Selections #31 by City News Publishing

• THE ART OF WARNER BROS. CARTOONS • THE SECRET PLAYLIST • VENICE AND THE WORLD’S FUTURE •

# 31

THE PLAYTIME ISSUE

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• MARVELS OF DESIGN IN MILAN • ANDREE SFEIR-SEMLER: PIONEERING THE ARAB WORLD’S WHITE CUBE • IN THE LIBRARY WITH IFTIKAR DADI •

ARTS / STYLE / CULTURE FROM THE ARAB WORLD AND BEYOND

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EDITOR’S LETTER

THE PLAYTIME ISSUE

It felt such a privilege to land in Venice for the opening of the Biennale, and to find myself walking through the city’s ancient streets following the many arrows to discover a wealth of mesmerising artistic treasures all around me. The diverse art installations, locations and surroundings combined to create a true tour de force of creativity and inspiration from across the world. There were so many aspects that caught my eye, but I was particularly impressed by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot whose trees and their movement transformed the French pavilion into an oasis of reflection. In the Japanese pavilion Chiharu Shicta’s Key in the hand installation saw more than 50,000 keys suspended on red yarn pouring down from the ceiling as a metaphor for memories – an absolutely breathtaking, and thought-provoking, sight. You can read more on the highlights of the 56th Venice Biennale, and its resonance for the art world, in this issue.

Taking Playtime as our theme, we look at one of the more joyous influences on contemporary cultural history – the Warner Bros studio and its many characters, one of whom also graces our cover. While music is itself a form of art, it can also inspire. If you’ve ever wondered what the soundtrack might be as visual artists get to work, you can find out in our special Secret Playlist section that explores the musical influences of 10 contemporary artists. This issue you’ll also get to discover the books that influenced artist, art historian and professor of art history Iftikhar Dadi as we go ‘In the Library’ with him. And don’t miss our exclusive interview with Andrée Sfeir-Semler, a pioneer of the regional gallery scene, and the works of art she loves in our Curated section. Inspiration, discovery and pleasure are always synonymous with the concept of Playtime, and I sincerely hope that this is what you find in this issue, and much more besides.

CONTRIBUTORS

India Stoughton graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an MA in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies. Having travelled extensively in the Middle East, spending time in Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Qatar, as well as Syria, she is currently based in Lebanon, where she has written for publications including The Daily Star, Canvas, The Outpost and The National, among others.

Nicole Anderson is the associate managing editor at The Architect’s Newspaper in New York City. Her stories, covering urbanism, design, architecture, and the arts, have appeared in Modern Magazine, The New York Times, A Magazine, DAMn, and Architectural Record, among others. Previously, she was the editor of GreenSource, a publication on sustainable design and building.

Maria Cristina Didero i s an independent design curator and journalist contributing to Domus, Vogue Casa, Flair, Loft, and Apartamento. She has been in charge of the Vitra Design Museum for Italy for more than 10 years and sits on the board of Veritas auction house in Lisbon, is a patron of Design Days Dubai, and curates Design Talks for Miart Milan. She has been Director of Fondazione Bisazza since 2011.

Dr Zoltán Somhegyi i s a UAE-based Hungarian art historian, holding a PhD in aesthetics. Besides being an Assistant professor at the University of Sharjah, he is a curator of international exhibitions, a consultant of Art Market Budapest – International contemporary art fair, and author of books, artist catalogues, and more than two hundred articles, critiques, essays and art fair reviews.

Danna Lorch is a Dubai-based writer focusing on art and pop culture from the Middle East. She blogs at ‘Danna Writes’ and serves as Contributor to ArtSlant. Recent publications include The National, Jadaliyya, Contemporary Practices, Canvas, and Vogue (India). Danna holds a graduate degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University.

Valerie Reinhold is Amsterdam-based art consultant. She holds degrees in art history, art market as well as in finance and uses her cross-field expertise to assist collectors and artists. Having lived in many countries, Valerie appreciates art that goes beyond cultural differences, at the same time acknowledging the importance of cultural identity. She is also a frequent speaker on topics such as art investment, women in art or the values of art and has contributed to various publications, including Famous City Amsterdam.

CONTRIBUTORS

Sophy Grimshaw is an arts, lifestyle and comment journalist based in Waterloo, south London. She has written for magazines and newspapers including The Guardian, The Independent, Elle, Clash, Metropolitan and many others. As well as a freelance writer, she is the deputy editor of High Life magazine and has edited magazines including Hotline and The London Magazine.

Marwan Naaman. Over the course of a 20-year career, Marwan Naaman has written for the likes of Fodor’s, Businessweek, Monocle, Harvey Nichols and eHealth Insurance, in a variety of fields that range from lifestyle, travel, design and art to finance and medicine. He spent 12 years as Editor-in-Chief of Aïshti Magazine (later renamed A Magazine), which he launched, transforming it into the most successful luxury lifestyle publication in the Middle East.

Malak Hassan is a cultural manager, project curator, educator and writer. Growing up in Lebanon, Malak studied art, education and English literature, before moving to London for a postgraduate degree in Cultural Policy and Management. She has worked at the Saatchi Gallery, Rowan Arts and the Leighton House Museum, and currently serves as a project manager for Qatar Museums’ Years of Culture project. She contributes to publications including Art Radar Journal.

Ahmad K. Minkara Ahmad K. Minkara is a Lebanese – American doctor for Medicins Sans Frontiers, a writer and a critic of Middle Eastern art. Born in Kuwait in 1979, Minkara has lived between Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United States. He has written for publications including Alaraby Al Jadeed, Al Mahha Art, Arab America.

Kasia Maciejowska is a London-based writer and editor who spent a year with us in Beirut editing Selections and the Art Paper. She has an MA in Design History & Material Culture from the Royal College of Art/V&A Museum, and a BA in English Literature from the University of Oxford. Her regular subjects are the visual arts, interior design, and contemporary culture. She has previously written for The Times and Ibraaz among others.

Rich Thornton is an adventurer in the art of learning. He grew up in the USA, grew further up in the UK, and has since lived in Paris, Beirut and the Netherlands. He writes and produces his own theatre shows and writes about art, culture and anthropology for magazines.

CONTENTS

ARCHITECTURE

ART PAPER

STYLE

15-39

Local, regional, and international news, reviews and interviews

ART 40

Woman of spirit Sculptor Lynda Benglis touching on prioritizing feeling over intellectualism and finding boundless inspiration in nature

The art of Warner Bros. cartoons Selections explores the enduring legacy of a studio whose beloved cartoon characters helped shape American comedy

Golden icons in a new light Robert Groves’ Golden Paintings and his journey from Istanbul to India

Venice and the world’s future The 56th Venice Biennale takes a backward glance at the forgotten Biennale of 1974 and charts an inspired course towards the art world’s possible destiny

The secret playlist Selections explores the way in which music influences 10 contemporary artists’ studio practices

Magic at your feet Suzanne and Christopher Sharp, owners and founders The Rug Company, on transforming contemporary rugs into coveted pieces of art

The artful way to Gray International hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray creates properties that highlight the arts

A new landmark for the arts The Prada Foundation in Milan is one of the world’s most dazzling new destinations for the arts

112

A promenade into the past GM Architects showcases Lebanon’s past in situ

116

Living stone meets divine canvas Architect Ziad Abi Karam explains why artist Joseph Honein was the perfect man to enhance the interior of his latest villa

CURATED BY 120

122

Pioneering the Arab world’s white cube Andrée Sfeir-Semler talk to us about what draws her to the artists she represents, the reason she gave up art to become a gallerist, and the growth of Arab art internationally Art to feed the heart and the brain Andrée Sfeir-Semler “Curated By” pages for Selections

LITERATURE 94

In the library with Iftikar Dadi

The power of poetry The International Writers’ House aiming to promote multicultural literature in a city where construction and consumerism threaten to overrun heritage and culture

DESIGN 101

Marvels of design in Milan Exploring the Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week

108

Spherical points of light London-based designer Michael Anastassiades believes in extending the role of lighting and design into an emotional kind of functionality

PHOTOGRAPHY 120

POV Beirut London-based oodee publishers selected five Lebanese photographers to complete their series of monographs on women artists

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL MASTHEAD Editor-in-Chief Rima Nasser Copy Editor India Stoughton Designer Genia Kodash Illustrator Yasmina Nysten Pictures Editor Rowina Bou Harb Contributing Writers Nicole Anderson, Maria Christina Didero, Sophy Grimshaw, Malak Hassan, Aya Ibrahim, Danna Lorch, Kasia Maciejowska, Dr Ahmad Minkara, Marwan Naaman, Valerie Reinhold, Dr Zoltan Somhegyl, India Stoughton, Rich Thornton

ADVERTISING & DISTRIBUTION Commercial & Marketing Rawad J. Bou Malhab Advertising & Editorial Inquiries info@selectionsthemagazine.com

The Playtime Issue #31 cover: Rabbit Hood, cel of Bugs Bunny, 1949. Copyright © 2015 Warner Bros. courtesy of Steve Schneider collection, Photographer: Ari Karttunen / EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art

Distribution lebanon Messagerie du Moyen Orient de la Presse et du Livre s.a.l. qatar City News Publishing united arab emirates Jashanmal National Co. L.L.C. Printing Chamas for Printing & Publishing s.a.l. info@chamaspress.com Responsible Editor Fatma Koteich BPA Worldwide Consumer Magazine Membership Applied for December 2014

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THIS ISSUE’S CONTENT CURATORS Art news from New York — yasmina nysten Art news from Sharjah — dr zoltan somhegyi Design — anastasia nysten Secret playlist – dana lorch Style — marwan naaman

10 - 27 June // 2015

07 The future is emission-free

16 17

Religious reflections

Meet me in Basel

When now meets then

Music in color

The art of remembrance

The Third Line returns to its roots

Capturing colourful crowds

Sugar mountains, mirror films

Post-minimalist Dubai

Beautiful barbs

Common Fest brings Berlin to Beirut

Sprouting cities on an infinite plane

Tokyo Gallery BTAP, Jiro Takamatsu, Oneness of Brick, 1971

Sculpting ruin and rebirth

Bigger, bolder, better: the Sursock museum returns

I am Syria

The power of the world

Butterflies, beer cans and breaking convention

REVIEW

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MILAN

The future is emission-free by India Stoughton

For centuries authors have given us dystopian visions of a nightmare future, projecting today’s problems onto the blank canvas of tomorrow, where they take on new, ever more terrifying dimensions. At this year’s Salone del Mobile, Milan’s world-class trade fair in furniture and design, MINI teamed up with Spanish designer and artist Jaime Hayon to do just the opposite. A multi-faceted installation presented Hayon’s playful vision of urban mobility in the future, housed in an imaginary utopian cityscape.

The MINI Citysurfer Concept moves away from fossil fuels as a source of power to cleaner, cheaper electricity. It also negates the wastage created by a single person driving a car made to carry five, by tailoring transport to the individual. The flexible electric kick-scooter comes in two styles. The first concept for the new design is a playful blend of blue and white dots and stripes, reminiscent of nautical colours. The second scooter uses high-grade materials to create a more subdued and sophisticated appearance, dominated by copper and Verdigris green, with leather-bound handlebars. Hayon showcased the scooters in a speciallydesigned urban context, representing his vision of the future. Marble streets lit by futuristic copper lamps with protruding spherical bulbs were crisscrossed with a series of marking, lines and dots that suggests a new method of navigating the urban jungle. Immersed in this imaginary city, Hayon’s scooters looked like the kind of game kids and adults are happy to play side-by-side. Details helped to round out the fantasy. Hayon has also designed a mask-like helmet and two jackets boasting multiple pockets and compartments, allowing them to serve as a traveller’s bag, as well as protection from the elements. The MINI Citysurfer Concept was unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show last year before coming to Milan in April, offering a zero-emissions alternative to traditional cars and motorbikes. If dystopian novels use fear of the future to highlights todays problems, perhaps Hayon’s vision can serve as an inspiration to today’s designers to consider alternative means of transportation that are environmentally friendly, as well as fun. •

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REVIEW

TUNISIA

Religious reflections All the World’s a Stage explored religion and space, prayer and pilgrimage in Tunisia by India Stoughton

A straight line is the path to integrity in Rashed Al Shashai’s Shortcut. The Saudi Arabian artist, who often uses found objects and appropriated imagery in his work, used LED lights to create the wall sculpture, which reflects on moral and religious conceptions of goodness. The simple form has a complex sociocultural subtext. A straight, horizontal bulb with six shorter lines branching off hints at the choices and temptations we’re faced with during the struggle to remain true to the values and standards we wish to uphold. Shortcut was one of several works relating to faith, religion, secularism and culture included in All the World’s a Mosque, a group exhibition organised as part of the third edition of JOAU Tunis from late May until mid-June in Carthage, Tunisia. Curated by Lina Lazaar and hosted by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, the exhibition furthered the conference’s aims to promote art and culture from the Middle East and North Africa.

Rashed Al Shaishai, Shortcut installation, detail

The aim of All the World’s a Mosque wasn’t to promote Islam, but rather to explore ideas of religion and space, looking at conceptions of prayer inside and outside a sacred space, and the rules and perceptions that come to shape individual perceptions of what it means to have faith. The complexity of concepts such as secularism and sectarianism, ideology and dogma, ritual and spirituality were explored in works by 22 well-known regional artists, including eight Tunisians, Iraq’s Adel Abidin, Lebanon’s Ayman Baalbaki, Algeria’s Zoulikha Bouzbdellah, Morocco’s Mounir Fatmi and Egypt’s Wael Shawky. The exhibition was held in an installation made up of 22 enormous metal shipping containers, which formed an artistic space that could double as personal place of worship. Located close to the Roman ruins at Carthage and the ancient theatre, the exhibition aimed to draw parallels between past and present, historical and contemporary. Each artist was asked to exhibit a piece that appealed to all five of the viewer’s senses – a reference to the five pillars of Islam. The intention of the exhibition was the raise questions not about where people pray, but why they pray, eliciting reflections on the nature of believe, public and private expressions of faith and the concept of pilgrimage. Does the divine – whatever that means on an individual level – belong only in designated spaces, or can it be found wherever we care to look? •

REVIEW

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BASEL

Meet me in Basel Art Basel is set to be one of this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most varied and enriching artistic events by Nicole Anderson

While its iterations in Miami and Hong Kong have garnered much attention in the last few years, Art Basel, the prestigious art fair bearing the name of the Swiss city where it got its start, is set to shine on home ground for the 46th time this year, from June 18 to 21. A roster of 284 international galleries will present work from both established and emerging artists, across four sectors: Galleries, Feature, Statements and Edition.

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REVIEW

The Galleries, which has long been the focal point of the fair, will showcase contemporary art from 223 galleries, exhibiting a hefty range of work, from painting, sculpture and drawing, to installation, photography and multimedia. Always the mainstay, the Galleries offer visitors a chance to peruse an impressive swathe of 20th- and 21stcentury art from across the globe. Three new galleries are set to join the roster this year – Rodeo from Istanbul and London, Toyko’s Take Ninagawa and London-based Vilma Gold. The Feature section provides a tailored program with a selection of specially curated projects from 30 galleries, some organised around a specific subject, others homing in on an individual artist. In contrast to the sheer scale of Galleries, Feature is more focused, offering food for thought through its theme-driven exhibits and nuanced perspectives on a particular artist’s body of work.

opposite page : Almine Rech Gallery, Ida TURSIC & Wilfried MILLE, Landscape and Purple and Yellow, 2014, Courtesy the artist and the gallery

below : STAMPA, Jonas Burkhalter, stage, 2014, courtesy of the artist and STAMPA Galerie, Basel; Photo: Jonas Burkhalter

above :

Borzo Gallery Constant New Babylon over Den Haag / Grundriss New Babylon über The Hague,1966 © Constant/Fondation Constant c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2015; Photographer: Tom Haartsen

Amsterdam’s Borzo Gallery will be showing the work of artist Constant Nieuwenhuys – the co-founder of the avant-garde CoBrA movement – including oil paintings, structures, drawings, watercolours and photo collages, in addition to a “rare group of New Babylon works,” according to a statement from the gallery – some of which have never been on exhibited or put on the market before. Nieuwenhuys conceived a utopian, anticapitalistic world vision for post-war society, dubbed New Babylon, which he gave expression to in paintings, structures, sculptures and texts. Meanwhile, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, from Tokyo and Beijing, is exploring the sculpture-oriented work of several artists – including Jiro Takamatsu, Nobuo Sekine, Kishio Suga, Susumu Koshimizu and Koji Enokura – who were part of the Monoha movement in the late 1960s. Mono-ha presented natural and industrial materials, either juxtaposed against one another or shown independently.

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While offering ample opportunity to glimpse work from prominent artists, Statements also allows visitors to see the next wave of young, burgeoning artists coming down the pipeline, and the galleries that represent them. This year, 16 galleries will set up shop and present solo projects. One of the participating galleries, Dubai-based Grey Noise, will exhibit Caline Aoun’s Remote Local, an installation consisting of three works that react to the landscape of her studio in the Lebanese countryside by experimenting with printing, sculpture and architecture.

