreige discovered Farrah’s secret, and decided to print the images.

See more images from Wonder Beirut as well as an expanded write-up from Nobody’s Property: Art, Land, Space, 2000-2010:  Wonder Beirut History of a Pyromaniac Photographer-1998 to 2006

Educating, Producing, & Expanding Accessibility

Hadjithomas and Joreige are the authors of numerous publications and university lecturers in Lebanon and France, members of the board of Metropolis Cinema, an organization that strives to develop a cinema culture in Lebanon, and is the only location that shares auteur films in the country, and they are co-founders of Abbout Productions with Georges Schoucair.

Click the image to go to Abbout Productions. Images are a selection of films produced by Abbout.

Abbout Productions produces feature films and documentaries and supports Arabic-language movies with a distinctly Arab voice, expressing the identity of the region. The company was established in 1998 by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige to accomplish and co-produce movies. Georges Schoucair joined Khalil and Joanna as Abbout Production’s producer shortly after the release of their first feature films.  (Source:  Abbout Productions)

Abbout Production’s Stray Bullet is directed by Georges Hachem and stars Nadine Labaki.

(Labaki is a director, as well as an actress.  You can watch her 2008 film, Carmel, with your Netflix subscription.)

In Their Own Words

Excerpted from the Canvas Magazine interview with the Abraaj Capital Winners.

Khalil Joreige (Lebanon)

How does it feel to win the Abraaj Capital Art Prize 2012?  On one hand you are excited but the other, because it is another project on a different scale, you start to think about what you have to sacrifice and how much energy you will need to devote to it. It is a small moment of panic but we are obviously very happy! This project is something that we really wanted to do but couldn’t on our own as it requires a big budget. The process will be an adventure as we are using new media and tools.

Joana Hadjithomas and yourself have been working on films as an artist duo for 15 years now. Is there a division of work each time you approach a project?  No. Joana and I are very different people with different rhythms, obsessions and stories that are sharing common fields of research through art. I truly believe in encounters and that someone else can help enlarge my own potential.

You consider yourselves researchers and your oeuvre tackles themes pertaining to your homeland, Lebanon. What are some of the questions that you are hoping to answer through your feature films and documentaries?  Most of my work is based on Lebanon and deals with how I can deal with my own presence there. Through the films, I try to find a place where I can reconfigure myself in the belief that I am actually there. It is all about context. For example, in our 2008 feature film Je Veux Voir (I Want to See), we place French actress Catherine Deneuve at the Lebanese-Israeli border. We are posing questions such as ‘How can you believe in such fiction?’, ‘What makes you believe in it?’ Creating a specific scenario within a certain context can either be believable or not. It is a question of narration. We are hoping that each time we produce a piece, it creates a setting where people think it can actually happen. It is both art and cinema.

Next Up:  Risham Syed

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Dreams: My Art Dubai 2011 in Pictures

By Christine on January 26, 2012

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”  Yoko Ono

With all my writing and researching artists, curators, and events for Art Dubai 2012, my anticipation for what I will discover this year is growing stronger by the day.

I put together a selection of photographs taken during my time at Art Dubai last year.  I think this will help everyone understand why I’m so excited to attend again this year; it’s truly an art luvah and photographer’s dream!   I set my photos to one of my favorite songs, Faye Wong’s cover of Dreams  from Wong Kar-wai‘s Chungking Express.  Attending Art Dubai was a dream of mine and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one there experiencing a dream coming true, so it seems fitting.

Last year, friends and family gifted me the funds to make the trip, so these photos are extra-special to me because they represent votes of confidence and support from the people who love me in my pursuit of my goal of changing my life and following my desire to be an art, culture, and travel blogger and photographer.  I hope you enjoy it, and until then, please keep checking in for my stories on the people and projects that shape the more non-commercial side of  the event.

For best viewing, I recommend keeping it at the smaller size, and not taking it to full screen.

My Art Dubai 2011 by C Donley Allababedi from christine donley on Vimeo.

If you have any questions about the art, artists, or galleries, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.

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2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize Winner: Raed Yassin Audio/Visual/Fantasmical

By Christine on January 24, 2012

Images from Yassin’s My Space Page, where you can hear samples of his solo music projects.

