The art world came to Turkey in September for two high-profile events: Contemporary Istanbul and the 18th Istanbul Biennial. Against a backdrop of political crisis and growing censorship, organisers and artists found creative ways to stay relevant. I wrote the article for Qantara.
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In regions like Latvia, where audiences aren’t saturated with contemporary art, you don’t need cynicism or irony,” says Payam of artist collective Slavs and Tatars. “That makes it possible to present pieces that are both aesthetically strong and politically charged, and the audience receives them without the defensive distance you might find elsewhere.
I wrote the article for Observer
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Themes of memory, belonging, and identity are recurring motifs in Traboulsi’s work. Born in 1976, a year after the start of Lebanon’s civil war, her family fled the country in 1983 to the safety of Austria, her mother’s home country. But a longing for Lebanon remained.
“When my family left Beirut, we left by ferry. I watched the city slowly disappear, a thin stretch of buildings retreating on the horizon getting farther and farther across the sea.”
That image stayed with her for 13 years, inspiring the title of her photo series, Beirut, Recurring Dream. “Years later, I took that photo. It’s in my book,” she says. “It was exactly how I remembered it.”
I have interviewed the artist for Hadara.
Here is the link to the interview
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My latest story for Times of Central Asia, is about the inauguration of the Almaty Museum of Arts, which represents a decisive step in shaping Kazakhstan’s art system.
As the country’s first large-scale contemporary art museum, it houses over 700 works collected across three decades, offering a panoramic view of modern Kazakh art while opening pathways to Central Asian and international dialogues.
Here is the link to the article
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Another review of the Helsinki Biennial (in Italian with a English translation) for IFDM, sharing some more thoughts and analysis to share on a very interesting art event.
Here is the link to the article
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There are historical characters that are no longer themselves. They become archetypes and symbols for us to project upon. Cleopatra is one such character.
The Mystery of Cleopatra, a newly opened exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, investigates this very aspect of the Egyptian queen.
Drawing on historical sources that retrace who Cleopatra was, the exhibition examines what she has been made to represent — and how her story might now be told differently.
I interviewed the exhibition’s curator for The New Arab.
Here is the link to the article
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In the art world, fairs often have a meteoric rise and fall in an oversaturated market of competing events. But every so often, one lands with a quiet, deliberate weight, embedding itself in the soil of its context and revitalizing it. Vima in Limassol, Cyprus, is one such project.
Unfolding in a transformed wine warehouse near the sea, VIMA resisted the sterile polish of typical fair venues. Here, the Mediterranean wind mingled with the hum of languages, from Russian to Arabic, Greek, and Turkish, to English.
The fair was founded by three Russians who have established themselves in Cyprus – Edgar Gadzhiev, Lara Kotreleva, and Nadezhda Zinovskaya – all of whom have brought a deep well of curatorial and institutional experience from Central Asia, Eurasia, and beyond.
I have interviewed the three founders for Times of Central Asia.
Here is the link to the article
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Is it possible to preserve architectural heritage while working towards sustainability? And what to make of the architectural relics of the past century? Can they somehow take on new meaning rather than remaining a representation of dystopias and utopias of the past?
All these questions and more are addressed by the Uzbekistan Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Running alternate years with the Art Biennale, this is undoubtedly one of the most important architectural events in the international arena.
I have interviewed Ekaterina Golovatyuk of Studio GRACE, the architectural film that curated the Uzebek Pavillion. The piece is for Times of Central Asia.
Here is the link to the interview
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Sara Raza is a litmus test for the spirit of the times in the shape of an art curator. In simple terms, art crowds can count on her direction for the Tashkent Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) to bring the most pressing issues in contemporary art to the foreground.
Indeed, the author of the book Punk Orientalism – and the namesake curatorial studio – has been just appointed as Artistic Director and Chief Curatorial Director of the CCA Tashkent, set to open in September 2025.
It’s a strategic move for the Centre, which has aspirations of becoming a global arts and culture hub and is aiming at international artistic and creative exchanges, which include residencies, exhibitions, workshops, and educational programmes, and contributing to Uzbekistan’s cultural ecosystem.
Here is the link to the interview
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The mythological figure of the Simurgh is the focus of Slavs and Tatars’ latest show at the gallery The Third Line in Dubai called “Simurgh Self-Help”.
The show speaks of the importance of reclaiming and reframing cultural memories in a fractured world, and an invitation to think beyond the artificial, top-down confines of nationalism, to find cultural unity.
I have interview Payam, one half of Slav and Tatars, for The Times of Central Asia.
Read More![1-54 Marrakech 2025. [Courtesy Mohamed Lakhdar]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/MLR57810.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
Small but well-curated, the 1/54 art fair in Marrakech aims to be the gateway for African art, while fostering the local Moroccan art scene. I have reported on the event for Middle East Monitor.
Here is the link to the article
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The show “Nadia Saikali and Her Contemporaries” at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah until 2 August is dedicated to pioneering abstract artist Saikali, and the influence that she had on modernism in the Arab world and beyond.
This is the first of two pieces which I have written of the show, and has been just published by Middle East Monitor.
Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