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But not all work is confined to the snug booths. As the name hints, Unlimited is the venue for nontraditional, or literally out-of-the-box scale works. This year it’s curated by Gianni Jetzer, curator-at-large at Washington DC’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The exhibit consists of 70 sculptures, multimedia installations and live performances. For those seeking reprieve from walking the fair, a pavilion-like structure, entitled Do We Dream Under the Same Sky, by artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and German architects Nikolaus Hirsch/Michel Müller and Finnish chef Antto Melasniemi, is set

Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Fabrice Hyber, Courtesy the artist and the gallery

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above: GALLERYSKE, PorsAndRa, Heavy Hat, Photo Credit: Jorge Martín Muñoz; Courtesy the artist and the gallery

below : A arte Invernizzi, François Morellet, Courtesy the artist and the gallery

up outside Art Basel. Riffing on Thai artist Kamin Lertchaiprasert’s Land Project, this installation probes some of the same ideas surrounding the creation of sustainable and artistic utopian models, providing activities and amenities for visitors, including talks, communal dining areas and herbal gardens. Without a fixed schedule, menu or price list, visitors are called upon to decide appropriate compensation for themselves, whether it be a monetary donation or rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Utopian indeed. •

REVIEW

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DUBAI

When now meets then Palestinian artist Hazem Harb’s exhibition at Salsali Private Museum in Dubai explored landscapes and dichotomies by Dr. Zoltán Somhegyi

How to create using only oppositions? And how to employ dichotomies to analyse certain modern phenomena that are already paradoxical, themselves full of dichotomies? These and further questions were examined in Palestinian artist Hazem Harb’s solo exhibition, The Invisible Landscape and Concrete Futures, at Salsali Private Museum in Dubai from March until June. A collaboration with Athr Gallery in Jeddah, the exhibition was curated by Lara Khaldi. When thinking of landscapes, we normally imagine peaceful, bucolic scenes that invite the observer to bask in the beauty of nature. In his renderings, however, Harb challenges traditional modes of representation. In the collage series Archaeology of the Occupation, the artist layers images of bulky concrete blocks over the original landscape, thus creating a strong visual and emotional dichotomy between the warring natural

Hazem Harb, 2015

and manmade elements. In this way, the viewer experiences a thought-provoking parallel between vision and physical experience: the strikingly unnatural concrete forms obscure the original photos of picturesque coastlines, just as a physical block obstructs the continuation of the discovery of the land when encountered during a walk. These imposed boundaries are unnatural in every way, alien to the landscape in their material, formal and aesthetic qualities. In the series TAG, we again find the inspiring departure point of photographs arranged as a collage and doctored with alien geometric elements. Influenced by the prevalence of “tagging,” the practice of leaving spray-painted signatures on walls and buildings, Harb chose to take old photographs and disfigure them with abstract geometric designs – floating squares or straightedged blocks of colour. The vintage black-and-white photographs, capturing figures as well as landscapes, created another dichotomy in conjunction with the contemporary forms that interrupt their continuity, contrasting temporal perspectives in a single frame. The overlapping and covering elements – pure, geometric shapes – connected the works from the TAG series both to the works in Archaeology of the Occupation, as well as to earlier bodies of Harb’s work, including his 2014 Al Baseera series, acrylic paintings on multiple canvases, in which he was investigating the essential aesthetic qualities of form and colour, departing from the re-interpretation of traditional Islamic geometric patterns. In addition to these series, a large installation was also on view. This is not a Museum was a poetic reflection on the conversion of a family house in Jerusalem into a museum. The installation’s form was based on the original floor plan of the building. Components including a video, concrete blocks and a pillow were arranged to recreate its shape. Again, intriguing oppositions were created on a material level – between soft and hard, fragile and resistant – but also on the level of perception, between the spatial, three-dimensional elements and the timebased video work. The installation investigated the metaphor of sleeping and awakening in connection with the historical and architectural perspectives of the building. A fascinating exhibition, The Invisible Landscape and Concrete Futures examined sociocultural and political questions related to history and the present lived experience in a thought-provoking and engaging display. •

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DUBAI

Music in color Asaad Arabi’s Return to Abstraction at Ayyam Gallery Dubai DIFC was a visual symphony by Dr. Zoltán Somhegyi

At first, viewers were arrested in their tracks by the striking colours. Intense yellows, lush purples, vibrant reds and rich blues seemed to glow on Asaad Arabi’s canvasses at the DIFC branch of Ayyam Gallery in Dubai. His solo show, Return to Abstraction, showcased new work at the gallery throughout May and early June. The work may have been abstract, but these electrifying colours were not used simply for aesthetic reasons, nor were the compositions random. In fact, one of the most impressive features of Arabi’s work is that although each of the colours he uses stands out vividly on the canvas, they maintain a balance. No one shade succeeds in dominating the whole of the painting. Due to the sharply defined colour blocks, some of Arabi’s paintings seem to have the quality of fabric, as if they were collages made by solid elements rather than paint. In other cases the different shades overlap one another in translucent veils. It is the overall harmony of the image that is the artist’s overall focus, not the competing parts that make it up. This harmony is achieved by the careful composition of the elements, which derives from several influences on Arabi’s work. For some years now, he has executed his works using a multi-angle method – the canvas is placed horizontally on his table, instead of vertically at an easel, and he works on it from all sides. This gives his painted forms a polished finish. The artist’s prudent attention to the proportions within the composition also comes from the experience accumulated during the time spent creating his previous body of works. Throughout his long career, Arabi has oscillated between figurative and abstract expression. After studying in his native Syria, he moved to Paris in the 1970s, where he experimented with lyrical abstraction. He then began creating portraits, producing, among others, a captivating series focusing on the iconic Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum.

Assad Arabi, Melodic Mirroring, 2014, Acrylic on Canvas, 162 × 130 cm

Today, Arabi has not only mastered both figurative and non-figurative styles, but builds inspiring bridges between them. In his new works, which appeared at first sight to be non-representational, viewers gradually discerned figures, architectural forms and patterns. Arabi is unwilling to close doors, instead choosing to work on a new synthesis between styles. What’s more, this synthesis is not only of artistic styles, but also of various art forms. Holding a doctorate from the Sorbonne, Arabi investigates the spiritual relationships between music, architecture and painting, both on a theoretical level in his writing and on a practical level in his artistic work. This explains why the observer can trace architectural components in the images, deriving from his formative years in Saida, Damascus and Paris, cities which often serve as sources of inspiration. The artist’s keen interest in music has also had a deep influence on his paintings. In both art forms, rhythm, proportions, stresses and tones are key to creating powerful work. In his powerful abstracts, Arabi seems to represent music in colours. •

REVIEW

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BEIRUT

The art of remembrance Alfred Tarazi’s solo show explored possibilities for a Civil War memorial that would overcome divisions by India Stoughton

“I had a happy war childhood,” says Lebanese artist Alfred Tarazi. It’s definitely an unexpected statement, but perhaps it’s not so surprising. There are plenty of adults who grew up during the Lebanese Civil War who look back on childish games and family rituals and smile, regardless of the chaos and violence that formed the backdrop to their formative years. But decades later the war has come to shape Tarazi’s adult life in an unexpected way – it has transformed him into an artist. In 2005, when a car bomb in downtown Beirut assassinated the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Tarazi feared that Lebanon was about to descend into another bout of conflict. Seeking a means to prevent more bloodshed, he came up with the idea for a memorial to commemorate the estimated 200,000 people killed during the 1975 to 1990 Civil War. If he could find a way to create a piece of artwork that represented every individual who died in the conflict, he reasoned, it would not only put the scale of the destruction into perspective, but potentially unite a population divided by political and sectarian differences. For the past decade, Tarazi’s work as an artist has revolved around remembrance. Installations, paintings and digital collages explore stories that present parallel yet conflicting versions of a contested history. In a solo show at Galerie Janine Rubeiz in April and May, An Empty Plot of Land, Tarazi showcased a cross-section of pieces relating to the idea of a war memorial. An installation filled half of the exhibition space, lit from above by the sunlight that poured through the skylights in the gallery’s ceiling. A small-scale attempt at representing the dead, the installation consisted of rusty pieces of rebar scavenged from old buildings, encased in concrete bases. Each representing an individual killed in the conflict, the pieces of metal took on an eerie significance, like a skeletal army awaiting recognition.

On the walls, a series of moving panoramas in glass cases developed the artist’s ideas further. Viewers were able to wind the small metal handles on the side of each case and watch as the work inside scrolled back and forth, gradually revealing new images. Tarazi chose to divide some of his paintings in half, displaying them side-by-side in separate cases, allowing viewers to mix and match the images in a way that mimicked the multiple, mutually-exclusive perspectives on Lebanon’s history. Tarazi’s exhibition was complex, beautiful and conceptually powerful. In his paintings, maps of divided Beirut, photos of martyrs from rival political parties and satirical images of nationalistic icons, such as the famous martyr’s statue and Lebanese banknotes, came together to present a multi-layered take on Lebanon’s past, present and future. •

Alfred Tarazi, Forgotten man, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 200 × 200 cm

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DUBAI

The Third Line returns to its roots As Dubai continues to grow, so does its veteran gallery The Third Line by Danna Lorch

Sunny Rahbar and Claudia Cellini founded The Third Line as part gallery, part cultural community space in a dusty warehouse in 2006 – a time at which Dubai’s gallery scene was just beginning to stir. In addition to art openings, they held film screenings, artist talks and book groups, and in general aimed to supplement the lack of cultural institutions in the city at that time. The gallery is now a known regional powerhouse representing big name artists such as Mounir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Slavs and Tatars and Youssef Nabil, yet also has one of the few programs to consistently nurture emerging talent in a dedicated project space. In the fall, the gallery will celebrate its 10th birthday by relocating to a new space across the road at Alserkal Avenue’s new expansion, amidst a charged up arts and culture scene. Rahbar and I sank into a soft leather couch in the current gallery’s cramped back room and spoke about The Third Line’s move and expanding program, while staff leaned bubble-wrapped photographs by Hassan Hajjaj against while walls to prepare for a viewing. “When we first opened, our interest was to not just put works on the wall and expect people to understand and buy them,” she reflected. “Everything was about growing together, learning together and nurturing not only the artists’ careers but also the community we live in.” The new gallery will be one and a half times larger, with higher ceilings and a multipurpose layout offering layers of exhibition options. Although it’s heart-wrenching to move out of their original space with all its memories (from the bougainvillea-shaded courtyard where people smoke cigarettes and mingle with artists during openings, to the exact spot where Claudia met her future husband), she believes that the relocation is actually more of “a return to the gallery’s beginnings” than a stark departure.

The city’s population has grown immensely in ten years. “There are all sorts of amazingly talented people in town now, who weren’t here when we started, Rahbar said. “I’m meeting interesting architects, makers, publishers and fashion designers here in Dubai. We’re not importing everything to the city anymore. With our new space, we can help to serve as a platform.” With the larger space, the gallery’s program will expand to incorporate collaborations and will also be able to offer The Third Line’s artists a wider horizon for larger, more experimental shows. Rahbar confided that she’s especially excited for the chance to present sound installations and other less-commercial mediums. An expanded Project Space will present new work by intriguing young talent, while a bookstore stocking periodicals and books related to regional art as well as publications from Works On Paper, the gallery’s own imprint, will serve as a welcoming meeting point for local creatives, many of whom will be the gallery’s new neighbours on Alserkal Avenue. •

above left: Rana Begum, Installation view, June 2014

above :

Claudia & Sunny

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DUBAI

Capturing colourful crowds Syrian artist Juliet Makhlouf creates optical illusions using bold colours and scientific precision by Aya Ibrahim

Looking upon the repetitive forms and geometric shapes of Juliet Makhlouf’s latest paintings, the eye cannot help but wander, roving unprompted across the canvas. Before long, you find yourself lost, sunk into a kind of meditative state. “There are so many stories within these paintings,” the artist says, “they can take your mind on a journey.”

Protection, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 155 × 180 cm, Images Courtesy of Meem Gallery, Dubai

Skilfully creating an optical illusion that makes the onedimensional patterns appear in three dimensions, Makhlouf paints her abstract compositions on canvas. Her mathematical precision and use of bold colours combine to draw in her viewer and reflect her scientific knowledge. A more spiritual reading of the paintings is also possible, however. Elements seemingly inspired by Islamic geometry were apparent in the exhibition Juliet Makhlouf: Solo Show, which enjoyed a three week run at Dubai’s Meem Gallery in May. The artist herself denies this connection to Islamic patterns, saying that for her, the shapes and forms are characters. “The shapes represent people,” she explains. “They can think, move, talk, whisper – each of them has spirit and each one is different, with different movements.” She likens each piece to a crowd, where the many units of her geometric paintings unite in the final image. This description can be better understood in the context of Makhlouf’s earlier works, which feature human forms, particularly females in the throes of dramatic movement, almost like a dance. “I started with figures because I wanted to portray what was happening in Syria and the rest of the Middle East,” says the Dubai-based Syrian artist. “The figures were delivering a message that we humans should respect each other. What is happening is very bad and very sad, but at the same time I didn’t want people to only feel negative emotions. I want positive energy to dominate.” By moving away from a narrative and into abstract work, Makhlouf has arguably achieved these desires. •

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DUBAI

Sugar mountains, mirror films French-Algerian artist Zineb Sidera’s solo show in Dubai showcases two works produced in southern France by Aya Ibrahim

When Zineb Sidera was commissioned to work on an art project in the Port of Marseille Fos, in southern France, in 2013, many might have assumed the FrenchAlgerian would choose the subject of immigration. But Sidera, now an internationally acclaimed artist, wanted something more poignant. Instead, she produced two major pieces, Sands of Time and Transmettre en abyme. The first is a series of photographs taken inside the sugar silos in Marseille’s port. The images depict mountains of cane sugar, sloping formations with a rich, grainy texture that resemble sand dunes. “As a lot of my work is around territories and movement, land and borders,” she explains, “I got interested in the idea of taking photographs of the sugar to make an analogy to mountains.”

above right:

Zineb Sedira, Sands of time, installation view at The Third Line

above left: Zineb Sedira, Transmettre en abyme, 2012, Three channel video installation, installation view

The photographs, printed in large format and presented in The Third Line gallery in Dubai, formed the primary content of Sidera’s May exhibition, the artist’s first solo show in the region, which was named after the work. In the project space upstairs, a three-channel video explored the photographic collection of Marcel Baudelaire, who spent 50 years taking photographs of the vessels arriving and departing from the port of Marseille, and the efforts of Helene Detaille, who is currently archiving his archive. The mise-en-abyme effect, a poetic device to represent infinity that is akin to a mirror image reflecting a mirror image, is used to great effect here, as Sidera documents herself documenting Detaille, who is documenting Baudelaire. “My work is always about traces, traces of memory and markings,” she says, “and I think you can see that here.” Carefully considered, Sidera’s work is notable also for its simplicity of medium. “The visual language I use has an aesthetic that is perhaps more traditional than other artists who are more conceptual,” she acknowledges, “but to me the form is as important as the content and this allows people to approach the work more easily.” •

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DUBAI

Post-minimalist Dubai The Jean-Paul Najar Foundation to open its doors on Alserkal Avenue by Danna Lorch

Alserkal Avenue, the arts district based in Dubai’s industrial area of Al Quoz, is set to double in size beginning in September, rolling out a number of new art galleries, creative spaces and start-ups. In special partnership with Alserkal, The Jean-Paul Najar Foundation will soon open its doors under the direction of its namesake’s daughter, Deborah Najar, in an innovative space designed by Mario Jossa of Marcel Breuer & Associates. The presence of the Jean-Paul Najar Foundation in Dubai suggests that the U.A.E. art scene is emerging as a global arts hub and strengthening its draw to collectors, patrons and artists alike.

above : Jean-Paul Najar, by Magali Prudhom

top : The Najar Collection in the boxes, 1990, photo Magali Prudhom

The late Jean-Paul Najar was an avid patron and collector of European and post-minimalist art from the 1960’s to 1990, accumulating a collection spanning the mediums of sculpture, painting, photography and drawings, by some of the most significant names of the era, including Jene Highstein, Robert Grosvenor, Linda Francis and Christian Bonnefoi. The Foundation will be open to the public and has appointed Jessamyn Fiore as curator. Visitors will have the opportunity to engage at close range with exhibitions from Najar’s collection, as well as participate in a lineup of related events and educational programs geared towards both adults and children. “It’s an honor to partner with Deborah to continue the legacy of her father Jean-Paul Najar,” Vilma Jurkute, director of Alserkal Avenue, commented on the partnership. “This is a great example of how a prominent art collection can become an educational pillar within the public domain. Abdelmonem Alserkal and the Alserkal family pledged their support from the very beginning. It is a first foundation to open in the UAE within Alserkal Avenue’s curated community, to house a collection of post minimal works from 1960s to 1990s. It is yet another sign of the strengthening arts infrastructure in the region.” • www.jpnajarfoundation.com

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BEIRUT

Beautiful barbs

Known for working with corrugated iron and barbed wire, cheap materials that form the mainstay of construction in the camps, Katanani accompanied the tornado with four smaller works. Using trunks and dead branches from Palestinian olive trees, heavily symbolic of the country’s agricultural past and present occupation, the artist wrapped them in barbed wire to create curved fronds, like new branches. Simultaneously bringing the dead trees back to life and rendering them hostile, he wordlessly summarized the perpetual blend of hope and fear experienced by an oppressed population. •

Palestinian artist Abdelrahman Katanani used barbed wire to create emotionally powerful installations for his solo show in Beirut by India Stoughton

Palestinian artist Abdelrahman Katanani knew exactly what he wanted to say, but not how to articulate it. Characteristically, he chose to use barbed wire, not words, to get his message across. In his eponymous solo show at Beirut’s Agial Art Gallery in May, he filled the small space with installations that expressed his complex feelings about his lost homeland and the plight of the Palestinian refugees still living in camps in Lebanon three generations after the Nakba of 1948. Using meters and meters of jagged barbed wire, the artist created an enormous tornado, a menacing, deadly twister of shining metal that began in a huge whorl on the gallery’s ceiling and descended in a sinuous curve to just above the floor. Katanani twisted each wire into place with his bare hands, sustaining numerous deep scratches in the process. The idea came for the installation came to him during an 18-month residency Paris’ Cité Internationale des Arts. Katanani was reflecting on the cycle of deprivation and desperation that haunts those living in the Palestinian camps, with no prospect of returning to a homeland many have never seen, and few opportunities to work or lead a fulfilling life in Lebanon. Often, this sort of impasse is envisioned as a circle, he explains, but as the same problems pass endlessly from one generation to the next, children inheriting the worries of their parents as surely as they inherit the old key to the lost family home in Palestine, time passes and the process becomes more of a spiral. Back in his studio in the Palestinian camp of Sabra, where the artist was born and raised, Katanani was researching this idea when he came across a text by film director Eric Rohmer, who was writing about the work of Alfred Hitchcock. “Everything forms a circle, but the loop never closes, the revolution carries us ever deeper into reminiscence,” Rohmer wrote. “Shadows follow shadows, illusions follow illusions, not like the walls that slide away or mirrors that reflect to infinity, but by a kind of movement more worrisome still because it is without a gap or break and possesses both the softness of a circle, and the knife edge of a straight line.” It was a passage that perfectly summed up what Katanani’s tornado represents.

