A man passes by Waterbones by Italian artist Loris Cecchini during Art Dubai. EPA
A man passes by Waterbones by Italian artist Loris Cecchini during Art Dubai. EPA

A strong art scene is a crucial component of a global city. Dubai doesn't disappoint



In the first year of Art Dubai, in 2007, there was one hall with 40 galleries and global diversity was a characteristic from the start: From Helsinki to Damascus, Mumbai to New York, declared co-founder John Martin in the catalogue. The event ushered in the inaugural Global Art Forum: Putting Dubai at the Centre of the Global Art World, with speakers like Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jean-Hubert Martin talking about branding cities through culture. I installed 17 large-scale art projects by artists such as Lara Baladi and Conrad Shawcross.

The intervening decade has seen the region witness unspeakable, seemingly insoluble tragedies and the world suffer a major financial crisis, and yet the UAE arts scene has consolidated and expanded. It sits in the centre of sprawling art hubs with increasingly strong programming, which entice international heavyweights to the region.

The opening of Louvre Abu Dhabi last November gave the capital and, indeed, the nation, the ultimate cache: a world-class institution. Participation at the Venice Biennale, the Olympics of the contemporary art world, is another significant marker. The UAE is now firmly established after having a pavilion for a decade.

The UAE's stability and geographical location makes it an ideal spot for artists to find refuge. Take Tammam Azzam, famous for his Freedom Graffiti print. Ayyam Gallery supported his relocation from Damascus to Dubai when the conflict broke out: his magnificent collages are a highlight of Art Dubai this year. Or Hazem Harb, whose open studio in Alserkal Avenue is a treasure trove of archival images from his native Palestine, reframed and reinterpreted. There are a growing number of residency programmes as well: a new section of the fair brought 11 artists to the UAE from late January until now to produce new work. These pieces are fun, edgy and experimental and yet cleverly commercially viable.

There is also an expanding collector base in the UAE, bolstered each March by the overseas guests including invited museum groups. Its incredible how there still seems to be first-time visitors, alongside the regulars who have Art Dubai marked in their calendars each year. Countless relationships have been fostered at the fair, leading to significant institutional partnerships. Interns from the early years are now successful artists represented by participating galleries, showing in Biennials or running museum projects.

The variety of spaces available across the Emirates for artists to exhibit has increased tenfold since 2007, and the unusual yet welcome overarching management structure of art organisations allows them the capacity to work on special projects, providing support in many ways – from a marketing, coordinating perspective as well as mentorship and platforms for cerebral collaboration. The footprint of Alserkal Avenue alone now spans 46,500 square metres with several warehouses available for one-off independent projects often at short notice. Take the moving display by Ayesha Hadhir, Al Doobah in Warehouse 61, one of eight pop-ups in the avenue during Art Week 2018. Telling the tragic tale of a shipwreck she witnessed as a child off the coast of Abu Dhabi at Al Dhabiya, the young artist dived into the wreck documenting its sinking and corrosion extracting parts, piecing them together with garments soaked in seawater. Shaikha Al Ketbi, is preoccupied with fantastical fictions set in isolated landscapes, her photography and multi-media installations are a highlight of Ishara: Signs, Symbols and Shared Languages commissioned by UAE Unlimited at Concrete, Alserkal Avenue. Both artists are recent graduates of Zayed University. Despite some excellent new academic institutions, however, one missing component in the UAE is postgraduate university courses in the arts, some are in the pipeline, but what seems to be more prevalent is informal learning.

At the recent Global Education and Skills Forum, the Global Teacher Prize was awarded to Andria Zafirakou who works at a school in the London borough of Brent, which reports to have 130 languages spoken in its local community. It is significant that Ms Zafirakou teaches art and textiles: perhaps the arts can be the most effective way to communicate in a field of such diversity. The humanities seem be acknowledged, at last, as crucial components in developing future talent.

And that has been the key to building the arts community: educational initiatives that directly respond to the art on display. Just as contemporary artists are embracing subject matters that often feel distant from traditional art practice, the Global Art Forum invariably scrutinises current trends and preoccupations and this year is focusing on how automation is shaping our future.