Raed Yassin is a solo artist and part of an art collective, he is also a musician with several projects, runs a record label, organizes a music festival, and god only knows what else.   According to Kaelen Wilson-Goldie in her article about Yassin in The National last year, he also has “an enviable  archive of rare Arabic pop songs on 7-inch vinyl, an encyclopaedic knowledge of Egyptian movies,  from the “Hollywood on the Nile” era of the 1950s to the independent scene of the 1980s and the lowest-common-denominator-comedies that are today’s commercial blockbusters. He is a fan and avid recycler of any subgenre of film or music perceived as trashy, mass-produced or voraciously consumed.”

The obsession with underground and popular culture production is apparent in his work.  It is so strongly felt that even when it leaves basements and sweaty places of abstract sounds and scratchy images to take temporary shelter in the more sterile environment of the gallery, it maintains its raw edges and kinetic qualities.

Raed Yassin strikes me as an artist who approaches art making with voracity, heart, and a balls to the wall  je ne sais quoi.  Maybe it is that energy that has drawn me into every story, made me want to listen to everything he has to say over his countless projects, and resulted in my taking an extra week to create this blog post because I couldn’t stop digging deeper into his work.

So here are his art stats, followed with samples of some of my favorite works and projects by Raed Yassin.

Raed Yassin was born in Beirut in 1979. He graduated from the theatre department at the Institute of Fine Arts in Beirut in 2003.  He has exhibited and performed his work in numerous museums, festivals and venues across Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Japan, including “Sharjah Biennial 10″ (2011), Delfina Foundation in London (2010-2011) where he has completed a residency program, “Manifesta 8″ in Murcia (2010-2011), Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2011), De – Ateliers in Amsterdam following a 2-year residency, “Home Works 5″ in Beirut, (2010) and Photo Cairo 4 (2008). Yassin was awarded the Fidus Prize for The Best of Sammy Clark at Beirut Art Center’s Exposure (2009), the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2012), the AFAC grant for production (2010), the YATF grant for production (2008) and the Cultural Resource grant for production (2008). Yassin is one of the organizers of IRTIJAL Festival, and has released 10 music albums and founded the production company Annihaya in 2009. He is also a founding member of “Atfal Ahdath” a Beirut based art collective. He currently lives and works in Beirut and represented by Kalfayan Galleries (Athens – Thessaloniki). (Source: The New Museum)

Who Killed The King Of Disco

When you type  the words “Who Killed” into Goggle,  auto-fill creates a long list of important men whose deaths are shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theory.  In 1984, Yassin’s father was murdered, and the unsolved mystery of what happened to him is an ongoing theme in his work.  Unlike say Tupac or JFK where political conspiracy, power, and rivalry drive the narratives of their absence, Yassin’s explanation of what happened to his father, the theme of Who Killed the King of Disco, is much less sinister than a Mossad hit; his father becomes a martyr to  fame, a family man who changes his name, and leaves Beirut to be an actor of Egyptian cinema at the suggestion of a sexy Egyptian actress who comes to one of his infamous disco parties.

“The actor, Mahmoud Yassin, is for real. The images we see of him in Yassin’s video loops and multimedia installations are Polaroids and distorted stills from pirated VHS copies of his best-known films. But he wasn’t Yassin’s father. Moreover, he is still alive.

Yet some details of the story contain elements of truth: Yassin’s father was a fashion designer; he was away from his family for a brief but agonising period of time; his absence was painful, then irreversible; and the circumstances of his death – whether the result of a dispute among friends or a gambling debt – offered little consolation to his son either then, at the age of five, or even now, at 32.

“Just as you can never go back to the golden age of Egyptian cinema,” Yassin writes in a statement introducing Who Killed the King of Disco, “you can never go back to what happened when your father died, or piece together the facts that explain his murder in any concrete, accurate way.” The only things you can recover are “moments, possibilities and interpretations, all as fictional as the medium through which they are told.”   (The National)

I see Who Killed the King of Disco as a story of creative hero’s journey to realize his performative dreams.  It is not a story where the hero meets his demise, it is one where he triumphs, rides off into the sunset, lives happily ever after, all the things a son wants for his father.  In many ways I feel the protagonist could be Raed Yassin himself.  A man desiring to live an artists life of  freedom, happiness, and creativity, and if not famous, then successfully.  All the things a creative father would want for his  artist son.