Olive Tree, barbed wire and olive tree trunk, 190 × 280cm, 2015, Agial Art Gallery

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BEIRUT

Common Fest brings Berlin to Beirut The first edition of this four-day festival brought culture, art and cuisine to Beirutâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s abandoned silk factory by India Stoughton

For four days in early May, an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Beirut transformed into a cultural haven, offering up an attractive blend of food, drink, art and entertainment in historical surroundings. Common Fest ran from May 7 to May 10 at La Magnanerie, an old silk factory in Saad al-Baoushrieh. Organized by Matisse Events, the festival gathered international and local artists, chefs and performers from Lebanon and beyond. The venue was divided into multiple sections, from the main factory building and central courtyard, to a second raised courtyard, a wooded walk, secluded areas containing food, drink and handicraft stalls, a stage and several outbuildings. This set-up meant that the festival felt expansive and multifaceted, each section cultivated a different atmosphere and attracted its own crowd.

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Twenty visual artists from France, Spain, Germany and Lebanon exhibited their work around every corner, from inside the factory’s beautiful old central building to the paved courtyard outside, the surrounding woodlands and a two-story annex. A stage area hosted multiple film screenings, live concerts and DJ sets, while a pop-up record shop, Berlin’s Oye Records, allowed visitors to browse and buy more than 500 imported vinyls. Sage Restaurant, a popular Berlin-based eatery also housed in an old silk factory, joined forces with local chef Kamal Mouzawak and his famous Tawlet to create cross-cultural fusion cuisine, serving brunch and dinner at a pop-restaurant in the main courtyard. The festival was the brainchild of DanishLebanese organizer Dominique Chouchani, creative director of Matisse Events. “I used to live in Berlin for three years,” she told Selections, “and I ran a collective called Das Scharf. It’s one of the collaborators on board, and from the beginning we wanted to create a cross-cultural exchange between Beirut and Berlin because the cities have a lot of similarities, actually.”

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Chouchani and her team selected a diverse range of work to display. Galerie Tanit-Beyrouth partnered with Common Fest to create a nicelycurated group show on the upper floor of the annex. Downstairs, beside the central courtyard, cunning wooden stools by Squad Design were displayed beside a series of photographs by well-known Berlin-based photographer Ken Schluchtmann, capturing the stunning landscapes and contemporary architecture of Norway. Lebanon’s MACAM, Modern and Contemporary Art Museum, displayed a series of sculpture in the wooded area near the stage, while photographers, painters, digital and graffiti artists displayed their work in every conceivable corner of the grounds. Chouchani says the festival will be travelling onwards, first to Berlin and then to other cities around the world. The second edition will be held in Beirut next spring • Photos diephotodesigner.de

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Hunch, 2015, oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm

DUBAI

Sprouting cities on an infinite plane Irish artist Damien Flood exhibits paintings inspired by the landscapes of Dubai, Sharjah and Oman at Grey Noise Gallery by Dr. Zoltan Somhegyi

In Irish artist Damien Flood’s solo show at Grey Noise Gallery in Dubai, entitled Infinite Plane, viewers can observe the curious process by which the artist’s inspiration springs from an object, which is then transformed in the work until the original source of the idea is no longer recognisable at all. The source of inspiration for Flood’s new body of works is natural and urban environments of Dubai, Sharjah and the Omani coast, where the artist recently undertook a two week research trip. While discovering the land, he became particularly interested in the juxtaposition of the natural desert landscape – the infinite plane – and the rapidly-grown cities that have sprouted within it. The contrast between the calm, empty and seemingly enchanted natural scenery and the busy, crowded and glamourous metropolises became the defining impression of Flood’s trip. Throughout his journey, he documented the sights in multiple forms and in media including photography, drawings and text. It was this breadth of forms and methods of documenting experience that determined the final appearance of the works in Infinite Plane. Damien Flood’s new paintings are not only non-representational images inspired by the local natural and man-made environments he had found during his journey, but also investigations of the true essence of painting itself – the elusive quality that makes the individual pictorial elements into a work of art. In a fascinating series of works, the artist differentiates between the components of his paintings: the flat, homogenous surfaces and the sections of impasto, the thicker layers of paint that protrude from this background. Hovering between abstraction and figuration, they also contain elegant calligraphic flourishes. Though inspired by the places and cities Flood visited, these pictorial components do not necessarily refer to a concrete sight or subject. Instead, they become harmonious elements of the final work, which speaks only for itself. • Damien Flood’s Infinite Plane continues at Grey Noise Gallery, Dubai, until July 31

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BEIRUT

Sculpting ruin and rebirth Lebanese sculptor Bassam Kyrillos opened Artspace Hamra with a thought-provoking series on human strength and frailty by India Stoughton

Artspace Hamra, a new addition to Beirut’s burgeoning gallery scene, celebrated its opening with a show by Lebanese sculpture Bassam Kyrillos in May, showcasing a diverse selection of pieces in brass, aluminium and mixed media. Locating Existence contained 16 sculptures, all exploring destruction and rebirth in the form of war-damaged buildings. Kyrillos’ skeletal sculptures ranged in size from 40cm high to two metres, the larger works towering over the viewer like harbingers of doom. Kyrillos, who teaches sculpture at the Lebanese University and has a PhD in art from the Sorbonne, said that the work has its roots in his childhood experiences. “The initial idea for this work came from Beirut,” he explained, “because I’m living here and I spent my life here during the Civil War. But to be honest, during the war it was like I didn’t want to accept the idea of destruction. I only wanted to think about peace, about the end of the war. Now I feel it more, when I see the war around me in the Middle East. It’s like I feel it’s preparing to come here. So for me the Lebanese Civil War was the beginning of the idea, but the execution of the idea was because of the wars happening around us in the Arab world.” For Kyrillos, the buildings are metaphors for human frailty and resilience, the remarkable ability to live in fear yet cling on to hope for a better future. “For me, the question of existence is related to where people spend their lives,” he explained. “For me, when buildings are in danger, it means human existence is in danger... In my sculptures you have the horizontal line and the vertical line, which together signifies construction. Even if it’s destroyed in many places, the building is still standing vertically, and this means it still resists.”

Bassam Kyrillos, 40 × 30 × 30cm, bronze, 2015, Artspace Hamra

In another technique used to contrast the idea of ruination and rebirth, Kyrillos contrasted the blackened, burnt-looking interiors of his metal sculptures with highly polished exteriors. “This polish somehow gives the beginnings of hope,” he said. “The gold is the symbol of victory and life, and the silver gives this feeling of rebirth.” Inside a darkened room, behind a heavy curtain, Kyrillos created an immersive installation, a sculpture of a partially ruined mosque, The Dome of the Rock, lit from within by a faint golden glow. Surrounded by mirrors that created infinite reflections of the piece, the sculpture could be circumambulated by viewers. A recording of beloved Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, reciting his beautiful verse In Jerusalem, completed the experience. “I was thinking about a building that can represent all my ideas,” said Kyrillos, who usually sculpts imaginary structures, “and that can at the same time convey the spirituality and the depth of what I want to present to people. This building, for me, doesn’t represent only itself; it represents the idea of conflict that can exist in any religion, in any society... The mirrors allowed me to create an infinity room, where we go inside and see endless reflections of this building, which is at the same time a symbol of spirituality and of conflict.” •

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BEIRUT

Bigger, bolder, better: the Sursock museum returns With a fresh curatorial vision and vastly expanded premises, the Sursock Museum reopens after seven years by Malak Hassan

One rainy afternoon, I reached the gates of the refurbished premises of the Sursock Museum to see a brand new glass-and-steel extension to the left of the courtyard, a purpose-built addition set to house the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gift shop and restaurant. Formerly a home for the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s permanent collection, with 1500 square meters of exhibition space, the renovated mansion now boasts 8,500 square meter premises including a host of new amenities, from a 160-seat auditorium, to a state-of-the-art research library and an 800-square meter underground exhibition space.

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One of the few unchanged portions of the interior is Nicolas Sursock’s office, which still houses his chair and the beautiful wooden desk at which he used to work. I turn left and enter a traditional circular diwan seating space, Sursock’s salon arabe, ornamented with finely detailed marble pillars and decorative wood panels. Elsewhere, the museum’s interior has been transformed into a distinctly modern space, with powerful lighting and brilliant white walls. The museum was once a fixture of Beirut’s art scene, but closed for renovation in 2008. After seven long years, it is finally set to reopen with its host of unparalleled new facilities on October 1. Beirut, a hub for the dissemination of modern and contemporary Arab art, will once again benefit from open access to the museum’s private collection, which includes around 700 pieces. Modern and contemporary Lebanese artists are mostly showcased through works on canvas and paper. The collection also includes sculptures, ceramics, graphic art, an Islamic art collection and Japanese etchings. Works by Shafic Abboud, Etel Adnan, Assadour, Simone Baltaxe, Daoud Corm, Paul Guiragossian, Jean Khalife, Hussein Madi, Jamil Molaeb, Juliana Seraphim and Aref el Rayess have been slumbering inside the museum since its closure. These will be displayed on the mansion’s first and second floors, which are destined to house the permanent collection. The Sursock Museum’s re-launch will revive the vision of Nicolas Sursock, the Lebanese philanthropist and art collector, who bestowed his private mansion to the city of Beirut with instructions to open the mansion as a public museum upon his death. In 1961, nine years after Sursock’s death, the museum unlocked its doors with the Salon d’Automne, an show of works by contemporary Lebanese artists modeled on the annual Parisian exhibition.

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above :

top :

Zeina Arida photo by Nada Zanhour

Etel Adnan

below :

Oriental Salon

opposite page :

Facade

Today the museum is returning to the cultural map with a new director, former director of the Arab Image Foundation Zeina Arida, and a young team hoping to propel the institution into a central role in the city’s art scene. The museum will reopen with an exhibition entitled Views on Beirut: 160 years of Images, showcasing over 300 paintings, etchings and photographs exploring the history of Beirut and the evolution of its identity from 1800 to 1960. This exhibition is just a start for the team’s ambitious plans. The museum’s aim is to become a central hub for the regional and local art scene with through temporary exhibitions and extensive public programming that will explore both historic and contemporary Beirut. “Part of our mission as a museum is to support and promote both local and international talent,” explains Arida, “but as a cultural institution in Lebanon, we also strive to nurture and maintain a museum culture in a country where art tends to be viewed as secondary.” Sursock Museum is reopening not just with new premises, but with a new vision, which includes an effort to improve public knowledge on art practices in the region, to showcase work that critically reflects on the global contemporary moment and to present exhibitions and events that inform and challenge the public through contemporary practices. •

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Asma Fayoumi, The Witness, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 150 × 150 cm

BEIRUT

I am Syria Asma Fayoumi’s emotional artworks expose Syria’s bleeding heart by Marwan Naaman

“I am not with any side. I am with Syria.” So says Syrian artist Asma Fayoumi, who recently unveiled a series of new works in an untitled solo show at Ayyam Gallery in Beirut, most of them deeply influenced by the monstrous civil conflict now tearing Syria apart at the seams. The moving works on display, all of them acrylic on canvas, at first appear to be intriguing portraits, barely glimpsed feminine faces peeking at the viewer under a thick layer of colourful paint. A large pink and purple work, depicting various angles of a woman’s face as she pores over her newborn child is, in the words of the artist, “a celebration of motherhood.” Fayoumi, now in her 70s, created this singular piece in 2011, when there were still high hopes for the Arab Spring and when many Syrians still had a glorious vision of their future.

As the conflict devolved into a horrific bloodbath, Fayoumi’s works took on darker hues – a reflection of the desperation that has come to plague many Syrians. The newest series of paintings, all hauntingly entitled The Witness and drawn between 2013 and 2015, place Fayoumi as a front-row spectator to the conflict, as she illustrates the new divisions within Syrian society on her evocative canvas. One navy-hued work, featuring a pair of oversized, sorrowful eyes, stares both at the viewer and at the children painted at the bottom of the frame – children being the innocent victims of the senseless war. Another piece, painted in brown tones with bloody splashes of red, showcases a lone figure of indeterminate sex hugging its knees to its chest, perhaps reflecting the fear and powerlessness of Syrian civilians today. The fine lines of the central figure contrast sharply with the violent red, brown and black blotches crowding the canvas and threatening to engulf this sole witness. As opposed to other Syrian artists who escaped their country due to the war, Fayoumi decided to stay in Damascus, a not-so-silent witness to a conflict that few people really understand. “I paint the divisions in my country,” says Fayoumi. “But I stand with Syria.” •

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DUBAI

The power of the world Iranian artist Mohammad Bozorgi creates Op art canvasses using his unique style of Arabic calligraphy by Jules McDevitt

Erupting with ferocious energy, words seem to burst out of Mohammad Bozorgi’s huge canvases like cosmic matter racing between heaven and earth. Kaleidoscopic compositions, redolent of the splitting of an atom seen through the lens of a microscope or the explosive display emanating from a dying star in space, introduce us to life forces that exist beyond the realms of direct human experience and remind us of our own inherent limitations. Bozorgi’s works are on display at Ayyam Gallery in Dubai Al Quoz, in a solo show entitled Transcendental Strokes. The artist, who was born in Tehran in 1978, gives the words an elastic quality, effectively stretching, flattening and bending the forms in order to fit them into the boundaries of their assigned borders. “I think of words like molding clay in the hands of a playful child, who curiously touches, smells and shapes it,” he explains. “I see the words as dominating the entire surface of the canvas. In essence, the canvas is their kingdom, and the viewer should imagine the work as part of an untold story which continues its movement far beyond the restrictions of the canvas.” Elegant modes of symmetry are employed, demonstrating the potentially endless permutations of Bozorgi’s forms, an aspect of his work that induces a meditative state as viewers are invited to enter a world of infinite space. Using the multidimensional perspective of Op art, he gives the illusion of depth and movement to the words, enlivening them with a dynamic, hypnotic quality. “To me,” he says, “a word is just as beautiful as a miracle.” Reminiscent of his background in both engineering and the practice of classical calligraphy, the artist goes through a lengthy preparatory process for each painting. Creating multiple, technically detailed sketches using mathematical instruments, as well as traditional

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implements like reed brushes, he experiments with the endless possibilities of geometry, symmetry, proportion and form before embarking on his final composition, executed by freehand on canvas. He Will Provide is an enormous, multi-canvas work consisting of thirteen hexagons, a ubiquitous shape seen in Islamic geometrical decoration. The work is inspired by the Surat An-Nahl or Surah of The Bees, which recognises the complex mechanisms of beehives and the miraculous production of honey as an example of God’s mastery and provision over mankind. The words emanate from the centre of the composition, becoming larger and more elongated as they get further away from their nucleus. The Maker is comprised of two canvases mounted at an angle, giving the viewer an immersive, multi-dimensional experience. The mirroring sides that repeat the word “Allah” are identical. Both are distorted to the point of complete abstraction, creating an illusion like travelling through a black hole. These works mark a new stage in Mohammad Bozorgi’s development that focus on the examination of the aesthetic and spiritual power of the written word. Like a scribe, the artist’s meditative artistic process sees him painstakingly practice his craft with both technical prowess and extraordinary artistic ingenuity. •

Mohammad Bozorgi, He Will Provide, 13 pieces, total 364 × 575 cm, acrylic on canvas, 2015

Mohammad Bozorgi’s ‘Transcendental Strokes’ continues at Ayyam Gallery in Dubai Al Quoz until July 30.

