This week’s editorial musings from magpie’s nest
Open here NYUAD Art Gallery’s Fall show Between the Tides: A Gulf Quinquennial is now open, and it’s every bit as impressive as we expected. Featuring a variety of work by 21 artists, architects, designers, and collectives from the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, it does a great job of capturing key moments in the GCC’s cultural scene over the past five years. It runs to 8 December.
Carry the weight Sharjah Art Foundation has announced the title, approach and participant list for Sharjah Biennial 16 (6 Feb to 15 June next year). There will be work from more than 140 artists, including 80 new commissions; the theme is ‘to carry’, and the curatorial statement for that confused us mightily at first sight. Luckily SAF president Hoor Al Qasimi cleared it all up: “By centring the act of carrying, SB16 offers a space for imagining new collective futures while recognising the weight of shared histories and experiences”. Phew. Read our take on it here.
Opportunistics Dubai Culture has extended the deadline for Sikka Art and Design Festival participation by a month. You now have until 31 October to pitch for a spot at the festival, (runs 31 Jan to 9 Feb). Possible activities listed include visual arts, painting, sculptures, photography, design, murals, multimedia, “culinary arts”, interactive workshops, musical and cinematic performances, talks, and panel discussions. Check out the entry on our Opportunities page.
We believe that Dubai Culture has also stretched the deadline for submissions to the Al Marmoom short film competition, again to 31 October – at least, that is what’s showing on the website. This is our listing for it.
And while we’re on the subject, here’s one you won’t find on the Opportunities page because we don’t normally flag up open calls that are too exclusive; the ADMAF TotalEnergies Sustainability Design Award 2024 open call is restricted to Emiratis. But if you’re interested, the call invites designers and architects aged 18-35 to submit design proposals that address at least one of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The deadline is 15 November and more information is here.
Fine art shopping Another week, another story about the art market being down. Or up. This one is a downer, at least as far as the very rich are concerned: a study published this summer by consulting firm Bain & Co and the Italian luxury goods association Altagamma found that the overall luxury sector grew between 8 and 10 percent last year and global sales totalled around $1.66 trillion; but the fine art component underperformed, growing only between 1 and 3 percent to reach a mere $45 billion of the total. Sales of luxury cars, the biggest portion of the overall market, hit new records. Fill your boots here.
Person power “We are trying to build a future that is more open, more accessible, more natural, and more about human connection” declared Mark Zuckerberg at Meta’s annual Connect conference. “Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology.” In the pre-AI pre-metaverse world there was of course another way to feel truly present with another person, which is to be truly present with another person. Just saying.
Book ahead Benjamin Millepied’s LA Dance Project is bringing his Romeo & Juliet Suite to Dubai Opera later this month. The very scary Woman in Black starts its short run at the end of the month. And Alex Broun’s neat Marber-ish play about finding and/or defining love, torn, is coming to the Fridge – with limited seating because of the close-up (“intimate”, “immersive”) staging.
Brainache Explain this lot: falkun, homem de guerra, kick, lavoro, mood, mosca, raccordement, schafer, stobhach, tre, zevk.
Things we didn’t know, no.94 Hot drinks taste different according to the cup colour.
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