Images and text are excerpts from the publication commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation for Who Killed the King of Disco.

My father was a disco addict

He was a good dancer and seducer

Maybe this is the only thing that I inherited form him, besides a leather jacket

My father was easily tempted by the offer and began spending time in front of the mirror acting

In order to take up this job he had to leave the family behind in Beirut and move to Cairo to become an actor

That was the last I saw of him

He was laughing, dancing, and kissing on TV

Take Me to This Place: I Want to Do the Memories

Aftal Ahdath is a Beirut based collective comprised of members Vartan Avakian, Hatem Imam and Raed Yassin.  In Take Me to This Place: I Want to Do the Memories,  Atfal Ahdath made their own cheeky, fantasy portraits and video using photo studios across the Middle East, in good fun and critique of fantasy and fame.

It’s difficult for me to pick my favorite component of the piece, but this video ranks really high  for its sticky-sweet, self-congratulatory posturing.  It  blows my mind and makes me smile simultaneously.

“….a large-scale comment on the use of photographic manipulation to convey fantasy and aspiration. The collective explores the role of images and the photographic studio in perpetuating society’s fascination with fame. …Take me to this place: I want to do the memories offers a reflection on the evolution of the studio tradition in the digital age.  Their dioramic installation, consisting of video projection, digital image sequence and photomontage, features portraits of its members taken in popular photographic studios in Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo.”  (Sharjah Art Foundation)

Images are excerpted from the publication commissioned by the Sharjah Art Foundation for Take Me to This Place: I Want to Do the Memories

 

I love this one, there’s something so Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe about it.

Praed

Praed is a musical duet of Raed Yassin and Paed Conca.  Last summer, they released this statement with their  6th album.

“After six years of musical and artistic collaboration, Praed give us their third CD to date, reaching even further into their exploration of collective memory, both individual and shared. Shades of jazz, bits and pieces of popular Arabic music, sound traces from their Japanese and European tours are some of the many features of this elaborate audio suite.

One project after the other, Raed Yassin & Paed Conca developed a savvy way of piling up material, mixing them in a way that gives them a whole new life. Samples of various origins including vinyl, radio material and excerpts from Egyptian movie soundtracks combined with their own instrumental combo of electric bass, clarinet, electronics, synthesizers & double-bass. Significantly, most of the pieces on this recording are the offshoots of live performances.” (Source: Annihaya)

Indeed.  I L-O-V-E this performance of experimental music with accompanying video projection. I find this piece mesmerizing.

And here is another performance that is on the other end of the emotive spectrum with this ecstatic performance in Lebanon.

Irtijal International Festival

Yassin’s contribution to expanding community art making practices is through his work as an organizer of Lebanon’s Irtijal Festival.  Initiated in 2001, Irtijal is so far the only festival in Lebanon devoted to experimental music, free jazz, free improvisation, contemporary and other new and innovative forms of music making. Irtijal takes place (more or less) during the first week of April. (Source:  Irtijal)

In His Own Words

Excerpt from Canvas Magazine Interview with Raed and the other Abraaj Winners.

What is your artistic approach and how is it influenced by the diverse media you use?
I work with various media such as video, film, text, music and performance. My background in theatre and music has greatly inspired my work, which mainly revolves around the theme of the development of the cinematic image through mass production with a particular focus on pop culture. I observe pop culture in the Arab world and how it is affected by political, social and economic events especially from the 1960s until the present.

 

What current themes are you examining in your work?
I am currently finishing a film I have been working on since 2008 about Cairo. Egyptian films and music have been a main theme in my work for a long time. I feel a special relationship with Egypt because it has the biggest film industry in the region. Through the examination of current pop culture in the Middle East, we can gain an understanding of current trends. I think an artist’s role is to create a spotlight on certain events so that they can be re-examined and remembered. My work is not political but I think art is closely connected to politics, especially in the Arab world where politics is so closely tied to everyday life.

 

How does it feel to be a recipient of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize?
It feels fantastic! It is wonderful to have such an opportunity because it allows me to access to the material and time to produce a powerful work of art.