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MILAN

Butterflies, beer cans and breaking convention 41-year-old Iranian photographer Shadi Ghadirian still lives in her native Tehran, but the arresting subtlety of her composition and willingness to question cultural contradictions is slowly bringing her the attention she deserves by Rich Thornton Qajar Nº6, 1998

In 1998, Shadi Ghadirian became one of the first women in Iran to be awarded a degree in Photography. Three years later, Charles Saatchi bought seven pieces of her Like Everyday series for display in his esteemed London gallery. Since then, she’s enjoyed solo shows in Berlin, Toronto, L.A. and Mumbai, with a range of work that transcends the contradictions of women in Iran to speak to the universal female condition. Now, in 2015, four of her series have been collated into a boutique-retrospective hosted by Officine dell’Imagine gallery in Milan, and she’s representing Iran at the prestigious Venice Biennale. Ghadirian’s route to recognition began when her university thesis topic – 19th century Iranian portrait photography – led her to create her Qajar series. To execute the work, Ghadirian asked friends to pose in the clothes and postures of this past era. She

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then added modern objects that are still considered “forbidden” to Iranian women: sunglasses, cosmetics, cameras, beer. Covered in demure fabrics and wearing blank facial expressions, the women defiantly display their contraband. “The pictures became a mirror reflecting how I felt: we are stuck between tradition and modernity,” the artist explains. The Qajar series, along with Like Everyday, Nil Nil and the artist’s most recent work, Miss Butterfly, were chosen by curator Silvia Cirelli for Ghadirian’s solo show this year in Milan, The Others Me. The artworks, says Cirelli, “show the essential steps of Ghadirian’s artistic career … and best illustrate her distinctive poetry.” Miss Butterfly is perhaps the artist’s most narrative and intricate series of photography art. Inspired by an ancient Iranian fable of a butterfly who wants to meet the sun but is blocked by the web of a spider, Ghadirian portrays women knitting giant cotton webs across sunlit windows. Mournfully spinning their own icons of entrapment, the women play both the oppressive yet protective spider, and the ambitious yet subservient butterfly. The work immediately attacks how Iranian women have become complicit in their own capture, but also moves beyond its locality to question why women worldwide seem to prefer security over freedom – whatever the pain it entails.

above :

Shadi Ghadirian, Miss Butterfly Nº3, 2001

left:

Shadi Ghadirian, Like Everyday #9, 2002

Subtlety is Ghadirian’s masterstroke. From the peeking beer can in Qajar to the military flask in the fridge of Nil Nil, the artist condenses her message into simple juxtapositions that reveal the violence and absurdity of Iran’s female world. Like Everyday is her most minimal and arresting achievement. A collection of women – already de-individualised by their head-to-toe-covering chadors – are forced into deeper anonymity as their faces are obscured by mundane household items. A saucepan, a coffeepot, a rubber glove: these are the only acceptable voices of women in Iran. In Qajar, the women could at least make eye-contact with their viewers. In Like Everyday they are reduced to silent machinery, less valuable than the domestic tasks they are told to perform. By staying in her native Tehran and investigating the local intricacies of female life through her art, Ghadirian continues to offer her compatriots an emotional analysis of their society, and the outside world a window into the mysterious social dynamics of one of the most censored countries on earth. •

ART

WOMAN OF SPIRIT by Kasia Maciejowska

At 73 years old, sculptor Lynda Benglis’ has four studios on three continents and her work is exhibited around the world

Speaking from her studio in the Hamptons, Lynda Benglis winds comfortably down a conversational path as we slip from talking about the psychedelic colours found in volcanic secretions to discussing how life is made up of forms, feelings and a stream of personal processes. Touching on “prioritising feeling over intellectualising” and finding “boundless inspiration in nature,” what comes through most strongly in her words is the everyday spirituality at the core of her artistic practice. “When I’m working I become one with my materials,” she explains, adding that her most creative mode of production is akin to being in a sustained meditative state.

In the studio with Lynda Benglis with Pi, 2012. Photo Bryan Derballa. Courtesy the artist and The Hepworth Wakefield

WHEN I’M WORKING I BECOME ONE WITH MY MATERIALS

It was Benglis’ sense of being an extension of her medium that led Life magazine, in 1970, to hail her as the heir to Jackson Pollock. Benglis says Pollock had talked about the idea of the artist inhabiting the medium. Although her bright, voluminous and wildly diverse plastic forms initially seem far from Pollock’s paintings, both display their authors’ process-led practice through gestural abstraction. That Benglis poured coloured paint onto the floor for her early latex paintings surely didn’t hurt the auspicious comparison, echoing Pollock’s habit of standing over his canvases to drip paint across them. During the 1970s, Western culture was digesting modern art’s big shake-ups. Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism and Pop Art had become de rigueur. History’s gender bias meant these movements were dominated by men, and the masculinity of their defining characteristics has been analysed ever since. Andy Warhol and Sol LeWitt were Benglis’ friends but also her competitors.

ART

Against this backdrop, she placed a series of provocative advertisements in Art Forum magazine in the 1970s with the ironic title Centrefold. These ads used images of her undressed self to lampoon the art worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s supreme focus on male artists, and to promote her own exhibition. Cindy Sherman, a former student of Benglis, later cited seeing those ads as a pivotal moment in the development of her own work. The 1970s and 1980s were a time of corrective multiplicity across the arts in America and Europe. Along with the push for gender diversity promoted by the new feminist critique, international and multiracial diversity came into focus. Benglis had a very American childhood, growing up in 1940s Louisiana, but her family is part Greek and she cultivated an international existence for herself as she sought out different environments.

Today she works from studios in East Hampton in New York, Kastelorizo in Greece, Ahmedabad in India and Santa Fe in New Mexico. It seems she sustains her practice by channelling the energies she finds in her different studio spaces, and talks of how the colours of the Mediterranean and harmony of classical architecture influence her when in Greece, while the many colours and intense experiences of India emerge when sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s working there.

opposite page: Lynda Benglis studio in New Mexico, 2014, Courtesy Cheim & Read, New York

top: Lynda Benglis, Zanzidae Peacock Series, 1979, wire mesh, enamel, glass and plastic. Courtesy the artist and Cheim & Read, New York

ART

It’s New Mexico, however, that prompts her to speak most evocatively. “I built my studio there from a series of door frames and added mud bricks by hand to the floor,” she recalls. Considering the past lives of these architectural materials to be an integral part of the communicative capacities of her sculptural media, she describes dropping into a state of pure feeling when working in Santa Fe. Her latest pieces use handmade paper stretched into drum-like parchment that evoke the deserts in this part of Western American.

above and opposite page: Lynda Benglis, from her retrospective exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, 2015

Benglis’ international habits are echoed in her current retrospective at UK museum The Hepworth Wakefield. Organised by geographical location, the exhibition contains 50 works from throughout her career. Looking at the dates of many pieces on show, it is hard to grasp why they still feel radical in 2015. Perhaps it’s because they appear simultaneously prehistoric and futuristic. Is it their neon hues and apocalyptic-looking mix of natural and technological references? Does their strange materiality cause particular feelings in the body irrespective of time? Talking about the show, Benglis believes the sensual presence of her sculptures allows viewers to bypass their intellect and its dependency on cultural context, including any particular era. “I just love the way people have responded so strongly to the exhibition,” she says. “It makes me feel like my pieces can speak directly to people in a timeless way.”

Lynda Benglis at The Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, continues until July 1, 2015. www.hepworthwakefield.org

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THE ART OF WARNER BROS. CARTOONS by Valerie Reinhold

Photographer: Ari Karttunen / EMMA - Espoo Museum of Modern Art

Selections explores the enduring legacy of a studio whose beloved cartoon characters helped shape American comedy

Caricatures scribbled everywhere. Firecrackers tossed in peopled rooms. An alarm system letting everyone know the boss was coming — just so everyone could run back to work. The artists of the Warner Bros. cartoon studio were notorious for their practical jokes and spirit of camaraderie. All the in-house fun paid off. The cartoons produced by Warner Bros., among them the academy-award winning “Merrie Melodies” and “Looney Tunes,” are now widely considered the finest, funniest and most culturally-significant animated shorts to come from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Warner artists were innovative in innumerable ways. For inspiration, they looked close to home: elsewhere on the Warner lot, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney were starring in the live-action films that were the studio’s signature in the 1930s and 1940s. The cartoon division, with deliberate intent, picked up on the snappy and street-smart tough-guy attitudes cultivated on the sound stages right next door.

WE WROTE CARTOONS FOR GROWNUPS, THAT WAS THE SECRET

“We wrote cartoons for grownups, that was the secret,” said longtime Warner story-man Michael Maltese. In addition to developing the first “adult” sensibility in Hollywood animation, the Warner cartoonists also embraced the kinds of freedoms – often using bizarre, surreal, free-associative images – that were put to rest with the rise of Disney’s literalism. In the Warner cartoons, mental maturity was coupled with a youthful ebullience, which insisted that, come what may, anything goes.

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If it’s true that in comedy it’s all in the timing, then here the Warner directors excelled above all others. Warner cartoons are often little miracles of crispness and concision.

The stronger directors – Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, Tex Avery – imposed their visions and personalities on their films to a degree that makes them unmistakably the product of an individual sensibility. All are now considered unrivaled titans in animation history.

The Warner studio employed up to two hundred artists, divided into units headed by directors, who guided the efforts of all the artists working with them. These would include four or five animators; as many assistant animators; a “layout” artist, who conceived each cartoon’s overall design and colour scheme, drew in pencil the elaborate settings in which the animated action took place, and planned camera movements; and a “background” artist, who rendered the layout artist’s scenic sketches in paint.

Under their hands, cartoon stars like Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Sylvester the Cat, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, The Tasmanian Devil, Daffy Duck, Pepé Le Pew and Yosemite Sam – to name a few – came to life. The leading Warner players were endowed with complex, richly nuanced psyches, a key advance in the realm of cartoon character, previously limited to onedimensional character types. Thus, Bugs Bunny was witty and self-assured and always in control, as well as a master of the one-liner.

This involved a vast amount of work, for the Warner cartoons were made in “full animation” – using many thousands of drawings for each short, to endow their characters’ movements with grace and subtlety and flowing expressiveness.

The Warner characters could also be deeply conflicted: how else to explain a desert coyote’s unquenchable – yes, even neurotic – need to punish himself in the pursuit of a scrawny, oblivious bird that it has become unavoidably clear he will never be able to nab?

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Rabbit Hood, cel of Bugs Bunny, 1949, Copyright ÂŠ 2015 Warner Bros., courtesy of Steve Schneider collection

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At once vintage and ageless Americana, the Warner characters are still internationally known celebrities and smile-bringers, the cornerstones of what amounts to a library of modern folklore. “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” have infiltrated the fabric of our lives. Steve Schneider understood early the importance of cartoons in folk culture and, in the 1970s, started to build what became the largest collection of original Warner Bros. cartoon art. Recognition came in September 1985, when Warner became the first animation studio to be given a full-scale retrospective by New York´s Museum of Modern Art – for which Schneider provided 95% of the work on display. For four-and-half months, the ultra-prestigious MoMA opened some of its august gallery space to drawings of stuttering pigs and libidinous skunks. Critical response was rapturous: Time magazine called the Warner cartoonists “some of the top film artists and pleasure givers of the past half-century... What the front office dismissed as program filler and kid stuff was, in reality, the greatest sustained burst of American movie comedy.” And TV Guide, the American pop-culture bible, said: “The best of these cartoons are as funny, and as enduring, as the film comedy of Chaplin and Keaton, Capra and Sturges. They are classics.”

Schneider’s collection has been on tour ever since. It shows how the Warner cartoons are an important and joyous corner of contemporary cultural history, as rich and rewarding in their way as any part of cinema. The brand of humour hatched at Warner’s still has repercussions in film, television and other contemporary art forms. And that’s not all, folks!

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GOLDEN ICONS IN A NEW LIGHT by Kasia Maciejowska

British artist Robert Groves was inspired to make his Golden Paintings by the music and architecture he found journeying from Istanbul to India

In 1959, Robert Groves left England with his wifeto-be and headed for India. The pair made it a road trip, and, those being groovier times, decided to hitchhike. Having crossed Europe, they lingered in Istanbul before heading across the Caucasus and south. Travelling with sketchbooks, they recorded impressions and shapes. But most of all, recalls Groves, it was the music he encountered that inspired his Golden Paintings. “They were made up from complete fantasy,” he says looking back. “In the late 1950s I’d begun inventing domes in my works, and you can find these same domes throughout the landscapes of Eastern Turkey and Syria. They were precariously built but absolutely brilliant.”

Groves was born in 1935 and co-founded Ikon, the non-profit art centre in Birmingham, in 1965, with artist friends Jesse Bruton, Sylvani Merilion and David Prentice. The aim of the organisation was to be a “gallery without walls” that presented a fluid programme of art open to everyone, a remit continued today by director Jonathan Watkins, although Ikon has had a permanent location in a Victorian school building since the late 1980s.

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Previously the director of two influential London galleries, Chisenhale and the Serpentine, Watkins has also worked on projects in the Middle East over the years. He curated Sharjah Biennal and the Palestinian biennial, Riwaq, in 2007, and the Iraqi Pavilion for the Venice Biennale in 2013. Through Ikon, he brings contemporary art from all over the world to Birmingham as part of his aim to resonate with the city’s multicultural population. The gallery’s 50th anniversary programme includes exhibitions from Iraqi-Kurdish artist Jamal Penjweny and Pakistani Imran Qureshi. Watkins decided to exhibit Groves’ Golden Paintings in the Ikon entrance from February to May this year as part of the gallery’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Groves’ adoration of traditional religious icons gave his friends the idea for the Ikon name. He agreed to it only if they swapped the “c” to a “k.” The notion of the icon as a mobile art object was suited to the collective’s dream of showing art in different contexts, like pop-ups – less common then, and which stood for a progressive, inclusive attitude towards the role of art. A few years previously, as Groves travelled and sketched continuously on his 1959 road trip, “drawing became like breathing,” for the artist, and his skill and pace picked up. Stimulated by anything and everything, Groves’ abstraction process developed naturally. “Shapes began creeping into my works,” he recalls, “and they gradually consolidated themselves.” Considering his more permanent paintings, he explains how, “each artwork was a product of the previous, so it was a continual progression.” He had begun using gesso and gold leaf before his trans-continental trip, appreciating them for their luminous effect. “The gesso and egg tempera allowed the other colours to glow on the surface of the painting”, he says, “and gold leaf was like re-enforcing a celebration of the materials I was using.”

Groves’ passion for these materials was reinforced by the icons he saw en route. Those he witnessed in Russia struck a particular chord. As the scale of his friends’ artworks escalated during the 1950s and 1960s, Groves was anxious about having made his miniature icons. “I remember how nervous they made me,” he says. “I wasn’t sure and still don’t know if they are any good.” A half-century later, however, he has come to recognise their importance. “Not only do they represent that singular period,” he recognises, “but also, perhaps most significantly, they express what I did overall as an artist.”

Ikon is holding a fundraising auction in collaboration with Sotheby’s London on July 2, featuring works from artists including Anthony Gormley, Martin Creed, Julian Opie, Marcel Dzama and many others. Proceeds will go to Ikon’s 50th Anniversary Endowment Fund to support future exhibitions and new commissions.

above: Robert Groves,1968, photograph by Peter Cox, courtesy the artist and Ikon, ikon-gallery.org

opposite page: Robert Groves, Golden Years, Ikon Gallery, 2014, photo Stuart Whipps, courtesy the artist and Ikon

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VENICE AND THE WORLD’S FUTURE by Nicole Anderson

The 56th Venice Biennale takes a backward glance at the forgotten Biennale of 1974 and charts an inspired course towards the art world’s possible destiny

As a recent Picasso made headlines selling for a record $179 million at auction, the treatment of art as commerce has catapulted to new, unfathomable heights, often belying the very intention of the artist. Though the 56th Venice Biennale doesn’t centre just around this issue per se, it takes a step back from the bloated art market to revisit art’s original mission. Under the title All the World’s Future, the Venice Biennale this year examines pressing current trends, including social, political and ethical issues.

“It goes without saying that, in view of the current turmoil around the world, that the Biennale’s Eventi del 1974 has been a curatorial inspiration,” explained Enwezor in his addendum.

The exhibition’s solemn undercurrent is not incidental. In a statement, Okwui Enwezor, the Biennale’s appointed director of Visual Arts Sector – a noted Nigeria-born curator, critic and writer – calls attention to “the largely forgotten” 1974 Biennale that dedicated part of its program to Chile, which was in the throes of Pinochet’s violent takeover. In fact, this stance and willingness to address critical socio-political matters profoundly shaped the conception of this year’s show.

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT, IN VIEW OF THE CURRENT TURMOIL AROUND THE WORLD, THAT THE BIENNALE’S EVENTI DEL 1974 HAS BEEN A CURATORIAL INSPIRATION

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above: Pamela Rosenkranz, Our Product, installation, Swiss Pavilion, photo by Marc Asekhame

opposite page: Chiharu Shiota, Key in the Hand, installation, Japenese Pavilion

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above: Christoph Buchel, The Mosque, detail, Islandic pavilion

opposite page top: Christoph Buchel, The Mosque, Islandic pavilion

opposite page bottom: Joan Jonas, They come to us without a Word, 2015. Production still. Courtesy of the artist

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To this end, Enwezor is presenting the ARENA, a space, designed by architect David Adjaye, in the Central Pavilion in the Giardini. This space functions as a stage for multi-disciplinary work, including spoken word, film projections and a forum for discussion. A live reading of all three volumes of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital continues throughout the Biennale, a not-sosubtle reminder of the thorny relationship between art and consumerism. Amorphous questions about human existence are raised in artist Pamela Rosenkranz’s installation, Our Product, for the Swiss Pavilion. A pool of mysterious flesh-coloured, glossy water fills the interior. Creating a multi-sensory, immersive experience, the installation – made up of scent, light, sound, by-products and “unknown ingredients” – unearths what it means to be human, as we increasingly rely on synthetic materials in an age of science and technological advancement.

Installation view of Joan Jonas’s They come to us without a Word (Mirrors), 2015. The U.S. Pavilion at the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia; commissioned by the MIT List Visual Arts Center. Photo by Moira Ricci

When entering the second floor gallery of the Japan Pavilion, visitors encounter Chiharu Shiota’s stunning work, Key in the Hand. The installation features a dense web of red yarn, from which keys hang. These everyday objects at once serve as “valuable things” that protect man and his belongings, while also functioning as metaphoric vessels of memories, held in different people’s hands. Below, two boats on the floor appear to be reaching up and almost touching the dangling keys, to “symbolize two hands catching a rain of memories (i.e., countless keys) pouring down from the ceiling,” according to a statement by the Japan Pavilion. Addressing the sensitive subject of religious tolerance, the Icelandic Pavilion featured the conversion of a shuttered, historic church into a mosque for Venice’s Muslim community. This installation was quickly and suddenly shuttered, with local officials citing security risks and capacity problems as the reason for its closure. The MOSQUE, conceived by artist Christoph Büchel, draws attention to a contradiction: while Venice was greatly influenced by Arab culture and trade, and is home to thousands of Muslims, the city has never allowed a mosque to be built in its historic centre. Steering clear of controversy, but presenting work just as gripping, the American Pavilion features the whimsical and cryptic They Come to Us without a Word, composed of a layering of videos, drawings, objects and sound by artist Joan Jonas. Inspired by the work of Halldor Laxness regarding the spirituality of nature, Jonas mounts a series of video projections, some of which were borne out of workshops held in New York, with children “performing against video backdrops of landscapes.”

