This week’s editorial musings from magpie’s nest
The quote: Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light Joseph Pulitzer
Bricks as books The winner of the thirteenth edition of The Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award is Hannan Arshad, a UAE-based Indian artist and graphic designer, with Safekeeping Stories – an interactive installation that aims to preserve Mughal architectural and cultural knowledge via recreations of traditional Lakhori bricks engraved with the artist’s own interpretation of Mughal miniatures. The bricks are arranged to resemble a library, inviting viewers to physically remove a brick/book from the structure to look at it. As usual, it will be unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art in November …
Art fair booths are so yesterday Art Basel Qatar has hit the ground running with some unconventional moves, naming the Egyptian-born artist Wael Shawky as Artistic Director and outlining a new “open format” for the fair – instead of the conventional booths there will be solo presentations by galleries “responding to a central thematic framework”. That theme is ‘Becoming’, aka “a meditation on humanity’s ongoing transformation and the evolving systems that shape how we live, believe, and create meaning”. Art Basel Qatar will run 5-7 February next year. We’ll have more on this story in a day or so …
See me, feel me Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Quantum Dome Project is a 25-minute VR experience that provides a SF-like historical context for three significant artefacts from the permanent collection – a marble bust of Augustus (and 1st Century Rome), a manuscript page from the 13th century De Materia Medica (Baghdad’s House of Wisdom at its most potent), and the 17th–18th century Mughal armour known as Four Mirrors. This looks a clever interpretation of the museum’s storytelling remit; it was described as “an experience where visitors can engage with history not as distant observers but as active participants”. Tickets are AED 120, though that does include general museum admission …
WADs going on This year’s World Art Dubai (“the MENA region’s biggest art fair”) finished its four-day run with more than 14,000 visitors to see the multiple activities and 400-plus exhibitors (including 120+ described as ‘galleries’). The visitor profile was interesting: fully 25% described themselves as ‘tourists’ rather than locals. Art-related activities (artists, galleries, curators, interior designers) accounted for 46% of them; 22% were buyers and collectors, ranging from ‘investors’ to ‘occasional art buyers’. Bookings for WAD 2026 (23-26 April) are being taken now …
Coming soon (maybe) We’ve been looking at Zaha Hadid Architects’ masterplan for Khalid Bin Sultan City, an ecologically-sound but otherwise undramatic mixed-use development adjacent to BEEAH’s headquarters in Sharjah and promoted by BEEAH as part of its reinvention as a whole-environment concern. There’s no word yet on how big Khalid bin Sultan City will be, how many people and workplaces it will house, and when it will be built, or even started; but at least we have some nice renders …
Chic eats The Prix Versailles gives prizes to the World’s Most Beautiful places, including restaurants. Interior design takes precedence over the food in these awards, but the top two spots in the 2025 list go to Dubai eateries – the Emirati-styled Gerbou in Nad al Sheba (highly recommended) and the Michelin-starred 14-places-only Smoked Room on The Palm (highly priced) …
SAT’s plans We took the opportunity to look in more detail at the curators and curatorial statement for the third Sharjah Architecture Triennial, due to open at the end of next year. In general we like the look of it; there are no details yet, but the theme – ‘Architecture Otherwise’ – does suggest a range of tools, methods and spatial interventions to create “the kind of settings often deemed marginal” …
Buy now Dubai’s new First-Time Home Buyers initiative might offer a bit less than the name implies – there’s priority access to new launches (but the scheme applies only to off-plan sales), “preferential pricing” (but that’s down to whatever the participating developers decide), and “tailored mortgage solutions” (which again is down to individual banks, and none have announced any tailoring as yet). Your bank is probably one of them; you qualify if you’re a UAE resident aged at least 18 and don’t currently own a freehold property in Dubai. Dubai Land Department says it expects 5,000 new buyers will take up the scheme this year …
Making Arabic ‘The History of Letters and Diacritical Marks’ is a short Sharjah Public Libraries exhibition – part of SPL’s centennial celebrations – that features rare manuscripts and artefacts from the Sharjah Quran Complex collection. It traces 14 centuries of development in Arabic script, from its earliest forms to the refinement of diacritical marks and the flourishing of Arabic calligraphy, to offer “a compelling look into how the script evolved into an art form and a vessel of knowledge”. It runs to 20 July in Al Rahmaniyah Mall, out on the edge of Sharjah city, but the trip is worth it …
What’s on It’s the start of summer, so there’s not too much going on – which is why the Agenda listings section is filled with comedy. Most of the arts-centre type places are running camps for kids, for instance, though there are several art exhibitions still running. And there’s one starting this week: Bruno Sfeir at Artbooth in Abu Dhabi. The Spain-based Uruguayan-Lebanese painter is very stylish, with constructivist influences in his expressions of inner experience. Which might sound like artspeak, but check it out for yourself and you’ll see what I mean …
Useful app of the week Thesaurus on steroids: Power Thesaurus is a genuinely useful tool for writers – a clean, fast web app that gives crowd-sourced associations and related content for a given word. We got 715 related terms for “magpie” …
Something for the weekend Primesweeper is (of course) Minesweeper with prime numbers. The new Wordle for maths freaks? Try it here …
Things we didn’t know no.94 Each king in a deck of playing cards represents great leader from (European) history – King David (spades), Alexander the Great (clubs), Julius Caesar (diamonds), Charlemagne (hearts – and he’s the only one without a moustache. Even though images of him usually show a full beard, including max upper lip coverage) …
Earworm of the week Model/Actriz : Diva
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