 

Horror is Universal (The End) at the New Museum NYC Thursday January 26th, 2012

If you are in New York, you should head to The New Museum on Thursday January 26th to check out a performance by Yassin of his “Horror is Universal” (The End), a video and music performance.  Presented as part of “Museum as Hub: Beirut Art Center,” organized by guest curators Sandra Dagher and Lamia Joreige.

“For the last eight years, Raed Yassin has been undergoing a lifelong project of deconstructing Arab popular culture by sampling audio and visual material from TV, radio, pop songs, and feature films. “Horror is Universal” (The End) is considered a milestone in his evolving oeuvre: a multimedia saga performed live by the artist, it involves mixing and rearranging video extracts from dozens of ’80s Egyptian B-movies on screen, while spinning vintage LPs of popular Arabic music and incorporating electronic instrumentation and singing, to create a unique yet disturbing soundtrack progressing towards a chilling finale. It is, in essence, an attempt at fabricating a non-existent genre in twentieth-century Egyptian cinema—horror—by splicing together the viewers’ collective memory of those all too familiar ‘scary moments’ reenacted by the cheap cinematic production of yesteryear.” (The New Museum)

 Fin

Raed Yassin is a fascinating artist, and I’m anticipating something amazing for his Abraaj Capital project.  With such a chunky budget, I wonder where he will go with this work. Will it be visual, sound, or performance art?  Scary, touching, or mind-bending?    Well, 8 weeks and counting to see what Mr. Yassin has in store for us at Art Dubai 2012.

Up Next:  Joana Hadithomas & Khalil Joreige

 

 

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2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize Winner: Wael Shawky

By Christine on January 12, 2012

This is the first in a series of posts about the winners of the 2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize, to be unveiled at Art Dubai in March. For an introduction to the Art Prize, please see the tab Abraaj Art Prize on the menu. There you will find in addition to the introduction, links to other posts about the Art Prize, 2012 Winners, Curator Nat Muller, etc, as they become available.

I’m kicking off with Wael Shawky, one of my favorite artists.  His work was one of my great discoveries attending Art Dubai 2011.   I saw Shawky’s presentation of Cabaret Crusades, a multifaceted project centered around telling the story of the Crusades from an Arab perspective using 200-year-old Italian marionettes, at the Sharjah Art Foundation March Meetings, and  more work exhibited at Art Dubai.  I was immediately enchanted with this project, and I have enjoyed getting to know the rest of his body of work.   In fact, this is the case with several Abraaj Art Prize winners.

Egyptian artist Wael Shawky  creates work that provocatively explore themes like ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in our shifting, hybridized world, and translates unresolved, and transitioning issues of religion, culture and  globalization.  This translation does not address an end-point, but depicts a moment of transition.

In photographs, installations, videos and performances, he mines traditions of entertainment and performance in multi-layered reconstruction and retelling of history that force viewers to navigate the territory of truth, myth, stereotype and cliché.

Born in 1971, Shawky completed a BFA at The University of Alexandria, followed by an MFA at the University of Pennsylvania in 2000. His work has featured in international solo exhibitions including at Istanbul Biennial (2011) Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, Biella, Italy (2010), the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo (2008), KVS, Brussels (2007), Galeria Sztuki Wspolczesnej, Bunkier Sztukim, Krakow (2007), Ludwigsburg Kunstverein, Germany (2005), and in group shows at Queens Museum of Art , New York (2009), Schunck-Glaspaleis, Heerlen (2009), Santa Fe Biennial (2008), Musée d’Art Contemporain de Nîmes (2008), Riwaq Biennale, Palestine (2007), Moscow Biennale (2007), Istanbul Biennial (2005), and the Venice Biennale (2003).

Awards received include:  the International Commissioning Grant, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, New York (2005), The International Award of The Islamic World Arts Initiative, Arts International, New York (2004), The American Center Foundation Grant, Philadelphia (2004), Honorary Award, Rita Longa International Symposium, Bayamo, Cuba (2001), and The Grand Nile Prize, Cairo Biennial (1996). Shawky lives and works in Alexandria.

Source: Sharjah Art Foundation

Shawky is also the recipient of the Ernst Schering Foundation  award for 2011: “Wael Shawky’s film oeuvre is remarkably impressive due to its consistent development and extraordinary precision: His re-performances of historical and political events ignite unconventional perspectives. He creates images that are crafted with technical mastership and therefore induce an immediate persuasiveness.”