ART — CURIOUS TALENTS

THE SECRET PLAYLIST Selections explores the way in which music influences 10 contemporary artists’ studio practices in a special series curated by Danna Lorch RIFFS AND RECORDS: MUSIC’S ROLE IN REGIONAL ART by Danna Lorch

Visiting an artist’s studio is pure voyeurism. There is an intimacy to stepping into a secret and tenuous world of half-formed work built on creative chances, to viewing pieces the artist is unhappy with and might soon destroy, and encountering the makings of an upcoming exhibition before it is installed in its final manifestation under a gallery’s commercial lights. It is rare to get the chance to watch an artist at work, much less to hear the music that she or he plays in the studio, which in many cases betrays obsession, vulnerability or just taste that clashes with a carefully constructed public persona. The ten contemporary artists with roots in the Middle East profiled here have shared their private playlists and revealed the myriad ways that music influences their respective practices. Whether they work to the modern hum of the radio, an iPhone playlist or a soon to be obsolete CD player, these artists are in continuity with others who came before them, who were also moved by musical compositions. Paul Klee’s father was a music teacher, his mother was a singer and his wife was a pianist. A pivotal 1914 journey to Tunisia – with its diaphanous light, geometric patterns and bold colours – was what gave the SwissGerman painter the courage to move into abstraction. As a result, Klee went on to literally translate musical compositions onto the canvas, a technique that heavily influenced the Bauhaus school. Several decades on, modern Arab artists Mahmoud Said and Ahmed Sabri painted traditional musicians as a way to capture sensual longing while recording tradition.

According to writer Saeb Eigner, Paul Guiragossian’s father was blind and yet played the fiddle perfectly. In response, the Armenian-Lebanese painter’s 1985 Les Musicians reifies musicians as almost holy – an attitude that holds sway in the region when it comes to venerating performers and their ability to speak for society. In more recent times, artists including Chant Avedissian, Youssef Nabil and Huda Lutfi have famously referenced the Egyptian songstress Umm Kulthum, arguably out of nostalgic longing for a more glamorous time that marked a flowering of Arab culture. Iranian artist Reza Derakshani frequently integrates original music into his exhibitions, while Dia Azzawi’s most recent show at Meem Gallery in Dubai featured a remarkable carved work, entitled Mural for Silent Music. In the following pages we open studio doors around the world and treat our ears to a secret playlist. From Hassan Hajjaj, whose series My Rock Stars stems directly from the vibrant North African music scene, to Nicène Kossentini, who is so affected by sound that she can only work in complete stillness, to Nada Baraka, who sheepishly confesses to playing a single song on repeat to drain a melancholy mood into her Fractals, we examine artists’ tremendous sensitivity to music and their “it’s complicated” relationship status when it comes to incorporating musical influences into their various practices.

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ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: AMIR H. FALLAH ARTWORK: A WALK AMONG THE LIVING MUSIC: SEASONS (WAITING ON YOU) FROM FUTURE ISLANDS’ 2014 ALBUM SINGLES by Danna Lorch

Both as founder of Beautiful Decay, a zine turned online art blog, and as an artist, Amir H. Fallah has always been drawn to the bizarre, and has an eye for finding the ugly strangely comely. His alternative portraits, which never show a subject’s face, are microcosmic shrines to our material culture and the collections that a person amasses during a lifetime. Fallah seldom sleeps. He is a masterful colourist, and his art is more vivid than dreams could ever be. He works through the Los Angeles nights and into the damp mornings from a home studio in his garage.

Amir H. Fallah, A Walk Among The Living, 2015, 6 × 4 feet, acrylic, collage, colored pencil, and oil paint on paper mounted to canvas. Courtesy of the artist and The Nerman Museum

We corresponded at odd hours while he was preparing around the clock for The Caretaker, his first solo show at an institution, which opened at The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City on 28 May, following his participation in We Must Risk Delight, an collateral event presenting work by 20 Los Angeles artists at the Venice Biennale, and a solo show at Charlie James Gallery. “I rarely work in silence,” he wrote. “I either blast music or listen to a podcast or book on tape. Once I start painting, I have to have something playing in the background. I spend a lot of hours painting tight patterns, so music helps me forget about the cramping in my hands and focus on what’s in front of me.” In this case, Fallah played Future Islands’ Seasons (Waiting on You), as he conceived A Walk Among the Living, a painting that is part of the large-scale installation at Nerman. It represents journalism professor Mark Raduziner and his possessions, including a collection of more than 300 prickly cacti.

thethirdline.com

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ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: NICÈNE KOSSENTINI ARTWORK: HEAVEN OR HELL MUSIC: COMPLETE SILENCE OR PHILLIP GLASS’ 1976 OPERA EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH by Danna Lorch

Nicène Kossentini’s ground floor studio holds a three-metre library of books and a simple desk. She considers the sand and the sea in her native town of Sfax, Tunisia, to be a literal extension of her space. At the moment she is preparing for an exhibition in September at the Italian contemporary art centre Muratcentoventidue, and a solo show in October at Sabrina Amrani Gallery in Madrid. When she works, she requires absolute silence beyond the natural song of the tide’s ebb and flow. When she is not teaching university courses, Kossentini compartmentalizes her studio days into two portions: “The time for reading where I also need silence, and another for music when I close

Nicène Kossentini. Heaven or Hell, 2012. One channel video. 00-05-11 min. Ed. of 3. Courtesy of Sabrina Amrani Gallery and the artist, Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid

my eyes and listen. I can hardly bear to hear music while doing something else. I listen mostly to minimalist repetitive music – Steve Reich, Arvo Part, John Adams, etcetera – with high enough volume, often with headphones.” She remembers listening to an infinite loop of Phillip Glass’ opera Einstein on the Beach while she edited her animated video Heaven or Hell, which presents rotating geometric patterns and words excerpted from the Qur’an. Perhaps Kossentini subconsciously found parallels from the breakdown of the meaning of arias when absorbed recurrently, as Heaven or Hell questions the meaning of language once it has been uprooted from its original source, while addressing the Arab Spring as an abstract future. Kossentini collaborated with sound artist Alia Sellami to add a composition alternating military boots pounding on streets with the wild applause of a crowd.

sabrinaamrani.com

ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: HASSAN HAJJAJ ARTWORK: HASSAN HAKMOUN MUSIC: GNAWA IMPULSE’S 2001 ALBUM LIVING REMIXES by Aya Ibrahim

Completely at home amid the street culture in Morocco, where he was born in 1961, and the urban sprawl of London, the city to which his family relocated to during his childhood, Hassan Hajjaj produces photographic and collage work that is fresh and versatile, drawing inspiration from fashion, logos, social icons, street photography and interior design. Heavily influenced by the club, hiphop and reggae scenes of London, as well as by his North African heritage, his work fuses both these interests and demystifies them. He has been exhibited all over the world with his most recent shows including My Rock Stars at the Newark Museum in New Jersey earlier this year and ’Kesh Angels at Taymour Grahne Gallery in New York in 2014. His feature film, Karima: A Day in the Life of a Henna Girl premiered at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on May 13 and is part of Art Basel’s June film programme.

All of Hajjaj’s work draws on the beats and rhythm of distinctive music, which is something that he considers as intertwined with his practice. When he works in his London studio, often shooting colourful portraits of his subjects, he always has music playing. For this image of musician Hassan Hakmoun, he was listening to the Gnawa Impulse album. This album mixes gnawa music, one of the major musical currents in Morocco that is derived from ancient African and Islamic spiritual religious songs, with hip hop, drum and bass and reggae. “It is a lively album,” Hajjaj says, “and normally when I am working, I will shoot with the rhythm of the beats of the tracks, so the images and the movement of the sitter is all in time. It is like a dance between the camera and the sitter and the music.”

thethirdline.com

Hassan Hakmoun, by Hassan Hajjaj. Courtesy of the artist

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ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: STEPHANIE NEVILLE ARTWORK: FANTASY FLOWERS MUSIC: MY WAY FROM LIMP BIZKIT’S 2005 COMPILATION ALBUM GREATEST HITZ by Danna Lorch

Stephanie Neville is a South African expat who works from her home studio in Sharjah. While completing her Bachelors in Visual Arts at UNISA – The University of South Australia – she has staged two ironically titled solo shows, 2012’s here/not here and the 2013 Confessions of a Bored Housewife, both of which probed at the common social pattern of husbands traveling to other geographies of the Gulf, while wives wait alone at home in the U.A.E.

Stephanie Neville, Fantasy Flowers, 2013, Silk satin, 30 × 30 cm approx. Courtesy of the artist

If one insists on labels, Neville could be referred to as a feminist textile artist in the vein of Ghada Amer and Tracy Emin. Her highly confessional work does not weave a fairy tale, and the woman she presents is no princess waiting to be rescued by a knight. Turn her work over and you’ll encounter a meadow of tangled knots. But that’s the point. “Relationships are messy,” she notes. “This is unfinished because there are interruptions, ins and outs. I’m not a tidy person and the roughness suits my character.”

She remembers sitting on the floor of her studio while listening to the Counting Crows ballad Time and Time Again in 2012, embroidering a portrait of her husband while he was away on a business trip, the in-and-out movement of the needle symbolic of the cycle of his departures and returns. Her Fantasy Flowers reference the Victorians’ delicate language of blooms yet represent the female form as defiantly self-sufficient, even in married relationships. While she hand-stitched petals from silk and satin fabrics one would find in a women’s lingerie shop, she blasted Limp Bizkit, admitting, “The music I listen to is so angry. I guess it’s all the expression in the songs that calms me down.”

stephanieneville.com

ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: ASAD FAULWELL ARTWORK: LES FEMMES D’ALGER MUSIC: THE MARS VOLTA’S 2008 ALBUM THE BEDLAM IN GOLIATH by Danna Lorch

Asad Faulwell is not ashamed to admit that he plays the same albums on repeat in his Los Angeles-based home studio. For several years running, the selection has consisted of anything by The Mars Volta. “My work involves a lot of pattern and obsessiveness,” he says, “and I would say that my listening habits are the same as my working habits. I tend to listen to albums that I like over and over again, sometimes up to 20 times in a month.”

Asad Faulwell, Les Femmes D Alger, acrylic, oil, pins and photo collage on canvas, 72 inches × 180 inches, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi

In Faulwell’s Les Femmes d’Alger, you’ll notice the women’s runny mascara first, and the colour next. The stitching is painted so realistically that you’ll want to run your fingers along the work’s surfaces to determine that there is no thread involved. Faulwell’s version of the work with a famous title is a far cry from the series by Eugene Delacroix and Pablo Picasso, whose Version O was auctioned off at Christie’s New York for nearly $180 million in May, breaking a world record.

Faulwell’s work, which has recently been acquired and exhibited by the Orange County Museum of Art, is an ongoing homage to the women who fought in the Algerian War against the French, yet were never recognized with a monument or other public honour by the Algerian people. Faulwell’s collages take time. “I tend to work longer hours and get more done if I have music playing,” he says. “My work is produced very slowly and it takes a long time to complete, so I like listening to long compositions and complete albums.” The subjects of his collages are painted in black and white to resemble stone monuments that could still be constructed, with flowers growing from them to symbolize the possibility that coming generations will blossom from the roots these women planted.

lawrieshabibi.com

ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: MARWAN SHAKARCHI (MYNEANDYOURS) ARTWORK: SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN MUSIC: THE OFFSPRING’S 1994 ALBUM SMASH by Danna Lorch

This digital painting entitled Something to Believe In by street artist Marwan Shakarchi, who also goes under the moniker Myneandyours, was inspired by a track from an album by The Offspring, a band the artist says “defined” his teenage years.

Something To Believe In by Myneandyours, archival glicee print, on Hahnemühle fine art paper, 66cm × 96cm, Limited edition of 10 Signed, numbered by the artist, courtesy of the artist

The message behind the song, the sixth track on the album Smash, is one of hope, and so fits well with the artist’s style. Sharkarchi’s entire practice revolves around the symbol of a cloud with x-marks for eyes, which he invented when he was living in London and was in the process of establishing his career. Since moving to Dubai in 2013, Shakarchi has repeatedly used the cloud symbol as an attempt to “urge those who don’t know what to believe anymore to always believe in hope.”

The Iraqi-British artist now works out of a permanent studio in Tashkeel, where he participates in regular exhibitions and often takes part in street art festivals and local initiatives. In this particular artwork, the lady who appears in many of his paintings is seen releasing a white dove, alongside the artist’s trademark clouds, which themselves are uplifting icons. “Music helped to shape the evolution of my thought process and to tailor the kind of person I am today,” Shakarchi says. “My outlook and my artistic approach are linked through the ideas, which also influence the style of message I try to communicate. Without the sounds of those who helped shaped me I may be a completely different person and be using a different visual language.”

myneandyours.com

ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: NIC COURDY ARTWORK: KOONS // PANINI MUSIC: CLAUDE DEBUSSY’S 1905 CLAIR DE LUNE (SUITE BERGAMASQUE) by Danna Lorch

Jeff Koons’ Balloon Rabbit has inexplicably traveled back in time to Rome in the 1730s and been installed in Giovanni Paolo Panini’s famous painting of St. Peter’s Basilica, set beneath the gilded dome of the interior. Women in corseted gowns and men in white tights casually circle the fruit punch-colored icon. Nic Courdy is the unseen hand that merged these two pieces into one digital artwork in his downtown Salt Lake City studio, while Debussy murmured in the background.

Nic Courdy, Koons Panini, digital print on canvas, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Emergeast

“My first compilation that paired art history and contemporary art was a piece that used a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat and LouisLeopold Boilly,” Courdy explains. “The two works paired well together and created a tension that I enjoyed.” His main project is for the digital prints to invent a new narrative with a significance that is distinct from the original works’ intended meanings. Courdy streams classical music while he is in the studio, because, he explains, “the crescendo of a piece will keep me from becoming too relaxed and allow me to stay tranquil yet focused.” The Salt Lake City-based artist with Palestinian roots holds a BFA in fine art painting. At first digital art “was a mental hurdle,” he says, but ultimately the medium drives his painting practice. Emergeast has recently begun to represent Courdy, who is set to begin an artist residency at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art later this year.

emergeast.com

ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: IBI IBRAHIM ARTWORK: UNTITLED, 2014 MUSIC: MAJIDA EL ROUMI by Aya Ibrahim

Yemeni artist Ibi Ibrahim made a name for himself at the beginning of his career by using powerful imagery to reference sexuality and gender issues in Muslim societies. His work has since evolved. Recently, after a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, he moved into a very contemporary style of abstract photography, relying much more on his own thoughts and emotions to drive him. These photographs, which utilise an almost painterly quality of colour and texture, were recently exhibited in Dubai’s Jamm Gallery. Appropriately, during his time in Paris, he says that he was listening to the music of Lebanese soprano singer Majida El Roumi. “My favourite song is Ward el Yasmeen,” he says. “I could play this song over and over for days. To me, she is not just a musician, she is a music academy.”

Beyond simply bringing the artist pleasure, the music helped to trigger Ibrahim’s recollections. “She was a reminder of home, my mother and beautiful memories,” he says. “I am always inspired by my own emotions, and the music of Majida El Roumi is a key to bringing those emotions to the surface.” Ibrahim credits his Yemeni mother for teaching him about love, saying he relates all his emotions back to her. At the same time, Ibrahim relates El Roumi’s music to a time when the Arab world was peaceful. “We moved happily between Yemen, Iraq and Libya,” he recalls, “and those countries now are on the break of collapse. All I have from the past are those memories, and Majida’s music is that connecting element.”

ibiibrahim.com

Ibi Ibrahim, Untitled, digital pigment ink jet print on 310 gsm Hahnemühle photo silk paper, 60 × 40 cm, edition of 5 , 2014

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ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: NADA BARAKA ARTWORK: EMANCIPATION MUSIC: JANGO RADIO by Danna Lorch

Nada Baraka sometimes plays the same song over and over as she sits on the floor of her Cairo studio, piecing together painting and collage onto canvas. “Certain lyrics keep me in a melancholy mood,” she explains, “which is necessary to create work that is at times bloody and grotesque. Songs left on repeat help me to work faster and remain in an uncurious state, without breaking the energy and movement around a painting.” Earlier this year, Mashrabia Gallery in Cairo presented Fractals, Baraka’s first solo show, to what she characterised as an enthusiastic yet largely puzzled audience, still unacquainted with contemporary art, particularly abstraction concerning sexuality. Baraka remembers, “listening to an Indie online radio station called Jango with a lot of Bon Iver and Sigur Ros” while she wrestled to give life to Emancipation, the largest work in the show. She created a female

form from individual paintings and collages then reassembled the fractals like joints, muscle, hair and bone onto one uneven canvas. In spite of the political turmoil in Egypt, she says there is more support for a young artist in Cairo than in London and she is glad she returned after graduating from Central St. Martins in 2013. “In Egypt, the art scene isn’t huge but it is blooming,” she notes. “There are a lot of workshops, foundations opening and NGOs operating arts initiatives.” Baraka’s fluid work, which sometimes references science fiction, orbits the female form. Her practice largely examines “the female body and how it continues to change, evolve – what comes out of it and how it lives in society.”

nadabaraka.com

Nada Baraka, Emancipation, 2014, mixed media, (collage and painting on canvas). Courtesy of the artist and Mashrabia Gallery

ART – THE SECRET PLAYLIST

ARTIST: HILDA HIARY ARTWORK: SISTERS MUSIC: JOHN COLTRANE by Danna Lorch

When Hilda Hiary was eight, her father gave her a piano, which now sits in the corner of her Amman studio. If she concentrates, she can still piece together compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven or Fairuz. Hiary, who spends a disciplined six hours per day in her studio and is preparing for a solo show at Amman’s Orient Gallery in September, listens to jazz while she considers a work in progress or takes tea breaks with the stray cats that live in her studio. But she pulls the plug on her stereo and switches off her mobile phone as soon as she begins to paint. The act of creation is something between hypnotic trance and prayer, she explains. “When I hold the brush, I can only hear the sounds of the canvas.”

