Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Naima Morelli
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Manar Abu Dhabi and the role of art in times of conflict
What is the role of art in times of conflict? I gave this some thought during the art light festival, Manar Abu Dhabi, curated by Reem Fadda and Alia Zaal Lootah from 15 November 2023. The festival runs to 30 January 2024. Reem Fadda makes really good pasta with...
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The Menart Fair in Paris signals that art from the Middle East-North Africa is leading the market
The successful Menart Fair that just concluded in Parise is showing how artists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are leading the conversation, while also opening up new perspectives in the European cultural arena. Sometimes we think of art fairs as places where art collectors just go...
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Wonder Cabinet: a new cultural platform opens in Bethlehem
Sometimes art centres are not so different from Coca Cola billboards on a highway. They appear, they take little notice of what’s around them and impose their presence through cultural discourses far removed from the interests and needs of the population. But then what happens to the genius loci,...
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The director of the Palestinian Museum reflects on her years in charge
Duty and care are the words that would best describe the approach of Dr Adila Laidi-Hanieh towards the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit. She is stepping down as director of the museum at the end of this month, and we took the opportunity for her to reflect on her years...
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Artist Alessandra Ferrini explores the complex relationship between Libya and Italy
London-based Italian artist Alessandra Ferrini deepens the conversation around colonial and recent Libyan history, creating work about the manipulation of information, colonial memory, trauma and reparations...
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Rewriting history and building community: Abu Dhabi in the Emirati art environment
Starting this year, Abu Dhabi is building a contemporary art scene tending to the local community, and is positioning itself as the main taste-maker in the discourse on the Global South in the Middle East...
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Saudi artist Hawazin Alotaibi rethinks gender norms and masculinity in the Gulf
Alotaibi doesn't sheer away from using image distortion and experimental printing processes in order to create portrayals of male figures that contend with evolving conceptions of Arab masculinity...
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Exhibition in New York celebrates and subverts Arab American identities
A collective show at CUE Art Foundation in New York reflects on the hybrid identities of Arab Americans. Called “A thought is a memory”, the show is curated by Noel Maghathe and runs until 13 May. The curator believes that a central issue for Arab-Americans is whether or not...
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Saudi Arabia is retelling the Hijrah and shaping a new narrative through art
The exhibition “Hijrah: In the Footsteps of the Prophet” and the documentary “In the Footsteps of the Beloved” are embracing historical and scientific evidence, signalling a change in Saudi Arabia. There is a long sequence in the movie where a Saudi archaeologist, very thin and emaciated, is walking up...
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A new show in Tripoli looks at 70 years of Libya’s consumer culture
The Libyan Pantry Project in Tripoli’s old city recovers the forgotten histories associated with Libya’s consumer culture from the early 1960s to the late ‘90s. It opened on 27 February at the Old Turkish Prison in Signora Maria Square. Aiming to help recover forgotten stories and histories associated with...
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The 3rd Ramallah Art Fair supports the health of Palestinian art
For the next few weeks, the 3rd Ramallah Art Fair is creating a bridge between the local and the international art worlds to nourish Palestinian artists and their collector base. The fair is due to close on 23 February. This is becoming the favourite time of the year for...
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Repackaging Jerusalem: interview with Palestinian artist Bashar Alhroub
The new Dubai show of Ramallah-based artist Bashar Alhroub looks at his native city Jerusalem as a place with multiple identities. “When you are in Jerusalem,” Alhroub told me, “you never feel you are in one single place. You never feel that the city is belonging to anyone, although...
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The Middle Eastern presence at Paris Art Week was extensive
With its two leading art fairs, Paris + Art Basel and ASIA NOW, as well as exhibitions scattered around the city, Paris Art Week 2022 had an extensive presence of Middle Eastern artists and galleries, and paid strong attention to the current situation in Iran. The week is one...
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Women are at the forefront of Oman’s contemporary art scene
Women artists are gaining more and more relevance and traction in the contemporary art scene in Oman. Although the history of Omani women in art is fairly recent, their work conveys their singular experience and perspective within a continuously evolving culture. Their artworks are also truly innovative in terms...
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This artist explores light and perception between French Impressionism and UAE culture
Emirati curator Alia Zaal says her work has been inspired by her father's weak eyesight as 'he was forced to approach art a bit differently, paying a lot of attention to detail'...
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The Visual Arts Forum nurtures Palestinian youth into the world of art
It all started with a simple conversation among Palestinian artists some twenty years ago. It was right after the outbreak of the Second Intifada that some of the most recognised Palestinian artists on the scene, including Muhammad Saleh Khalil and Hani Zurob, started discussing how to use art as...
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Establishing a Palestinian presence at the 2022 Venice Biennale
At the very centre of Palazzo Mora, an old Venetian building, I stepped across the front yard and then through rooms where workers were still setting up artworks from parallel shows, in preparation for the 2022 Venice Art Biennale running from 23 April to 27 November 2022. Finally, I...
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The body as an archive: interview with Farah Saleh
Where does a refugee find her homeland? Perhaps in unexpected places; a memory of the country might emerge through the most mundane gestures, or even from a simple interaction with certain objects. Memories of the homeland are always buried in the refugee’s mind and movements, but in order to...
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Long road to ruin in a burning world: the work of Syrian American artist Diana Al-Hadid
We inhabit a burning world, where everything is constantly dying while also being alive, brightly so. From our emotions to our thoughts and feelings, from our bodies to the plant and animal kingdoms, everything is decaying from the moment it comes into being. This is the concept of the...
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Floating in tar: interview with Palestinian artist Hani Zurob
When we think of political art from Palestine or elsewhere, very rarely do abstract paintings come to mind. We would rather think of militant canvases in a realistic style, photographs depicting injustice, installations criticising power ever so subtly. Abstraction, on the other hand, is like music without words; it...
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Painting in Arabic: the life and work of the late Lebanese artist Etel Adnan
The late Lebanese artist Etel Adnan once said that, “We are used to living in a world of ‘either, or’, but we are complex beings, multiple beings, diverse beings.” Her entire life demonstrated that maxim. Etel Adnan passed away last month, and is being remembered by the Guggenheim Museum...
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'I am Libya': 24-year-old artist Shefa Salem re-imagines Libyan history
What does it mean to be Libyan? How to reconstruct a sense of belonging for the country and its people, starting from the deepest roots of Libyan culture, while preserving diversity? These are the questions that artist, Shefa Salem, is grappling with for her first solo show I am Libya,...
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Power does not defeat memory: interview with Palestinian artist Hazem Harb
Palestinian artist Hazem Harb doesn’t try to define the idea of Palestine in his work. “For me, Palestine just is,” he tells me. “I’m interested in its history and nationalism, but I don’t dwell on them by making straightforward political art. In my work, I’m trying to represent the...
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The unseen and the un-thought: Hunna/ هُنَّ gallery represents powerful women artists from the Gulf
Many of us have misconceptions and preconceived ideas about the art scene in the Gulf countries. Hence, when we see the work of a gallery like Hunna/ هُنَّ — founded this year and representing eight women artists from the Gulf — we open our eyes in disbelief. How can...