Key Works:

Images:  Universes in Universe and Art in America

In Cabaret Crusades, Shawky uses the Lupi Family Collection of precious 200-year-old marionettes to tell the story of the Crusades from the Arab perspective, based on Amin Maalouf’s classic, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.

“In a retelling of the first crusades from the years 1096-1099, Shawky has made highly intricate film starring 200 year-old marionettes from the Italian Lupi Collection. This horror film of sorts follows the course of events after a Papal mandate sent half-a-million Franks on a military campaign to ‘reclaim’ Jerusalem from the Muslim armies. Mining this transformative historical moment for its profound resonance today, Shawky’s film examines the causes and effects of religious war and its impact on European and Arab relations while laying bare the question of who pulls the strings of history.”

Source: Sfeir-Semler Gallery.  Follow the link to see extensive documentation of Shawky’s  present and past works.

Lebanon’s Daily Star wrote an in-depth article on Cabaret Crusades including the best description of the story and film I have found to date. You can read it here:  Civilization Clash: Who Pulls the Strings?

Wael Shawky’s 2011 Presentation on Cabaret Crusades at Sharjah March Meetings.

Cabaret Crusades – Wael Shawky from Sharjah Art Foundation on Vimeo.

 

“Al-Aqsa Park” is an animated film installation where the Dome of the Rock, the symbolic referring to the al-Aqsa complex in Jerusalem, is displayed as a fairground carousel. Although the work brings an additional reflection on the intersection of the discourses of political systems and religiosity, a theme salient to Shawky’s rich career, the al-Aqsa Park installation is essentially centered on the idea of controlled entertainment that the experience of riding a carousel, as well as its spectacle, delivers. The carousel, conventionally the center-piece of a fair, circling at a speed to generate weightlessness and ‘freedom’, is actually a machine maneuvered by an operator, according to a tightly controlled schedule.  (Source:  Meeting Point 5)

Engaging and Championing the Arts Throughout the MENASA Region

2012 Abraaj Winners share a common link of championing the arts by supporting artists and artistic production, and strengthening the artistic infrastructure of the region.

Reading Group: Collective re-writing of John Berger's text Ways of Seeing, with curator Sarah Rifky. Image from MASS Alexandria.

MASS Alexandria

Wael Shawky started MASS Alexandria in 2010 to provide an opportunity for independent study and learning for artists in Egypt. MASS Alexandria is located in the east-Alexandrian neighborhood of Miami. The 440-sqm space is housed in the basement of a residential building. The basement is a shared studio, meeting, screening and performance space. Through its program, MASS Alexandria aims to supplement existing art education programs, with a focus on the conceptual aspects of artistic production. Monthly workshops, seminars and lectures are led by artists, art educators and curators. Focusing on contemporary artistic practices, the program also encourages students to work closely with cultural, artistic and scientific ideas in the fields of art history and theory and inter-disciplinary studies.

Read more on the MASS Alexandria website.

In His Own Words

Film still from The Cave, 2004

Excerpt from Canvas Magazine Interview with Wael and the other Abraaj Winners.

What themes are you currently examining within your work?

I am interested in history. I like to explore the way in which we write and document historical events. My work also concerns the idea of cultural hybridity and how different systems in various societies can work together. For example, I examine how a society can move from one stage to another such as the development of an agricultural society to one which is more modernized and technologically proficient. I spent seven years of my childhood in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. My experiences during this time continue to permeate my work such as the idea of modernity for a predominantly Bedouin and Islamic society. I am not interested in the end result of this development because it is continuous; what fascinates me and what I want to depict is the moment of transition. It is a great pleasure to be chosen for the Abraaj Captial Art Prize because it is taking place so close to home.

 

What is your artistic approach and how is it influenced by the diverse media you use?

I work with video, installation, drawing and performance. I believe that each media has its own limitations; not every medium can precisely capture the theme I would like to transmit. I am working more and more with video because I am interested in the dimension of time and how it interacts with the public and its interaction with the public. However, for Abraaj I chose to work with installation once again alongside the theme of history and how the public deals with specific historical moments.

 

What do you want to impart to the audience through your work?