Hilda Hiary, Sisters, acrylic on canvas. 120 × 100 cm. Courtesy of the artist, Orient Gallery, Amman

Although her work explores the male form at times, the female subjects of Hiary’s portraits are often pregnant with entire cities, fighting battles and teeming with energy in their bellies. “The Arabic names for the cities in the Middle East are all in the feminine form,” she points out, “so I paint them as women.” In the case of Sisters, a painting completed earlier this year while John Coltrane’s saxophone crooned sentimentally during breaks, a poetic metaphor is taking shape. “As girls, the sisters were raised together under one roof, but as they grow, they view the world differently,” she says. “It could be about a dialogue between two neighbouring countries sharing the same geography, history and culture, but becoming strangers over time.” But, hesitating to be too prescriptive, she rushes to add, “The painting gives me orders. It builds itself. I only move my hands and I keep giving to it until at the end I feel it is alive.”

orientgallery.net

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MAGIC AT YOUR FEET by Marwan Naaman

With The Rug Company, Suzanne and Christopher Sharp have transformed contemporary rugs into coveted pieces of art

Middle Easterners have long viewed traditional Persian and Turkish rugs as heirloom pieces, precious possessions to be carefully preserved and passed on from one generation to the next, much like an artwork would be. Suzanne and Christopher Sharp, owners and founders of UK-based The Rug Company, understand the importance of rugs in the Middle Eastern lifestyle, and they believe that the bespoke, dazzling contemporary rugs that they’re creating are poised to become just as valuable as traditional pieces. Their modern rugs are, essentially, the collectible antiques of the future. “My husband Christopher and I fell in love with rugs while living in the Middle East, so this is very much our rug history too,” says Suzanne. “We spent countless happy hours hunting through the carpet souks, and still do today. It has taught us to appreciate good quality rugs in terms of craftsmanship, materials and design. Our passion is genuine, and we thought it would be interesting to try modern designs without sacrificing the quality or craftsmanship involved. We see it as the next chapter in the long tradition of rug weaving.”

opposite page: Magnolia Ice

above: Christopher & Suzanne Sharp, ITP Images Guiragossian

The Rug Company was founded by the Sharps in 1997, and there are now Rug Company stores across the globe, from London, to New York, Moscow, Hong Kong, Cape Town and beyond. There are also Rug Company stores in Dubai and Beirut. It is from these two poles, at either end of the Arab world, that The Rug Company showcases its artistic offerings – rugs that are handmade from the hand-processed wool of Tibetan sheep and woven using the Tibetan knot, relying on a mixture of Tibetan and Napali expertise, while showcasing Western design.

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MOST ROOMS NEED A RUG – A ROOM WITHOUT A RUG CAN APPEAR UNWELCOMING AND UNFINISHED

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For Suzanne, a rug is essential to complete any interior space. “Most rooms need a rug – a room without a rug can appear unwelcoming and unfinished,” she says. “[A rug] will transform a room, introducing a sense of luxury and visually pulling the space together. The pattern and texture will lend a feeling of comfort and personality.” But a rug can also serve as an art piece and hang on the wall, much like painting does. Suzanne confines that she has Alexander McQueen’s Hummingbird Ivory rug hanging in her sitting room.

During a visit to Beirut in March, the duo revealed that they had asked celebrated Lebanese designer Elie Saab to create a rug for The Rug Company. “Whenever we start working with a designer, we make it understood that we will not have a launch date until we’ve achieved something that we all believe is perfection,” says Christopher. “We’re getting close to that point with Elie Saab.” A rug signed by Elie Saab? Now that’s certainly destined to become a collector’s piece.

Just like artworks, many of The Rug Company’s distinctive rugs are collectible pieces, signed by famous names. The company carries designs by the likes of Vivienne Westwood, Diane von Furstenberg and Paul Smith, among others. “In my mind there is no doubt that our rugs will be extremely collectable,” says Christopher. Collaborations with big-name designers form an essential component of the company’s ethos. “The tradition of designer and craftsmen in the rug story goes back hundreds of years, and we are simply a chapter in that chronicle,” explains Christopher. “The best fashion designers are masters of print and colour, and many of our successful designs demonstrate their genius to combine these two elements with startling effect… Our desire is to have the most comprehensive, imaginative collection of hand-knotted rugs, and our collaborations make that a reality.” Suzanne also designs many of The Rug Company’s pieces. “I have loved pattern and print for as long as I can remember,” she says. “I collect fabrics and textiles and have done so since childhood. My mother used to take me with her to the dressmaker, and I would collect pretty bits of fabric to stick in my scrapbook. Designing seemed like a natural progression.”

opposite page: Ponti Blue

above: Hummingbird Ivory

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THE ARTFUL WAY TO GRAY by Marwan Naaman

International hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray creates properties that highlight the arts

When Le Gray opened in Lebanon six years ago, it was the country’s first design hotel, and the first property to place art at the core of its identity. Created by international hotelier Gordon Campbell Gray, whose previous hotel projects include One Aldwych in London and Carlisle Bay in Antigua, Le Gray quickly became a Beirut landmark, as locals and visitors alike flocked to admire the hotel lobby with its lit up butterflies, Indigo on the Roof restaurant, floating over suspended gardens, and Bar ThreeSixty, where martinis are enjoyed with a breathtaking view of Lebanon’s sea, sky and mountains.

above: Baby Elephant by Nadim Karam

opposite page: Gordon Campbell Gray, Copyright Jamie Cowan

Then, of course, there’s the artwork that enlivens the hotel. Lebanese sculptor Nadim Karam’s candied Baby Elephant welcomes guests in the hotel lobby, while haunting monochrome paintings by Syrian artist Safwan Dahoul line the lobby walls. “Art is a very big part of the concept in Beirut,” says Campbell Gray, recalling how he visited Ayyam Gallery in Damascus to acquire many of the distinctive art pieces that now live within his hotel. “Ayyam was incredibly supportive of us and helped us curate many pieces,” he says. There are also 72 pieces gleaned from Cuba, like the exuberant painting of fried eggs inside Gordon’s Café, and touching photos of Lebanon that Campbell Gray shot himself and then had framed and hung in the hotel’s hallways. As Le Gray matures into one of Beirut’s most distinctive properties, CampbellGray Hotels is undergoing a significant international expansion of its own. The company just entered into a business partnership with the Audeh family, the owners and developers of Le Gray Amman Hotel and Residences in Jordan. While the residences and offices are set to be completed later this year, Le Gray Amman Hotel is scheduled to open in 2017.

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“It has 180 rooms and is our biggest hotel yet,” says Campbell Gray, describing the property as a cousin of Beirut’s Le Gray, rather than sister or brother. “I am putting together the art collection for Le Gray Amman,” Campbell Gray says, “and it includes pieces from around the world, but principally from the Middle East.” Back in Scotland, from where he originally hails, Campbell Gray is working on the re-launch of the Machrie Hotel and Golf Links, the legendary property located on the Isle of Islay, along Laggan Bay, which offers one of the most magnificent settings for golf. “The art for the Machrie will relate to Scotland,” Campbell Gray says. “There will be a few unexpected pieces, but the art will have a Scottish taste, so that you feel it’s authentic.” The expected opening date is winter 2016. The Phoenicia in Valletta, Malta’s capital city, is the other iconic hotel to come into the fold of CampbellGray Hotels. The architecturally splendid property is a Valletta landmark, and it’s Malta’s favoured locale for lavish weddings and stylish parties.

opposite page: Fred Bred, I’m V.I.P, 164 × 114 cm

above right: Painting by Cuban Artist, Damian Aquiles.

“We’re restoring it so that it’s once again the grand lady of Malta,” says Campbell Gray, “and it should be ready by April 2016.” In terms of art, The Phoenicia currently has the largest private collection of works by Maltese artist Edward Caruana Dingli (1876-1950). Dingli often used common people – street vendors, beggars, farmers – as his subjects, elevating Maltese folklore to authentic artwork. “We are keeping Dingli’s works and adding to the collection,” says Campbell Gray. “We’re trying to get more local imagery, like we did in Beirut. We’re going around the city and photographing local streets, hidden nooks and secret places.” With three hotels in the works, it would seem that Campbell Gray currently has his hands full. He does – but that’s not stopping him from looking further ahead. “We’re creating a new brand called Baby Gray,” he says. “It’s a younger, more accessible brand, with a really fun design and food concept, and more connected to technology. We will probably have sexy photography, and unusual art and installations.” Something to look forward to, indeed.

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A NEW LANDMARK FOR THE ARTS by Marwan Naaman

The Prada Foundation in Milan is one of the world’s most dazzling new destinations for the arts

The Prada Foundation has existed for over 20 years but now, for the first time ever, the foundation has a permanent home, in a singular structure built by OMA, the architectural firm led by Rem Koolhaas. “After more than 20 years of staging exhibitions around the world, my husband said he thought it was about time we do something permanent in Milan,” Miuccia Prada, head of her eponymous label, recently told The New York Times. Fashion houses seem increasingly bent on purchasing valuable art and creating architectural landmarks, in which to house and exhibit their collections. François Pinault, majority shareholder and honourary chairman of Kering, which owns Gucci, Alexander McQueen and Saint Laurent, was perhaps the first to draw a link between fashion and high art. In 2009, he unveiled the Punta della Dogana exhibition space in Venice, a former customs house dramatically transformed into a contemporary art museum by architect Tadao Ando for Pinault to showcases his personal art collection. Last year, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, under the auspices of LVMH’s chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, opened a stunning exhibition space just outside Paris, designed by Frank Gehry and meant to show artworks

from the 20th and 21st centuries. Closer to home, Aïshti’s owner and CEO Tony Salamé is busy building a sleek museum on the seafront just north of Beirut, designed by architect David Adjaye and meant to hold the Lebanese retail magnate’s personal art collection. For its permanent home, which opened in May, the Prada Foundation chose an early 19th-century distillery in Largo Isarco, in the southern part of Milan, strikingly restored by OMA and juxtaposed with new glass, aluminium and concrete buildings, as envisioned by Koolhaas. “Here new and old confront each other in a state of permanent interaction,” Koolhaas told The New York Times. “They are not meant to be seen as one.”

HERE NEW AND OLD CONFRONT EACH OTHER IN A STATE OF PERMANENT INTERACTION, THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE SEEN AS ONE.”

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New Milan venue of Fondazione Prada, architectural project by OMA, photo: Bas Princen, 2015, courtesy Fondazione Prada

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In its vast new exhibition space, the Prada Foundation is currently hosting a number of fascinating shows, including Serial Classic, which runs until August 24 and focuses on classical sculpture, exploring the link between original works and imitations in Roman art. The In Part exhibit, set in the North Gallery and on view until October 31, explores the human figure via works by Lucio Fontana, David Hockney, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Robert Rauschenberg. An Introduction, running until January 10, highlights the different inspirations that drove Miuccia Prada and her husband Patrizio Bertelli to launch the Prada Foundation.

The Discobolus, exhibition view of ‘Serial Classic’, co-curated by Salvatore Settis and Anna Anguissola, Fondazione Prada Milano, 2015, photo Attilio Maranzano, courtesy Fondazione Prada

The arts complex also houses a theatre for movie screenings and live performances, as well as the fantasy-laden, retro-flavored Bar Luce, a café created by filmmaker extraordinaire Wes Anderson. As an added attraction, film director Roman Polanski has conceived a special documentary, screening until July 25, just for the Prada Foundation’s opening. The documentary explores the sources of inspiration behind Polanski’s films by analyzing the movies that have most influenced him, including Citizen Kane (1941) and Great Expectations (1946). “I hope that sharing these experiences, with those who wonder why I dedicate myself to cinema, may help them not only to better understand my work but, also, to revisit great old movies that have been somehow forgotten,” says Polanski.

above: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Conversazione, 1962-1974, exhibition view of ‘In Part’ curated by Nicholas Cullinan, Fondazione Prada Milano, 2015, photo Attilio Maranzano, courtesy Fondazione Prada

opposite page: View of the permanent installation by Robert Gober, Corner Door and Doorframe, 2014-2015, Fondazione Prada Milano, 2015, photo Attilio Maranzano, courtesy Fondazione Prada

The launch exhibitions at the Prada Foundation emphasise the link between classical and contemporary art, looking toward the past in order to understand the future – and Koolhaas traces the same eloquent, evocative path in his inspired architectural mix of old and new.

LITERATURE – IN THE LIBRARY WITH

IN THE LIBRARY WITH IFTIKHAR DADI by Ahmed Minkara

Artist, art historian and professor of art history Iftikhar Dadi tells Selections about the books that have profoundly influenced his academic career and his art work

Iftikhar Dadi is a faculty member in the Department of History of Art at Cornell University. He is also an artist and curator. His interests are as diverse as his résumé. In 2010, he published a book entitled Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia, and he is currently writing two more simultaneously: one on Urdu cinema and another on the pop culture of South Asia. Over the last few years, he has curated several major art shows. As if this wasn’t enough, Iftikhar is also an artist, working in collaboration with his wife, Elizabeth Dadi. They have exhibited together internationally in galleries and biennales. Growing up in Karachi, Dadi’s first exposure to art was through his uncle, who was a medical doctor, but spent most of his time writing poetry and taking blackand-white photographs of antiquities, landscapes and artists. “In his clinic,” Dadi recalls, “his examination table displayed sharp fossils and archaeological fragments.” When Dadi’s parents sent him to the United States to study electrical engineering, little did they know that he would instead use his problem-solving skills to become one of South Asia’s leading art historians and artists in diaspora. Dadi completed an MA at the University of Washington in Seattle, focusing on Arabic and Persian literature. He immersed himself in reading the poetry of Rumi, Hafez and Sohrab Sepehri in Persian, and the Mu‘allaqat, Abu Nuwas and Mahmoud Darwish in Arabic.

During his time in Seattle, Iftikhar became an avid photographer, working in medium format. There, he met Elizabeth, who had previously studied at the San Francisco Art Institute. They have been collaborating on their artwork for about two decades now and are presently at work on number of “extended projects that address key tensions of globalisation, such as closures of identity among individuals and nations, and the aesthetic and productive capacities of informal economies.” They’re working in multiple media, including sculpture, digital images and text. In the early 1990s, the couple decided to move to Karachi, to research popular culture in the global south. By then, Dadi was deep into reading new methodological developments, including the Subaltern Studies historians such as Shahid Amin and Gyan Prakash – who were working on marginalised populations of South Asia, the new anthropology of modern life in the newly launched U.S. journal Public Culture – and the critical stance on modern art in the U.K. journal Third Text, edited by Rasheed Araeen.

LITERATURE

LITERATURE – IN THE LIBRARY WITH

These readings helped him to think about how “the legacy of postcolonialism migrates into the emerging megacity of the global South,” as exemplified by Karachi, which is essentially a mid-19th century city that saw the biggest transfer of population in South Asia during the Partition of 1947. “No one claims ownership in terms of ancestry or authenticity,” Dadi says. “It has many diverse communities, an amnesiac history and memory, and voracious commercial energy. So the focus remains strictly urban, and on the recent past and present.” This intrigued Dadi, and he found that the “everyday dynamism of Karachi was at variance with stodgy debates on ‘authentic’ culture as based either on rural and folk expressions or on classical forms.” After Karachi, Iftikhar and Elizabeth relocated in the late ’90s to study at Cornell University, where Dadi earned a PhD in History of Art. In Dadi’s library, we find salient works of French, Russian and German authors, such as Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire, Leo Tolstoy, Andrei Bely and Robert Musil. He confesses that he has yet to finish Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu. When it comes to literature of the Middle East and South Asia, Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red mesmerized Dadi. “Pamuk is constantly shifting the narrative perspective,” he says, “which suggests a partial and faceted unfolding of events.”

Cocoxochitl – dahlia [Mexico]

“For me, attending to artistic form is more important than its obvious content,” Dadi notes, “because form is where fundamental transformations in the self and society can be traced. Of course, in a compelling work of art, form resonates with content, even if this resonance is oppositional.” On Dadi’s bookshelf, the intriguing debut novel by Mohammed Hanif, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, shares space with a political thriller that pokes fun at Pakistani dictators. Another significant book is Vijay Prashad’s The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. “I assign this to students in my Cornell University seminar titled Comparative Modernities,” he says, “as it’s important for American students to understand perspectives from the global South over the last few decades.” One of Dadi’s favorite poets is Kashmir’s Agha Shahid Ali and he particularly loves his collection The Country Without a Post Office. “Agha Shahid Ali also wrote the ghazal directly in English,” Dadi says. “The ghazal is one of the most important literary forms in Urdu, and very difficult to translate. But his ghazals are remarkably faithful to both languages.” Dadi is currently reading many books on cinema, recently finishing one on horror cinema in the Philippines. He is also reading extensively on urbanisation in the global South. Books that stand out include For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities by Abou Maliq Simone, Asef Bayat’s Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East, which compares recent developments in Iran and the Arab world and Swati Chattopadhyay’s Unlearning the City, which thinks about urban infrastructures of South Asia in new ways.

