“Opening the first exhibition of Israeli artists in the region is yet another attempt to popularize normalization.”
Dubai
Posted inArt
From Palestine to New York and Back Again: On the Life and Work of Samia Halaby
In the purportedly liberal realm of the art world, an artist like Samia Halaby is certainly deserving of closer attention.
Posted inIn Brief
Fingerprint of Dubai Ruler Becomes the Ominous Foundation of New Skyscraper
A proposed supertall building in Dubai will use the fingerprint of the Emirate ruler to make its mark.
Posted inArt
In Dubai, an Exhibition Probes the Oil Industry’s Impact on Middle Eastern Society
In the Jameel Arts Centre’s inaugural exhibit, 17 artists explore how the discovery of oil in the Arab region has both harmed and benefited the people living there.
Posted inNews
Art Jameel Unveils Plans for Complex in Dubai, Launches Acquisition Fund for Metropolitan Museum
A new arts complex in Dubai may suggest a new direction for contemporary art in the UAE.
Posted inIn Brief
Dubai Pop-up Gallery Cashes In on Palmyra Tragedy
The exhibition Once Upon a Time Palmyra: The Pearl of the Desert at Portfolio, with photography by Emmanuel Catteau, owner of the space, capitalizes on the recent Palmyra-related and features his 2006 snapshots from the historic site.
Posted inBooks
Contemporary Photography’s Capitalist Realism
In Caspar David Friedrich’s “Frau vor untergehender Sonne” (“Woman before the Rising Sun”), a young woman is depicted facing the rising sun, which turns her almost completely, but not entirely, into a silhouette.
Posted inIn Brief
Dubai Is Building a Museum of the Future
Robot dogs, humanoid giants, holograms, and laser lights. That’s what “the future” looks like, at least according to architectural renderings recently released by the United Arab Emirates for its impending Museum of the Future.
Posted inIn Brief
The World’s First Climate-Controlled City Is On the Way
Dubai is a city of superlatives, so it is no surprise that the city will be home to a new project that is being trumpeted as both the world’s largest mall and the world’s first climate-controlled city.
Posted inArt
A Perspectival Shift at Art Dubai 2014
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Shopping, real estate, luxury, and massive scale are the things most people expect to find in Dubai, but one thing that this city affords you that may be unexpected is perspective.
Posted inNews
Doubled Dutchman Drubs Dubai in Duplicate Duckie Debacle [UPDATED]
This duck tale is no canard: An Emirates car wash is in hot water after deploying a maritime facsimile of Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber duck — “Rubber Duck” (2009) — as a marketing stunt.
Posted inArt
The View from Dubai: Censorship and Resistance in the Emirates
In my screed from a few weeks ago, “When Artspeak Masks Oppression,” I cited the Guggenheim-Emirates partnership as an instance of contemporary art’s institutional culture operating in service of authoritarianism. One of the examples I mentioned of the propagandistic character of this primarily linguistic process was the Dubai-based artist UBIK’s description of an installation of his called “Tahrir Square” (2011). I am glad to have been recently able to catch up with UBIK and hear his frank and often biting perspective on the climate for contemporary art production in the United Arab Emirates.