I am very happy that there is a prize like Abraaj in the Middle East. Most of my time is spent in the international art scene abroad and I rarely get a chance to partake in an event in the region. I cannot compare what I make in Egypt to what is created in Germany or in the US. Making a work specifically tailored for Abraaj is important to me because it is taking place so close to home. Exhibiting it in Dubai allows me to best communicate my work in the Middle East from where it was made and from where I come.

 

Conclusion:

I’m super excited to see what Wael Shawky reveals as his Abraaj Capital Art Prize work at Art Dubai.  I also have my fingers crossed that Cabaret Crusades will be presented at Art Dubai.  After an extensive video search, I have not been able to find anything but images, and I’m dying to see it.  Honestly, I haven’t been this excited to see a video work since The Cremaster Cycle!

Next Artist:  Raed Yassin

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New Artists, New Ideas, Art Dubai 2012

By Christine on January 6, 2012

Every January, my thoughts turn to shimmering sands, 74 galleries from around the globe, an exciting line up of art events happening across Dubai and the Gulf region, and a super-swank meeting of art luvahs from every corner of the planet, looking for their fix of art and ideas from the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asian.  I’m dreaming of Art Dubai 2012.

This year, Art Dubai’s 6th, promises to be as fun, fascinating, and ground-breaking as ever. Now well established and thoughtfully capitalizing on their historical role as a well positioned, important port city and place of exchange and cross-cultural dialogue, Art Dubai continues to push boundaries and provide a platform for histories in the making.  It has become an essential meeting point for artists, art lovers, collectors, and arts organizations to connect, learn, and feel the pulse of MENASA art production.

In 2011, 20,000 Art Dubai visitors witnessed how the Arab Spring was impacting artists and artistic production across regions through art work that reflected the spirit of the times.  It is still an exciting time to be part this dialogue between artist and viewer.

Programming is still being announced, but here are just a few things I’m already excited about from Art Dubai 2012:

Abraaj Capital Prize Works

The Abraaj Capital Art Prize exists to empower potential and give often under-represented, contemporary artists from the vibrant MENASA region the resources to further develop their talent and a global platform on which to showcase their works and their region. Artists are selected from proposals, and then go on to complete the works to be presented at Art Dubai.  The 2012 winners are an internationally acclaimed and diverse group who combine outstanding artistic ability with a desire to engage and champion the arts throughout the region.   All the winners have a strong exhibition history regionally and internationally, and are actively involved in inspiring the next generation of artists from the region to achieve success.

The winning artists are:

Taysir Batniji (Palestine), Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Lebanon), Wael Shawky (Egypt), Risham Syed (Pakistan),  Raed Yassin (Lebanon)

Works by this year’s artists will be presented to the public on the opening night of Art Dubai.

(Source: Abraaj Capital Art Prize)

Global Art Forum 5

The critically-acclaimed Global Art Forum, a series of art talks with some of the worlds most influential artists, curators, and cultural operators,  is under the directorship of curator and writer Shumon Basar, and expands to six days this year. It begins at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar, March 18-19, and continues at Art Dubai, March 21-24. The line-up is yet to be announced, and I have no doubt it will be as exciting, dynamic, and thought provoking as ever.  Shumon Basar is a provocative and exciting thinker, so I’m curious to see what he’s manifesting for 2012.

Read this fantastic article in Art Territories by Shumon Basar.  Introduction:  If you travelled through Dubai’s various ‘zones’ between the years 2001 and 2008, chances are you’d have felt equally nowhere and everywhere at the same time. All the world was there, for the first time, once. The fate of so-called ‘cities from zero’ in the 21st century is haunted by the histories of cities-past. This presentation is an awry look – using fiction and narration – at how here is always, approximately speaking, there. ZERO CITY: (APPROXIMATE) DÉJÀ-VU

 Art Week

Art Week will play an important part in Art Dubai’s continual efforts to grow art audiences, support local talent, and provide educational opportunities for locally-based students and graduates. Launched during Art Dubai 2011, Art Week ( which will take place from 15 -25 March in 2012) is an umbrella initiative that includes new gallery exhibitions and artists’ projects, fairs, performances and major museum shows, taking place across the UAE and the Gulf to coincide with Art Dubai. (Source: Art in the City)

One such program is the Sikka Art Fair,  highlighting the work of local Emirati talent and taking place at the scenic Al Bastakiya.  Al Bastakiya is an icon of the city’s unique architectural and cultural heritage, and home to private galleries and cultural activities, creating another unique art experience for visitors.