Shaqa’iq an-numan – poppy [Palestine]

t e s h t e w s e m r e o h t w s y t i d c n e h a t s is r e o p i s i n r s r o h t M i w m i h s J a w t a a n d a e , k s t o o o r r l a c d d e n l e a e p t y s e u h d t e e r h e t h f w f o is k o o n h s u , e f t l e u s m t i h d t i e r w he d e l a l i , f k c y a t l i b c p a e e s d i l l re i t s p s e a r r a d s e n i a r r e n w o r e ch b s l l a i f t k s a e s r i b d y s a i e o r b n e e h h t e r d e n h a s i s r h e T n . a d din a f i t a f n i i t n e i h t e h s t i f o e here s i m l e e d a h e c h i t M is LITERATURE

THE POWER OF POETRY by India Stoughton

Organized by Beirut’s International Writers’ House, Poetry and Performance showcased the power and beauty of verse

Where the two men had sat, reading calmly in French

Cliff, who was awarded the prestigious Goncourt poetry

with reserved emotion in their voices, the two women

prize just three days before his appearance in Beirut,

chose to stand, facing their audience head-on, English

launched the evening with a selection of soulful readings

cadences shifting as the intensity of their feelings rose and

in French taken from one of his books. His appearance

fell. Poetry and Performance, organized by Beirut-based

was followed by Parlant, who shared a work-in-

NGO International Writers’ House, was a celebration of

progress, allowing audiences a glimpse into his creative

language and of literature in English, French and Arabic.

process. Marking the final day of a six week residency

On May 8 and 9, 12 poets from eight countries gathered

in Beirut, organized by International Writers’ House, his

in Gemmayzeh to prove that poetry is an art form that

performance was tinged with nostalgia as he shared his

spans cultures and languages, distilling experiences and

beautifully descriptive work, inspired by and written in

emotions from the day-to-day to the extraordinary.

Beirut, with local audiences.

Poetry and Performance was the second major event organized by International Writers’ House, which

aims to promote multicultural literature in a city where construction and consumerism threaten to overrun

heritage and culture. Exploring literature as a repository of memory, history, free thinking and culture, the organization brings writers from all over the world to

Beirut each year, organizing talks, books signings and readings.

Belgian poet William Cliff, French poet Pierre Parlant, Beirut-based Palestinian poet Hind Shoufani and London-based American poet Andrea Brady read in turn

on the first night of Poetry and Performance, which was organized in collaboration with the University of Rennes 2.

William Cliff, photo by Raha Askarizadeh

Pierre Parlant, photo by Raha Askarizadeh

d h n c a ma e on a wall ed okra LITERATURE

c v r a f a c d n on’s a n s o a i e t p a r d a e p l e l s e , h e s c n d a n t s i r a d n g s n i w o m o n o , l p e e of h s f o s e n i l m r o f i n d . n s i d a t n s a h n a d c e p d p u c an y m s e v o l d n a . t y s a p c r s t w e n n u o e c h t e l f o o h w s t a s , a d s a t f s i a t e n r i b e l h l t a m is s w e h n t y s r m e y d a l n p a , o e a r d e a t s f d o e d R a . e n t s o s n k i c a a k d lJ o v , n ste Shoufani took to the stage next, choosing to stand at the mic, rather than sitting at the desk placed to one side

of the stage. She read from two of her newer poems.

The bedrooms of refugees explored the complexities

of a relationship between two displaced people living

in Beirut. The second poem,

The City in Which I Hate You, is a longer work, and Shoufani

chose

read

Hind Shoufani, photo by Raha Askarizadeh

Hind Shoufani, extract from The City in Which I Hate You, Dubai, September 14, 2012

extracts. Exploring the poet’s

relationship to Damascus, the poem

5 – The city in which I loved you

juxtaposed idyllic childhood memories with a violent, dystopian present.

Shoufani’s intimate work, written in colloquial language, formed a striking

contrast with the poems read by the last

speaker of the evening. Brady read two poems, one almost 20 minutes in length,

the other much shorter. Her work was also concerned with violence, but in a

more abstract way. Removing herself from the narratives she weaves, Brady

pens poetry that is more impersonal than Shoufani’s, though still imbued

with emotion, and written in a far more complex, formal register.

This here is the city in which my mother’s body decided it loathed itself. This here, is the city where we started our descent. This here, awash with snipers and stomachs disemboweled, is where I first sang Leonard Cohen and looked at Jim Morrison’s face on a wall and sighed. This here is where they peeled carrots, and shelled peas and carved okra and eggplants, where my mother’s spirit food gathered itself, shook off the dust of looming distance, separation and fed a family, complete. This here is a city filled with mute uniform lines of sheep, now snarling. But the cherries are still deep black, and can stain. But the bread is still brown and raspy and loves my cupped hands dipped in makdous, a miracle of late night silent dinners and the noisy breakfasts of the newscast. This here is the intifada. This here is the intifada, a whole country away. This here is the demise of the intifada, and my new small breasts and romantic novels read in bathrooms and the cute boy next door. This here is Madonna and Michael Jackson. Red stereo players that brought the world to teenage women in the making, Nirvana lyrics instead of Jane Austen, vodka instead of fresh mint lemonade from the fields.

e w r a o t n o hese i s s s a e p h t e h : e t , m i e c t n f o e nua s u d l i a h c g n t i k n a a i m d a y r e all h n t a , b e s r u u h t s e a h p t o , t s d g e e n n n r n e a h c n I i . e g l n b i t n easa u o e c r t u a t e u f n e f o h t d ’ , l t i r a r p o f r r p e g e t n u u l h o s y b a s i in m h t f o n o t i r t a a e u h n i s t i h on t h n c w u o m d k o c o a t b s ’ e t v a I e . h x e l f f o c i s s n e a c p o r p its n i s , i d e l i p h o c h e l h l t a s y en a s d e o n s i -l g: LITERATURE

Andrea Brady, photo by Raha Askarizadeh

Exploring drone warfare and the cold, impersonal language used to describe the highly personal act of

Andrea Brady, Insomniad 1: Llanthony, December 22, 2010

killing, Brady’s work was a scathing indictment of the

justifications and machinations used to legitimise modern

warfare. Each carefully chosen word was as precise as a

(from Mutability: scripts for infancy, Calcutta, London and New York: Seagull, 2012)

speeding bullet heading for the bullseye.

Through the work of these four poets alone, Poetry and Performance succeeded in conveying the diversity

and power of poetry. From Cliff’s beautiful French susurrations to Parlant’s exploration of a foreign culture through verse, to Shoufani’s raw honesty and Brady’s

sophisticated lament, the readings introduced audiences to new worlds while demonstrating that poetry is capable of transporting its readers crossing boundaries and borders.

100

Striped wild with watching the hills have no use for personality and make it known. These are the engines of continuance, the passion to wake perpetually making a use of time: the stars emptying to pasture, the radiant child unappeasable in her needs, the husband disapparl’d of neat counting. I cannot lie still in my hunger for it, the future as continuation of this absolute present, or heave back down this heart on its panic of flex. It’s too much wanting when all hope is in process of satisfying: so says the child, unimpressed by the straight-lined air, and as she cedes to sleep doubling over on itself I am a slave to succession: to inhabit the passing time without fear, and so to lose it, to give over the night’s vanguard formation in ice and sharplydrawn reality, is the sickness revealed only in the manic chalking of the forerunners.

s r a t s d nd e i l not e , t n e res

LITERATURE

g n i t n a w h

, r i a d

COS , Snarkitecture at Salone Del Mobile 2015, photo credit: Noah Kalina

MARVELS OF DESIGN IN MILAN by Maria Cristina Didero

Milan Design Week brought together some of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most creative minds

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DESIGN

Does it make sense to discuss the Salone del Mobile from the perspective of nationalities this year? Judging by the buzz about the different pavilions in the run up to the April Milan Design Week, it probably does. There was a high concentration of creativity in town. The British capacity for inventiveness was confirmed once again by one of the most intriguing shows in the trade fair: the Serpentine Galleries hosted in La Rinascente’s vitrines, where they presented a beautifully-realised show curated by the talented Libby Sellers. Entitled Pasted, it included work by big names such as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, Rosemarie Trockel and Massimiliano Baldassarri, as well as Japanese studio Saana. Tom Dixon cemented his status as the king of Brit design, taking over the movie theatre in Via Mascagni, which has been closed for years, to present not only his furniture and beautiful lighting systems, but also some candles and a collection of small accessories. London-based Canadian designer Philippe Malouin conceived a series of swings and plant-holders for

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Caesarstone, stunningly displayed in the ancient Palazzo Serbelloni in distinguished Corso Venezia. The swings in particular were very much enjoyed by visitors of all ages. The American studio Snarkitecture, based in Brooklyn, conceived a light yet impressive installation for the fashion brand Cos, made of approximately 30,000 strips of white fabric with a total length of over 100,000 meters, which moved and swayed with the wind. Meanwhile, Japanese brand Nendo’s chief designer Oki Sato made a statement by renting the whole of La Permanente for a solo show, which demonstrated – once again – his clear and eclectic talent for mastering any project he undertakes. His selection of bottles for the rain was one of the most poetic collections at the design week.

Housewarming, drawing, Marlene Wolfmair

DESIGN

Caesarstone, Movements Installation, Milan 2015; images by Tom Mannion ,ÂŠTom Mannion

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DESIGN

1: Housewarming, Fabrica, Airbnb, Sam Baron, Bienvenus

2: Housewarming, drawing, Sam Baron

3: Housewarming, drawing, Chandni Kabra

4: Housewarming, Airbnb x Fabrica, 14th – 17th April 2015, Photography by Cristian Castelnuovo

5: Housewarming, Airbnb x Fabrica, 14th – 17th April 2015, Photography by Cristian Castelnuovo

7: Housewarming, drawing, Tom Fethers 7

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6: Housewarming, drawing, Angelo Semeraro

Housewarming by Airbnb and Fabrica, 14th – 17th April 2015, at Salone del Mobile, Airbnb.com Image credit to Airbnb.com and Fabrica. it

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above: MolteniC Salone 2015

below: MolteniC Salone 2015

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Airbnb teamed up with Fabrica to bring visitors to the wonderful Palazzo Crespi, open to the public for the first time for Housewarming, in which multiple designers envisaged products based on the idea of welcoming. Jovan and Vesna Jelovac from the Belgrade Design Week organised a beautiful selection of pieces in a show entitled Brave New World, including an elegant, colourful installation by Studio Drift.

IT IS FROM THE SUBURBS THAT YOU CAN HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF THE CENTER

As for the Italian presence? Richard Ginori opened the doors of Manifattura in the Brera district to present multiple collections, Giardino del Semplici, Insetti and Les Merveilles, while Milan-based architect Luca Cipelletti, in collaboration with American PIN UP magazine, presented the Shit Museum, a venue located an hour outside the city where they were able to recycle natural animal wastes. Rome’s Secondome opened The Italian Pavillion at the new venue of Residenze Litta, showcasing Gio Tirotto and his transparent globes, along with a broad selection of products in glass, the signature of the gallery since its inception.

In a nearby apartment, Italian brand Servomuto displayed a selection of lamps handmade in the pure craftsman tradition. The notorious brand Molteni is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year with a roster of high profile activities. The brand’s collections were on show to best advantage at Galleria D’Arte Moderna, thanks to the discrete yet effective installation courtesy of Jasper Morrison.

Molteni exhibition, photo by Mario Carrieri

Richard Ginori, Giardino dei semplici collection, Charger Green

Gio Tirotto, Transparent Globe

1980-1981 Ettore Sottsass, Casablanca

In Sala Borsa, Italy’s center of financial power, right in front of Maurizio Cattelan’s Finger Sculpture, The Design Museum 1880-1980 was welcomed for the first time. Founded in Ravenna by Raffaello Biagetti, the museum was spectacularly recreated on a parterre of black podiums, which provided an overview of the history of design, from Hoffman to Mendini, from Munari to Arad. It marked the first time that the collection has left the safety of the notorious walls of the museum in the Emilia Romagna region, ones of the few buildings designed by Ettore Sottsass. Anna Biagetti, director of the museum, told Selections that it was her father’s dream to make the collection travel the world, spreading knowledge. Should you ask why the Italian first museum dedicated to design was founded in the outskirts of Ravenna, and not in one of Italy’s major cities, she will kindly reply, “It is from the suburbs that you can have a better idea of the center.”

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SPHERICAL POINTS OF LIGHT by Sophy Grimshaw

London-based designer Michael Anastassiades infuses poetry into his distinctive light fixtures

“There’s nothing that remains anymore of my home or my office or my studio,” says Michael Anastassiades, gesturing around the smart central London HQ of his eponymous lighting and design brand. “It has all blended into one. It started off just me working on my own, and it grew and grew.” We’re talking in his living room, while, downstairs, his staff is packing the new collection to go to the annual furniture fair in Milan. The new work is instantly recognisable as that of Anastassiades – his clean, contemporary designs are centred on semi-opaque spheres of mouth-blown opaline glass, often set on a polished brass base. The new releases include more mounted wall lights than we’ve seen from him in the past, and extend his range of minimalist, Michael Anastassiades , Portrait by Hélène Binet modernist chandeliers. Anastassiades’ premises are on a little street called Lower Marsh. Five minutes’ walk from Waterloo Station, Lower Marsh is one of London’s more esoteric

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shopping streets, enjoying semi-protected status as a home to independent businesses, from a flute shop, to a fetish clothing store, to a high-end greengrocer, where the likes of Kevin Spacey and Prince Charles have been spotted. Anastassiades’ storefront bears just his name and one or two design objects at any given time, with a discreet bell to accommodate his customers, who visit by appointment only. A broad-shouldered, bearded Cypriot, Anastassiades studied industrial design and engineering at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College and has a determined but gentle manner. “The fact that I created the brand by myself was partly out of choice but, also, that I felt I had no choice,” he says of founding the business in 1994. “I was feeling very frustrated as a graduate of design, because big companies want to work with established names and as a young designer it was hard to break into that inner circle… I thought, ‘I have these great ideas and I’m not going

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THE FACT THAT I CREATED THE BRAND BY MYSELF WAS PARTLY OUT OF CHOICE BUT, ALSO, THAT I FELT I HAD NO CHOICE Mobile Chandelier 6, photography by Hélène Binet

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below: Wall Mounted Tip of the Tongue

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opposite page: Mobile Chandelier 10, photography by Hélène Binet

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to sit and wait for someone to do it all for me. I have to make these designs, whether they’re commercially successful or not.’” Today Anastassiades is one of the leading names in lighting, which constitutes the vast majority of his brand’s output. It’s fair to say that his 2013 ‘The Tip of the Tongue’ pedestal table light became that rare thing – an instant design classic. Like a lot of memorable objects, it’s deceptively simple; a perfect glass orb, perpetually seemingly about to roll off its polished brass base. He makes furniture, too, from tables to artobject-like “meditation stools” in polished marble.

As for the future, Anastassiades will soon be expanding to new premises, in addition to the Lower Marsh HQ, as his business grows. “I don’t want to be greedy,” he says. “I’ll carry on for as long as I have something different to say. The light fixtures that I do all revolve around the sphere, and there’s repetition with that, but it’s such a pure form that I feel I haven’t really exhausted it yet.”

“Design has to be more than finding a solution to a small problem,” he says firmly. “I believe in lightning, and in design that has the potential to extend beyond the superficial practical role into a different kind of functionality, maybe an emotionally functionality. It’s interesting to explore the psychological relationship between the user and the object; it’s almost like a form of companionship. You buy a piece of good design and it’s a bit like buying a piece of art.” Indeed, there’s seemingly much more of the restless artist than the entrepreneur to Anastassiades’ drive and way of working, though his success has come from marrying the two. He has worked with everyone from fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, a fellow Cypriot, to Swarovski, but his most frequent design collaborations are with the manufacturer Flos, which also commissions lighting by everyone from Philippe Starck to Marcel Wanders. “I first met with Flos’ CEO four years ago,” says Anastassiades. “For him, I was a discovery, and for me, it was an amazing connection to a company on an industrial level that has a lot of iconic pieces by design masters. And I think very few people, still, realise the power of lighting and the poetic qualities of it.”

michaelanastassiades.com

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A PROMENADE INTO THE PAST by India Stoughton

GM Architect’s plans for a Museum of Civilisations in Downtown Beirut envisage the country’s rich heritage as a means of promoting tolerance

Scattered across Beirut lie traces of thousands of years of war and peace, setbacks and advancements, art, sport, business, knowledge and power. For millennia, civilisation has followed civilisation in settling the territory today known as Lebanon, attracted by its fertile land, temperate climate and strategic military and trading location just on the edge of the Mediterranean. For Galal Mahmoud, Lebanon’s turbulent history is the key to a peaceful present. The head of GM Architects believes that only by understanding the richness and diversity of their shared heritage can Lebanese citizens put aside their differences and live in harmony. Enter the Museum of Civilisations.

