This week’s editorial musings from magpie’s nest
The quote If you want new ideas, read old books Shane Parrish
Last-minute music The Tamaas Festival is the latest offer from NYUAD’s Arts Center in its perennial quest to bring clever, imaginative, exciting new music to Abu Dhabi from around the world. We have a deep dive into the four acts playing tonight, and all of them are excellent. The price is good, too – the Arts Center’s usual AED 105 buys you entrance to one of the two gigs, but there’s a AED 150 combo ticket too …
Help for galleries Dubai Culture is introducing an International Art Fairs Grant to provide financial support for Dubai-based galleries looking to exhibit at art fairs abroad. The grant will cover up to half the cost of a booth, and “up to” seems to mean “whatever proportion of the booth includes Emirati or UAE-based artists”. Art Dubai will be running the scheme for Dubai Culture. Here’s our take on it …
Dirhams in Diriyah The first Sotheby’s auction in Saudi Arabia did pretty well – sales were bang in the middle of the expectation range at just over $17 million for the 117 lots, with luxury objects and sports memorabilia among the art. The novelty may have played a part, Sotheby’s certainly pushed the boat out to impress the buying audience, and big-money sales for local artists perhaps reflected a nationalistic enthusiasm. But things look good for the auction house’s investment in the region …
Artspace replaces Glass-Kantor Sidney’s Artspace has appointed Victor Wang, previously of Beijing’s M WOODS Museum, as its new director. Interesting because he succeeds Alexie Glass-Kantor, who’s now at Art Dubai with a remit for partnerships and institution building …
Hatta trick We’ve just come across this opportunity for photographers (not necessarily pros): it’s one of HIPA’s competitions, this one focussing on Hatta. Submit up to three photos or one vid (min 30 max 60 secs). The top three winners get prizes, max AED 20,000 for video and AED 15,000 for photography. Deadline is 27 February …
Make more of the museum Louvre Abu Dhabi is inviting local small businesses to submit productions for a retail collection that draws inspiration from the museum’s architecture and will be sold under the label ‘Made With Louvre Abu Dhabi’. We’re digging into the details and will have more in the Opportunities page shortly, but for now we can see the Louvre is looking for exclusive, branded products that will be sold it its shop as well as the designer’s own retail outlets. The deadline for proposals is 10 March. More info here.
Footfall And Louvre Abu Dhabi has reported a record 1,422,021 visitors in 2024, the highest annual attendance since it opened. International visitors made up a whopping 84 percent of the total. Louvre AD director Manuel Rabaté called 2024 “a defining year for the museum” …
Last chance for an MFA If you’d like to try for NYUAD’s two-year Master of Fine Arts in Art and Media (MFA) course, get in quick – applications for Fall 2025 close on 15 February.
Something for the weekend Which way round? Find out here.
Things we didn’t know no.94 87% of tracks on Spotify have fewer than 1,000 streams, which mean the acts don’t get paid – songs with less than 1,000 streams have been demonetised by Spotify (which incidentally donated Kr1.7m – about $150k – to Trump’s inauguration).
Earworm of the week The Cliffords : Shattered Glass
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