MARKER

2011 Participants MAKAN @ Art Dubai

Marker, the curated section of ‘concept stands’ launched in 2011, this year turns its focus to the Indonesian arts scene. Commissioned by Art Dubai, the renowned, Yogyakartaborn curator Alia Swastika has invited five Indonesian galleries – Ark Galerie, Biasa Artspace, Galerie Canna, D’Gallerie, and Jogja Contemporary – to participate; they are now working with artists to produce new work for the fair in March 2012.

Curator of the upcoming Jogja Biennial and one of the artistic directors of the 9th Gwangju Biennial, Ms Swastika commented: “Like the Middle East, Indonesia has witnessed the growth of an extraordinarily dynamic arts scene, where art is perceived not only as an integral part of life, but as a tool to reflect on society. Exhibiting at Art Dubai offers Indonesian artists a ‘connecting door’ to be a part of this new era in contemporary Muslim societies, and for the art world at large to get to know our artists, as they take to the international stage.”

 And so it begins…..

Like last year, I am already obsessed with learning more about the artists, art groups, curators, speakers, and thought leadership that is coming out of Art Dubai 2012, and I will be blogging extensively about it over the next couple months.

With any luck, I’ll be attending Art Dubai 2012, (and yes, you can hire me to write for you!) until then, dreams of art will be dancing in my head.

Next week, I will be posting on the Abraaj Capital Art Prize winners and their curator for 2012, with a re-cap of past winners, including an updated section on the 2011 projects.

Next Post:  Abraaj Capital Art Prize Winner:  Wael Shawky

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My Favorite Blogs From The Middle East

By Christine on December 21, 2011

Recently, one of my favorite blogs, The Polyglot, announced they were selected by ELLE Arab World as one of the 6 best blogs from the Middle East.

Blogs, websites, and Twitter are my main sources of information on art, culture, and news from the Middle East, so I’m super excited to spend some time exploring these sites.

If you’re interested in a more robust and contemporary view of the Middle East than the one presented in the mainstream media, check these out and prepare to see new worlds:

Culeenary:  experience the middle east through food.  Great stories, gorgeous pictures, easy to try recipes.  This site is a real gem!

Multanimous by Hana Alireza :  writing from Beirut, Elle calls her a guru on life enhancement with the IT factor, I concur.

The Overdressed by Bahrain’s hippest fashion blogger Dana Al Khalifa  uses beautiful images to share her love of couture and high fashion.  A woman after my own heart.

Green Prophet:  green and sustainable practices are alive and thriving throughout the Middle East, check out this comprehensive guide to news, tips, and recommendations on environmental issues.

The Arabist is news and ideas out of Cairo, with an insider’s perspective on Egypt and the region.  With all eyes on Egypt these days, this is the place to get your news fast and first-hand.

And of course, The Polyglot!  Oh how I love the current fashion news from the Middle East, but I adore the vintage fashion stories revolving around the Middle East. 

Seeing this list made me want to create my own resource page of MY favorite blogs from the Middle East.  I read for current events, fashion, culture/ideas, green/sustainable, and of course, art.

 

Art Luvah’s Top Website and Blog Picks from the Middle East

*Photos are links to the pictured website.

Brownbook Magazine is the urban guide to the Middle East.  With headquarters in Dubai and a network of writers and creatives across the region, Brownbook delivers the best of art, culture, and ideas, demonstrating the exciting dynamism of  today’s Middle East.

Read and know the world.

“My name is Hind Mezaina and I run The Culturist. My aim is to feature all things that are culture-worthy in Dubai and in any other city I might be in or wish to be in. I am very passionate about movies, photography, Lomography, music, travel and enjoy a good meal. I hope silent movies will make a come back and that Deira will be the new hotspot in Dubai, for the all the real Dubaians.

If you have the same interests, appreciate good taste, good talent and interested in expanding your cultural horizons in Dubai, then I hope you keep visiting and maybe we could be friends.”

Well said Hind.

“Muslimah Media Watch is a forum where we, as Muslim women, can critique how our images appear in the media and popular culture. Although we are of different nationalities, sects, races, etc., we have something important in common: we’re tired of seeing ourselves portrayed by the media in ways that are one-dimensional and misleading. This is a space where, from a Muslim feminist perspective, we can speak up for ourselves.”