I THINK THE MUSEUM IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE THERE ARE STILL A LOT OF LEBANESE WHO DON’T KNOW ABOUT THEIR ROOTS... BY CREATING THIS DESTINATION IT WILL ALLOW PEOPLE TO FULLY UNDERSTAND, PHYSICALLY, WHO THEY ARE AND WHERE THEY COME FROM

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Originally designed for the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Museum of Civilisations is based on the idea of showcasing Lebanon’s past in situ, where the layers of successive civilisations can be seen sideby-side, rather than through objects displayed in museum cases. “It’s about making people — especially the Lebanese — aware of our multicultural DNA, and not multicommunity DNA, which is a big difference,” Mahmoud says. “I think the museum is important because there are still a lot of Lebanese who don’t know about their roots... By creating this destination it will allow people to fully understand, physically, who they are and where they come from.”

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Mahmoud designed the museum as a simple metal framework, sunk into the ground on the site of Beirut’s ancient Phoenician Tel. Located near Martyr’s Square and already excavated in the 1990s, the site contains Phoenician, Greek, Roman and Hellenistic ruins. Within the open-air structure, staggered platforms would allow visitors to stroll across or down from one layer to another, travelling thousands of years back in time in a matter of a few steps.

The museum has attracted a lot of attention, both locally and internationally, but at the moment it’s still at the theoretical stage. Mahmoud is not sure yet who will finance it, but says that’s the least of his concerns. He’s currently in the process of seeking permission to create the museum on the Phoenician Tel, where a second archaeological museum, designed by Renzo Piano, is scheduled to be built in the next few years. Piano’s project already has $60 million in funding, pledged by Kuwaiti donors and Solidere.

WHAT’S INTERESTING ABOUT THIS WHOLE PROJECT IS THAT AT THE MOMENT IT’S A SKETCH ON A CANVAS. IT CAN EVOLVE IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE

The simplicity of the design is offset by symbolic elements that also give the project aesthetic appeal. Mahmoud intends for the bottom of the dig to be filled with water, representing the Mediterranean. A white monolith would rise from the bottom of the structure to 20 metres above ground level. “The monolith symbolises many things,” he explains. “Everyone interprets it in a different way. It’s like a white sheet of paper – anyone can write whatever he wants on it. It’s a symbol of power – the power of the Lebanese people to have sustained themselves in this part of the world. Some people have suggested it should be a viewpoint. What’s interesting about this whole project is that at the moment it’s a sketch on a canvas. It can evolve in any way possible.”

Mahmoud says he hopes the two projects can be integrated. “I’ve been discussing this with Solidere, with the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Interior,” he says, “and the idea is to create a dialogue between these two destinations, because they’ll probably be located more or less next to each other and one will be a continuation of the other.” Lebanon already has boasts several world-famous sites, including Baakbek and Byblos, where visitors can observe traces of successive civilisations in a small area, but Mahmoud says the museum will be different. “When you travel the world and you go to visit archaeological sites, there’s always a dig somewhere and you’re never allowed to go there,” he says. “Here we’re giving people the opportunity to actually explore a dig, in an organised and academic way. It’s an archaeological public square, where people can go, promenade, spend the day.”

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LIVING STONE MEETS DIVINE CANVAS by Marwan Naaman

Architect Ziad Abi Karam explains why artist Joseph Honein was the perfect man to enhance the interior of his latest villa

Architect Ziad Abi Karam found himself in a bit of a conundrum. Having spent nearly four years designing a villa overlooking the Mediterranean in the pineforested town of Nabay, high in the Mount Lebanon hills, he had stumbled upon a roadblock with regards to the paintings needed to complete the luxurious home’s interior. The 36-year-old architect has been designing apartment buildings throughout Lebanon for well over a decade, as well as commercial and retail interiors. But the Nabay home, built for the Bou Fadel family, marked Abi Karam’s first foray into luxury villa architecture. It was also the first time he was responsible for a project from A to Z, including architecture, landscaping, interior design and décor. He was even in charge of selecting the home accessories and art that would adorn the interiors he was creating.

above top and opposite page left: Joseph Honein, Organique 64 from the Organic painting series

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above bottom and opposite page right: Joseph Honein, Organique 65 from the Organic painting series

His vision was to create a light-filled space that took advantage of the spectacular wraparound views of sea, sky, forests and Beirut in the distance, while inviting the outside in, seamlessly blending living room, dining room and other areas with the carefully landscaped grounds. He achieved this in/out union by designing oversized windows, skylights and generous covered terraces that, thanks to the Lebanese mountains’ congenial climate, can be used virtually year-round. For the artworks that would come to hang on the villa’s walls, Abi Karam visited many of Lebanon’s art galleries, but very few works seemed to appeal to the villa’s owner. “The client had an extremely hard time choosing paintings, so I suggested we commission one painter to do the work,” says Abi Karam. He turned to Joseph Honein, the 37-year-old artist who’s made it his life’s work to examine the link between the human and the divine in his intriguing series of paintings titled Organique, first exhibited in 2007.

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social activity of the house like morning coffee, family meetings and afternoon tea, and its shapes are round like a conversation.”

“I knew Joseph personally, and I knew that he would understand the space,” says Abi Karam. The architect was also adamant about having Honein create all four paintings required for the villa. “When you include works by various artists, you sometimes lose the spirit of the place,” Abi Karam says. “I believe that it’s better to work with the same artist, to give the space a personal touch. Customizing a painting is much more interesting than choosing a foreign object and making it fit.” For his four paintings, Honein gleaned his initial inspiration from the pebbles that lie at the bottom of the spectacular iron staircase that occupies the center of the house, rising from the ground floor to the top of the structure. These very same pebbles also form part of the exterior landscaping, and their smooth, organic shape is reflected in Honein’s work. The artist named all four paintings Organique, numbering them from 64 to 67. “The space for Organique 64 needed a very bright work, so I chose a strong red color,” explains Honein of his decision to place this powerful work on a side wall, seemingly out of sight, above the radiator. “I balanced Ziad’s architecture and his design, which has mainly sober tones, with this bright red painting.” With its blue and green pebble shapes that seem to interact and intertwine, Organique 65 was created for the living area where most of the home’s social activity takes places. “I like to call this painting ahadiss,” which means conversations in Arabic, the artist says. “The work is supposed to witness the

The painting featured in the more formal living room, on the other hand, Organique 66, reflects the austere lines of the couches and the angular dimensions of the space. “Everything is more serious here,” says Honein. “I also took into consideration the grays and white in the environment, adding splashes of magenta to my painting.” For the dining room, Honein created his most festive work, Organique 67, as a tribute to the Lebanese people’s grand dining tradition. “The dining room is very important in Lebanon,” he says. “In Europe many apartments don’t have dining rooms, but in Lebanon having big lunches and dinners is part of our culture. This painting is an opening. It starts off static, with a repetitive balance, then it explodes into fireworks.”

MY DESIGN CONCEPT WAS TO BRING NATURE INTO THE HOUSE, SO I WANTED PAINTINGS THAT REFERENCED NATURE, BUT NOT IN A TYPICAL FASHION

When he saw the completed paintings and placed them on the villa’s walls, Abi Karam felt that his architectural vision had struck its final opus. “My design concept was to bring nature into the house, so I wanted paintings that referenced nature, but not in a typical fashion,” Abi Karam says. “And Joseph’s paintings did just that: they pulled nature into the house, in an abstract way, and enhanced the home’s everyday living experience.”

opposite page and above: Joseph Honein Organique 66 from the Organic painting series

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PIONEERING THE ARAB WORLD’S WHITE CUBE Andrée Sfeir-Semler changed the face of Lebanon’s art scene – and perceptions of Arab art worldwide – when she opened her eponymous gallery in Beirut 10 years ago. She shares her thoughts on what draws her to the artists she represents, the reason she gave up art to become a gallerist and the growth of Arab art internationally

India Stoughton: You work with a diverse selection of international artists working in multiple media and styles. How do you select the artists you represent? Is it primarily a business decision, or does it stem from some more personal connection to the work? Andree Sfeir-Semler: My artists are not decorative. Most of them are rather hard to place, because they do political and conceptual work and not necessarily work for over sofas. So it’s never a business decision. It’s always a heart and a brain decision. When my heart meets my brain, this is when I do it.

MY ARTISTS ARE NOT DECORATIVE. MOST OF THEM ARE RATHER HARD TO PLACE, BECAUSE THEY DO POLITICAL AND CONCEPTUAL WORK AND NOT NECESSARILY WORK FOR OVER SOFAS

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IS: I’ve read that you studied fine art and filmmaking, as well as history of art. Do you still do your own artwork, and have you ever considered exhibiting it? A S-S: I continued doing some art to relax when I was writing my PhD at the Sorbonne and University of Bielefeld, but I’ve never exhibited it. I’ve also made a few films. I showed some of the films at festivals and got a few prizes, in fact. When I decided to open a gallery, I packed it all away. The first artwork I ever bought is a Henri Matisse, Masque au Petit Nez – a nose and eyes executed with a single brushstroke. We got it home, we hung it on the wall, and when I saw it next to my artwork, I decided I was not going to pursue it. I put all my artworks in the cellar and never showed them again. IS: That’s a shame. It would be fascinating to see your artwork. In terms of your role as a gallerist, Sfeir-Semler Gallery in Beirut was a pioneer, both in the kind of artists you represent and the kind of exhibitions you put on. Was it difficult to establish an audience when you first opened the gallery 10 years ago? A S-S: When we first started, we had several curious and interested locals, expats, and international museums and collections visit the gallery, but they were not yet acquiring works. Many of those people have become collectors. If I were to look at international art fairs, such as Frieze, FIAC or Art Basel, there was almost nobody from the Arab world in 2004 or ’05 at those art fairs. You could count them on one hand. Now, there are so many that on the day of the opening, whether it is New York or Basel or London, our booth is full of supporters, because they know the work. It needed some years before they started collecting and now they’re super supportive.

WE OPENED THE FIRST WHITE CUBE IN THE WHOLE ARAB WORLD, AND THE FIRST VERY BIG EXHIBITION SPACE THAT IS NOT A DEALER SPACE

IS: Obviously there has been a huge boom in recent years in sales of art from the region. Do you think that Sfeir-Semler Gallery played a role in that? A S-S: I leave this answer with you. We opened the first white cube in the whole Arab world, and the first very big exhibition space that is not a dealer space. In fact, when I opened the gallery in 2005, I said it was only the start of a long road. We are really happy that the road is now a highway. Three of our artists are showing at MoMA within one year — Walid Raad, Wael Shawky and Rabih Mroue. We had six artists at Documenta. We will have five artists at the biennale in Istanbul. We have five artists at the biennale in Venice. This is not so bad for such a tiny country. These are artists we started working with at the very beginning of their careers, and who are now important. It is really very beautiful. Back in 2005, I was wondering if we would make a foundation or an art gallery. I decided on the gallery. A gallery allows a long-term cooperation with artists. When the artists can generate artworks that the gallery can place in international collections, exhibitions and museums, this is when you are able to leave an impact and create a nourishing art scene, which can become a testimony to the culture and memory of the Arab world, internationally and for future generations.

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ART TO FEED THE HEART AND THE BRAIN

The artists I’ve chosen are central to our practice as a gallery working in Beirut and Hamburg. They are artists we have worked with, but do not necessarily represent. The works we show at the gallery are the works I love, I understand and I cherish. So for this selection, I could not but choose from our very own. I haven’t based my choice on the audience. I would have selected these same works for Selections or for Art Forum. I never follow the audience. Whenever I make a choice – for an artist or works within an exhibit – I always try to follow my deepest inner self and the things I believe in. When you look through the works, you’ll notice that there is no obvious aesthetic line from one to the other. They all seem very different from each other. What they share is that conceptual moment. The works that I exhibit and collect are those that are subtle but carry a very poignant conceptual, historical or political message. Sol Le Witt’s isometric work was the first of its kind and was first produced and made in our Hamburg space, merging the concept of the three-dimensional installation into the gallery walls. Walid Raad’s museum door is part of his investigation of the contemporary Arab art scene, whereby he stages illusions of important museums doors. Akram Zaatari’s scratched portrait of a tragic woman excavated from the photos and negatives of studio photographer, Hashem El Madani, uncovers the histories of the people and society in the 50s and 60s.

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Marwan Rechmaoui’s cement wall piece shows a geological cut of a city not only destroyed by the war, but also by a rampant urban catastrophe. Yto Barrada’s work gives us glimpses of childhood and nature in her native Tangiers. With similar sensitivity, the purity of Etel Adnan’s intimate paintings radiate color. Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Aphrodite transports the classical to the contemporary, combining love and beauty with the ugliness of war. Wael Shawky’s extensive project on the history of the crusades illustrates the grotesque nature of humanity in fragile Murano glass marionettes. Wael’s latest film installation, Secrets of Karbala, along with drawings and marionettes, will be on show in Beirut for his solo show this summer.

Andrée Sfeir-Semler Founder Sfeir-Semler Gallery

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CURATED BY ANDREE SFEIR-SEMLER

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SOL LEWITT Isometric figure, 2002 Paint on wall 430 × 824 cm Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, 2002

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WALID RAAD Scratching on Things I Could Disavow, views from outer to inner compartments, Untitled I, 2011 Wood, paint 250 × 500 ×20 cm Exhibition view, dOCUMENTA (13), 2012

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AKRAM ZAATARI Damaged Negatives: Scratched Portrait of Mrs. Baqari Studio Shehrazade, 1957 / 2012 Digital inkjet print 200 × 145 cm

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MARWAN RECHMAOUI Untitled, 2015 Concrete, plastic, paint 240 × 300 × 0,5 cm

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YTO BARRADA Raft in Strangler Figtree (Ficus macrophylla), 2005-2010 C-print 150 × 150 cm

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ETEL ADNAN Untitled, 2015 Oil on canvas 55 × 46 cm

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IAN HAMITON FINLAY Arcadian Aphrodite, 1990 Gypsum and textile Height: 160 cm

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WAEL SHAWKY Cabaret Crusades: The Secrets of Karbala, 2014 Marionette Glass, fabric, enamel, thread Height: 54 cm

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PHOTOGRAPHY

POV BEIRUT by India Stoughton

London-based oodee publishers selected five Lebanese photographers to complete their series of monographs on women artists

A child’s doll lies in a pile of rubble, the colours of its soft-pile face and clothes obscured by a thick layer of dust and dirt. A family photo album sprawls wide open on the bonnet of a car, its paint dull and blistered from the heat of an explosion. A child’s bright jacket stains the muddy ground with red, like a splash of fresh blood. On Monday August 14, 2006, these ruined objects were preserved for posterity by Caroline Tabet. It was the first day of the ceasefire that ended the 2006 War after a month of bombing. The photographer wandered the streets of Dahieh, Beirut’s southern suburbs, noting the way that Israeli shells had destroyed not only buildings and their contents but the boundaries between public and private. Personal objects lay scattered in the streets, intimate no longer. Tabet’s series of photographs serve as a testament to the violence and destruction. Almost a decade later, they form the contents of a monograph by London-based oodee publishers, as part of the POV Female project. POV Female aims to promote the work of young female photographers in print runs of 100 limited edition books. Five books by five young photographers were produced in five cities around the world. oodee started with London in 2011, then travelled to Tokyo, Johannesburg, Bogota and finally Beirut. oodee chose Lamia Maria Abillama, Ayla Hibri, Randa Mirza, Caroline Tabet and duo Lara Tabet and Michelle Daher as the subject of their five Lebanese books, which were released at the end of May.

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Tabet’s grim yet oddly beautiful series, which is entitled Disintegrated Objects, isn’t the only one to deal with war. Abillama approached the subject of conflict from a different perspective, capturing not objects but people. A series of portraits of civilian women living in Beirut, Clashing Realities investigates the long shadow cast on ordinary citizens’ lives by decades of conflict. Abillama asked the women she photographed to dress in military uniforms, symbolising the effects of war on their lives. None of the women had ever actively participated in the violence but each was marked by it. Many of them found it difficult and painful to don the uniform, the photographer writes, because of the traumatic memories it brought back. Photographed in their homes, their faces solemn, the women stare into the camera with sadness etched on their faces, as though emphasizing that the even in the peaceful setting of their own homes, they cannot escape the past. Mirza, too, touches on war in her book, which contains photographs from two series, Beirutopia and Parallel Universes. The latter explores the coexistence of past and present, war and peace in Lebanon, using photographs taken during the 1975-1990 Civil War and the 2006 war with Israel. Starting from photojournalistic images purporting to capture the truth, Mirza doctors them to incorporate the voyeuristic gaze of the spectator into the image itself, questioning the boundaries between politics, violence, leisure and entertainment. A blonde young women in a tank top flashes a broad smile and a peace sign at the camera, while behind her militiamen stand beside a tank and

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an old lady fills a plastic container with water. Two Asian men with expensive automatic cameras eagerly snap photographs in a rubble-filled street beside two burning cars, and a woman struggles to open her umbrella as people flee in panic around them. Tabet and Daher take things in a different direction in their series The Reeds. An artistic critique of the lack of public spaces in Beirut, the series was shot at night, in one of the city’s rare public areas, which transforms into the site of illicit sexual encounters when darkness falls. The two women combine documentation and self-portraits in a series of blurry, suggestive shots. Questioning gender stereotypes, the relationship between voyeurism and exhibitionism and the notion of public and private, the series explores the idea of the body as a means to reclaim space in a hostile city.

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The final series, Hibri’s Real Prince, is shot entirely in Yemen. A wonderful sequence of colourful portraits, it captures the culture built around motorbikes, maintained and cherished by a subculture of bikers, “a special breed of knights, cowboys and warriors.” These are not the leather-clad, Harley Davidson-straddling, macho men often associated with bikers. They are a diverse group who personalise their motorbikes with love and sometimes bring their children along for the ride. By capturing these roving riders and their bikes, adorned with colourful fabrics, ropes, fringes and tassels, Hibri draws parallels between the biker culture of today’s Yemen and the Bedouin culture of its past, when camels took the place of these metal steeds.