A strong art scene that knows how to critique itself is a crucial component of a global city. Dubai’s status was confirmed when it entered the top 25 cities in the Global Power Index and plans for Dubai 2021 have cultural initiatives high on the agenda. Events such as Art Dubai, Christie’s auctions and a robust gallery scene have propelled the city, traditionally a trading port for the region, to be its commercial arts hub just as it is in other sectors such as finance or industry. The opening of the Jameel Art Centre in November during Dubai Design Week will give the city its first significant institution, Sharjah Biennial’s next edition in March 2019 promises much with three appointed curators and how can we forget Expo 2020? Whether by chance or good intelligence, the UAE is now firmly established as a significant destination for culture.

Laura Egerton is a freelance arts writer based in Dubai. She was one of the founding organisers of Art Dubai and runs Art Week.

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

The National's picks

4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young

The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat & Other Stories From the North
Edited and Introduced by Sjón and Ted Hodgkinson
Pushkin Press 

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

Full Party in the Park line-up

2pm – Andreah

3pm – Supernovas

4.30pm – The Boxtones

5.30pm – Lighthouse Family

7pm – Step On DJs

8pm – Richard Ashcroft

9.30pm – Chris Wright

10pm – Fatboy Slim

11pm – Hollaphonic

 

Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989

Director: Goran Hugo Olsson

Rating: 5/5

NO OTHER LAND

Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal

Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham

Rating: 3.5/5

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Klipit%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202022%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Venkat%20Reddy%2C%20Mohammed%20Al%20Bulooki%2C%20Bilal%20Merchant%2C%20Asif%20Ahmed%2C%20Ovais%20Merchant%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Digital%20receipts%2C%20finance%2C%20blockchain%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%244%20million%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Privately%2Fself-funded%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Ain Dubai in numbers

126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure

1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch

16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.

9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.

5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place

192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.

Director: Laxman Utekar

Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna

Rating: 1/5

RACE CARD

5pm: Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 1,400m
5.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh70,000 1,000m
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 2,000m
6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 2,000m
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh70,000 1,600m
7.30pm: Al Ain Mile Group 3 (PA) Dh350,000 1,600m
8pm: Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 1,600m
 
Amith's selections:
5pm: AF Sail
5.30pm: Dahawi
6pm: Taajer
6.30pm: Pharitz Oubai
7pm: Winked
7.30pm: Shahm
8pm: Raniah

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
WHAT%20ARE%20THE%20PRODUCTS%20WITHIN%20THE%20THREE%20MAJOR%20CATEGORIES%3F
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EAdvanced%20materials%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20specifically%20engineered%20to%20exhibit%20novel%20or%20enhanced%20properties%2C%20that%20confer%20superior%20performance%20relative%20to%20conventional%20materials%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EAdvanced%20components%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20includes%20semiconductor%20components%2C%20such%20as%20microprocessors%20and%20other%20computer%20chips%2C%20and%20computer%20vision%20components%20such%20as%20lenses%20and%20image%20sensors%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EAdvanced%20products%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20includes%20personal%20electronics%2C%20smart%20home%20devices%20and%20space%20technologies%2C%20along%20with%20industry-enabling%20products%20such%20as%20robots%2C%203D%20printing%20equipment%20and%20exoskeletons%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cem%3ESource%3A%20Strategy%26amp%3B%3C%2Fem%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
 
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Mountain%20Boy
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Zainab%20Shaheen%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Naser%20Al%20Messabi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3C%2Fstrong%3E%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Lowest Test scores

26 - New Zealand v England at Auckland, March 1955

30 - South Africa v England at Port Elizabeth, Feb 1896

30 - South Africa v England at Birmingham, June 1924

35 - South Africa v England at Cape Town, April 1899

36 - South Africa v Australia at Melbourne, Feb. 1932

36 - Australia v England at Birmingham, May 1902

36 - India v Australia at Adelaide, Dec. 2020

38 - Ireland v England at Lord's, July 2019

42 - New Zealand v Australia in Wellington, March 1946

42 - Australia v England in Sydney, Feb. 1888

Name: Brendalle Belaza

From: Crossing Rubber, Philippines

Arrived in the UAE: 2007

Favourite place in Abu Dhabi: NYUAD campus

Favourite photography style: Street photography

Favourite book: Harry Potter