Editorial musings from the nest
The quote: The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom Isaac Asimov …
Dubai does design Dubai Design Week is upon us, and we think it’s the best yet – the commissions and awards are pretty special, the residents of d3 have pulled out all the stops with exhibitions, workshops etc, and regional exhibitors at Downtown Design seems to have lost all lingering sense of inferiority. Don’t look for the Editions tent, though – looks like last year’s exhibition of limited-edition designs and art was a one-off. Here’s our intro, the official website is here, and Love That Design has a pretty good interactive map.
Limited edition Louvre AD LITO Masters has produced a range of limited-edition prints (500 per image) of ten works from Louvre Abu Dhabi’s collection – Fragonard, Renoir, Mondrian, Hokusai and Kandinsky among others. LITO is the go-to maker of top-quality museum-attested prints, using a patented 3D scanning technology that faithfully reproduces brushstrokes and texture as well as colour; framed LouvreAD prints start at £554 inc tax (Hokusai) and go up to £1,439 (Delaunay’s sizeable runners). No idea why prices are in Sterling … Shop here.
Hong Kong comes to Dubai The sixth Hong Kong Film Gala Presentation brings six HK films to Dubai this weekend, with actor Q&As for the opener (Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In) on Friday and Jackie Chan’s classic Police Story under the stars at The Yard on 7 Nov. Otherwise films are screen at Cinema Akil’s Alserkal Avenue and 25hours Hotel locations, tickets AED 67.20 per film. Details here.
Abu Dhabi does well for Christie’s Christie’s MAWASIM auction on Saturday – its first in Abu Dhabi for fine art – made $8.9m, towards the top end of the $6.5m–$9.7m range estimated. Christie’s was happy: it was the highest total for a Christie’s Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art Evening Sale in more than ten years, more than 30% of registrants were millennial or Gen Z, and 37% were new to the house. Top lot was Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s Variations on the Hexagon (estimate $150,000 to $250,000, sold for $844,800) and nine artists set auction records including Paul Guiragossian, Samia Halaby and Afra Al Dhaheri.
Dubai one-bed bargain? Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi has extended the deadline for its Name Two Giants competition – you now have midnight on 1 Nov to suggest names for its T. rex and blue whale; do it here. The two winners will be announced on 22 Nov, the museum’s first anniversary.
Matching museums MoMA, Centre Pompidou, and M+ have announced an “unprecedented” alliance that effectively shares their collections with co-organised exhibitions and programmes and collaborative curatorial research and conservation. Together, they report around 10m in-person visitors a year and 125m online; each institution will maintain its independence and identity, but “they will function together with greater capacities than are possible individually”. There’s no word yet on when the first fruits of the alliance will appear …
More oil With the US-Iran conflict mired in uncertainty, ADNOC is doubling its capacity to bypass the Strait of Hormuz with a new pipeline to Fujairah. It’s been telling some Asian refiners they can expect crude from Abu Dhabi’s offshore fields via this route early next year, says Bloomberg.
Popular lad So you though you might like an evening with Trevor Noah? And that since he’s doing a four-night run at Dubai Opera (25-29 November) there would surely be tickets available? No chance – he’s all sold out.
Trainees wanted for Art Dubai The latest edition of Art Dubai’s sort-of-internship programme for students and recent graduates, Campus Art Dubai 14.0, is open for applications. Trainees work alongside the Art Dubai team in the run-up to the fair (9-11 April(, getting hands-on experience, learning directly from industry professionals, and maybe exploring career pathways in the arts and creative industries. Apply here.
Art for sale in doha (with eats) Qatar’s development-with-culture agency QC+ has opened a new commercial art and design gallery in Doha Design District called MIHAD (“our purpose is simple. We exist to champion exceptional talent and the creativity that drives it …That means artists and designers from Qatar, the region and around the world whose work challenges, inspires and endures”). Three exhibitions open this week and there’s a chef-in-residence for the onsite eatery; the opening and one of the shows matches the arrival of Design Doha (5-7 Nov – absolutely not selected to coincide with Dubai Design Week). Key differentiator: Mihad is a commercial gallery, “connecting artists and designers with private and corporate collectors”. Not sure how a (semi) institutional operation will work in competition with straight for-profit galleries … There’s no website yet and the Insta account is pretty anaemic.
Favourite sites Voting is open for Readymag Websites of the Year 2026. Ok, the award is run by website design tool Readymag, but it does seem to create impressive sites. Explore the shortlist here.
Stamped in Sharjah’s stamps used to be a favourite of philately fans worldwide, so it might be worth catching the Sharjah Stamp Exhibition 2026 – dealers and other exhibitors from 11 countries at Sharjah Mega Mall, 4–8 Nov, free admission.
Remodelling the data centre Look like antipathy to data centres was a significant factor in the US midterms, which is maybe why OpenAI now wants you to call them “compute campuses”. Who said PR people don’t earn their money?
Last chance to see The next couple of weeks sees a heap of new gallery openings to coincide with the buzz around Frieze Abu Dhabi, which means you only have a few days left to catch the current shows. Those we liked include the two Gallery Isabelle exhibitions, Alaa Itani‘s visual meditation on the horizon and the floral collaboration between Tirdad Hashemi and Soufia Erfanian; Amir Khojasteh‘s solo show at Carbon 12; and Bénédicte Gimmonet‘s Peruvian junglescapes at Aisha Alabbar …
Art daily We approve of explicitly named apps: Daily Art is a daily dose of art history – the app will send you one image of fine art each day with a short backgrounder about it. You can also explore a catalogue of 3,800+ artworks from 1,200 artists. Android, iOS and Mac; free. Download it here.
Job ops 1️⃣ MiZa is recruiting a Programs Manager – Cultural Programming “to lead the planning, curation, and execution of MiZa’s cultural programming and experiential activations”. This looks like a terrific job, creating and producing a year-round events calendar … if you fit the spec. As well as a relevant Bachelor’s degree they want 6–8 years experience in cultural programming, placemaking, events management, or creative industries. Details here.
2️⃣ The UAE National Orchestra is looking for an Artistic Planner, “overseeing the creation of musical material and concert projects – so identifying and selecting projects for performance and managing relationships with composers, guest artists, and musicians. It also seems to involve managing the UAENO’s Chorus. Requires a relevant degree and at least 5 years of experience in a similar role “with a strong background in orchestral programming or music direction, preferably in an international or cultural institution”. Details here.
Useful app of the week Forest is a pomodoro-style focus timer with a twist – rather than blocking sites or apps, Forest helps you avoid wasting time on your phone by rewarding you for not touching it. Your virtual trees grow until you pick up your phone; lose focus, and you lose the tree. Free for iOS and Android. A paid subscription unlocks extra features and contributes to real trees being planted. Check it out here.
Something for the weekend Gerrymandle is a daily game where you “draw electoral district lines to win more seats than your opponents and win the election” by clicking adjacent tiles on the map to group them into a district. Packing concentrates opponents into a few districts they win by a landslide, burning their surplus votes on margins they didn’t need; cracking splits their remaining voters across other districts so they fall just short everywhere. Takeaway: a party can win a majority of seats with a minority of the overall vote. Who knew?
Try it here.
Things we didn’t know no.94 The thickness of a plastic bottle and the weight of a cardboard package will have an impact on whether or not it will be recycled – consumers apparently think that lightweight materials are better off trashed rather than recycled. Bit of an issue, because packagers have attempted to reduce their use of materials by making packaging thinner and therefore lighter …
Earworm of the week Lika : Gravitating
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