Feminist discourse with a side of tough love.

Street and Sartorialist photography out of Lebanon.

Art news, reviews, and writing on the Middle Eastern Art Scene.  Canvas Guide Online shares a few of the great stories from the print magazine online, offering great insight on the Contemporary Middle Eastern art today.

There to keep us in the loop during art fair times, Canvas produces the handy Canvas Daily during Art Dubai and Abu Dhabi Art.

Check out this Canvas Guide from Abu Dhabi Art in November:

2011_CanvasDailyEngIssue_4

Nafas is a great resource for researching any related to art and the Middle East.  Great current articles, reviews, news, and current events.

“Khaleejesque is a thriving lifestyle online magazine that revolves around everything hip and happening in the Arabian Gulf countries when it comes to the continuously evolving cultural scene.  The six countries that make up the GCC – Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar – share closely related culture, history, and values; as well as a similar future. Apart from a couple of blogs and local magazines that do cover this flourishing culture, no one has really attempted to focus on the Gulf.

We aim to do so.  Khaleejesque is essentially a reflection of the Gulf transformed into an online magazine; it’s a one click portal that features everything there is to know about the Gulf. We, the Khaleejesque team, aim to cover the latest in regional happenings, feature interesting people and initiatives and share inspiring stories that are waiting to be told.”

ArteEast presents the works of contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa and their diasporas to a wide audience in order to foster a more complex understanding of the regions’ arts and cultures and to encourage artistic excellence.

A classic, arts and letters style site with writing on art, culture, poetry and literature from the Middle East and their diaspora.

Al Jazeera has become one of the world’s leading news sources.   During the Arab Spring, they were on the ground reporting events live, giving the world unprecedented and uncensored access to the events as they happened.   Al Jazeera is fully wired and one of the most tuned in, turned on, and progressive in terms of utilizing current technology to create a new kind of news organization-public/everyman relationship.  Not satisfied with only reporting the news, Al Jazeera has embraced a role in thought leadership through extensive programming that often matches thought leader from the MENASA region with global counterparts, creating new and exciting conversations.

A major milestone in reporting happened during the Arab Spring when Al Jazeera gathered footage of the Bahrain regimes violent and deadly crack down on protesters, and brought to light the regimes use of Facebook and Twitter to track down protesters using status updates, tweets, and photographs as evidence of treason and the arrests of medical staff for treating protesters injured attacks by the military.  No one else is telling this story.

Oasis Unedited

“Oasis Magazine is the arts & culture magazine that continuously celebrates our cultural heritage and a modern, progressive and young MENA generation. It is the first arts & culture publication of its kind from Saudi Arabia. Here you’ll find updates on arts, culture, fashion, and travel…”

 

 

Geared toward entrepreneurial Middle Easterners, Wamda offers advice on everything from SEO to the top mobile internet trends, to ideas for beating procrastination.

 

 

And finally…..

“Beyond a façade veiled in thick tiers of rope lies a unique shopping and cultural experience that seamlessly bridges East and West. Established in the heart of Riyadh in 2006, D’NA has emerged as an independent fashion voice in the Middle East and on the international scene. More than a fashion boutique, the space is an artfully curated magazine come to life; reflecting its founders’ unique take on all things fashion, culture and design.

Within its loft-like gallery space one will find specially commissioned pieces by an international roster of designers and artists. While mannequins sporting custom creations pose amongst cutting edge furniture and design objects, in vignettes meant to recall iconic fashion images by the likes of Irving Penn, Horst and Avedon.

D’NA is also a 21st century salon of ideas, where exhibits of cutting edge art are frequently held, patrons are encouraged to leaf through stacks of coffee table books and a rotating selection of art house films are projected on a nearby wall. Past screenings have included Max Ophuls’ 1953 masterpiece The Earing’s of Madame de and the 1966 Lana Turner classic Madame X, with its costumes designed by Jean Louis. It is all part of a unique vision to bridge cultures through fashion, art and design.”

There are so many interesting and exciting things happening in the Middle East today; these sites are just a few of hundreds around contemporary culture from the Middle East just waiting to be discovered.

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