FEATURES - magpie

The arts centre and the scent of love

31 January 2024

What’s an arts centre for? Arguably there are three key functions: to deliver artistic work that its audience might not otherwise experience, to test the boundaries of the art form by fostering new thinking, and to promote excellence – maybe [… more]

Festival time in RAK

24 January 2024

Ras Al Khaimah Art, the new incarnation of the Ras Al Khaimah Fine Art Festival, opens to the public at 9pm on Friday 2 February. As ever, it’s at the Al Jazeera Al Hamra Heritage Village, which has increasingly been [… more]

Shedding light on the matter: the arrival of the UAE light festival

24 January 2024

Regular readers will know that magpie has always been a fan of the Sharjah Light Festival, the 13th edition of which runs 7 to 18 February. Key locations in the emirate are being lit up – sustainably, of course – [… more]

Upcoming: 2024’s international arts fairs and biennials

17 January 2024

A calendar of events in and around the cultural life of magpie Click on the event name and its website will open in a new tab. You can look for specific events from the search bar at the top, or [… more]

Upcoming: 2024’s international arts festivals

17 January 2024

A calendar of events in and around the cultural life of magpie Click on the event name and its website will open in a new tab. You can look for specific events from the search bar at the top, or [… more]

Art Dubai 2024: more extras, wider regionality

9 January 2024

Art Dubai is promising a significantly expanded public programme for its 2024 edition (1-3 March) including what’s described as “the most extensive education, talks and thought-leadership programme of any international art fair”. The organisers said much the same last year, [… more]

What the rich want from art (and what they get)

13 December 2023

At the end of November, Deloitte published the eighth edition of its Art & Finance Report, coproduced with the London-based art market research and data intelligence company ArtTactic (whose other work includes the Online Art Trade Report in partnership with [… more]

Indie in Sharjah: SFP6 returns

6 December 2023

The sixth edition of Sharjah Arts Foundation’s annual film festival, which runs from 8 to 17 December, features more than 50 films from around the world – a range of independent cinema and experimental filmmaking that “foregrounds the transformative role [… more]

G4C Middle East Summit returns

5 December 2023

The second Games for Change Middle East Summit will be held in Abu Dhabi next week (14-15 December, plus the BLAST Premier World Final matches on 14-17 December), further buffing the capital’s growing rep as a regional hub for game [… more]

Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award 2023 winners

29 November 2023

The 2023 Christo and Jeanne-Claude Award was presented at Abu Dhabi Art last week to the artists responsible for Shaheeq – an interesting installation made from rammed earth that one day will return to the earth. Produced annually since 2013 [… more]