Music from the Silk Road event
Five artists, including known musical figures on London’s creative scene, perform a lunchtime concert in a capsule presentation of music from the Middle East and its eastward extensions along the Silk Road ancient and modern, writes The Middle East in Europe. ‘Summertime in Distant Lands,’ part of an ongoing and well regarded Music@One series, is a collaboration between SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies),...
Tate celebrates Fahrelnissa Zeid, cross-cultural modernist
Come this June (2017), Tate Modern celebrates the life and works of Fahrelnissa Zeid, an artist who can rightly be seen as one of the female pioneers, in the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, of both modernism and abstraction in a western sense, responsive to western aesthetics and sensibilities. Abstraction, through reinterpretation of Arabic/Farsi/Osmanli/Urdu calligraphic forms, isn’t new to a region that, in...
Nadia Kaabi-Linke at Mosaic Rooms
Tunisian Russian artist Nadia Kaabi-Linke features in a solo show at Mosaic Rooms 10 October – 29 November 2014. The Future Rewound & The Cabinet of Souls is her first individual exhibition in Britain. The exhibition features three new specially commissioned site-specific installations, alongside previously unseen and recent work, in the artist’s most extensive solo exhibition to date. The exhibition is formed in two parts,...
London festival spotlights new in Arab documentary and film
BBC Arabic and the British Council are launching Aan Korb Film and Documentary Festival: Close Up Stories from the New Arab World with screenings, talks, debates and workshops over four days at BBC Broadcasting House Radio Theatre, London, 31 October – 3 November 2014. Aan Korb (Arabic: close-up) promises “an unprecedented platform” in London to a generation that experienced events and in many cases risked their lives...
Culturunners launch set for Houston
Culturunners, a three-year road-trip connecting artists in the United States and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, will launch in Houston, Texas, 21 September 2014. The launch at the the Rothko Chapel is a joint endeavour of the Rothko Chapel, Edge of Arabia and Art Jameel and will feature an evening of discussion, film and music, coinciding with the United Nations International Day of Peace. The event looks set to be a...
Auction Room offers online sale of MENA contemporary art
The Auction Room, London, is holding a second online sale of contemporary art from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The catalogue for the sale is on view here and bidding is open, said the Auction Room, which conducted a similar online sale in 2013. The final and ‘live’ online bidding will take place at www.theauctionroom.com on 1 October 2014 at 7pm London time. Last-year’s 40-lot auction realised a total of GBP 235,348, a...