Over the past three years, there has been a shift in perception around the Saudi Arabian art scene, and at this year’s Desert X AlUla, artists benefitted from freer expression.
I have review the art festival for the German webmagazine Qantara.
Here is the link to the article
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A new byline and – most importantly – some news from the Hong Kong Art Week. I’m writing for Italian newspaper Il Sole 24Ore about a new commission by artist Yang Fudong, who will screen new work on the façade of the M+ museum.
Here is the link to the article
Read More![Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha [Naima Morelli]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/030941cf4fa69dd0-photo.jpg?fit=1067%2C800&ssl=1)
With shows that range from political stances to introspective research, Doha’s Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art proves itself to be one of the most authoritative voices for Arab narratives and the Global South in art.
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My latest piece for The Markaz reviw is about two exhibitions in Tripoli and Florence. These examine Libyan identity, gauging what to take and what to leave of its colonial past and its ancestral roots, while trying to make sense of the last years of civil war.
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In my interview with curator Nadine Khalil for The Markaz Review, we discover the artists on display in Dubai in the exhibition, I Can No Longer Produce the Limits of My Own Body, on view at the Nika Gallery through the 24th of February, 2024.
Here is the link to the article
Read More![Faisal Saleh, founder of Palestinian Museum, speaks during the inauguration of the facility in Woodbridge, Connecticut, April 22, 2018. [HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/GettyImages-950084052.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1)
“A few months ago, the director of the Palestine Museum US, Faisal Saleh, was in a room in Venice with members of the commission for the 2024 Venice Art Biennale. They tried to explain to him why his proposal for a collateral exhibition of Palestinian artists was rejected.
Saleh is not only Palestinian, but also very American in his ethos. So, he told me, when the Biennale spokesperson tried to convince him that art and politics have to be kept separate, he didn’t hesitate to tell them, ‘Well, I may not be as much of an expert on art as you are, but I do know that politics and art are intertwined. You can’t really separate one from the other.’ “
Faisal Saleh, director of the Palestine Museum US has started a petition to have a Palestinian-only collateral show at the Venice Biennale 2024. I spoke with him for Middle East Monitor.
Here is the link to the interview
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I have been in Singapore in the last couple of weeks, to report on the Art fair ART SG and the art week. I wrote a piece on the sales on the preview day for The Art Newspaper. Below a snippet and the link.
“‘Welcome to the tropical jungle,’ reads a sign welcoming visitors to the impressive green wall at Terminal 3 of Singapore Changi Airport. The irony is, of course, that despite its geographical setting, the Lion City is anything but a jungle. Everything it does is planned and in an orderly manner.
This includes a decades-long effort by its government to position the city-state as an art hub for the diverse and organic Southeast Asian art scenes. After some turbulence, the flagship international fair Art SG was launched last year and well received by an art-starved, post-pandemic public, gathering 164 galleries from 35 countries.”
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“I see the beauty in many places, many times, and I have always wanted to interrupt conversations to point out what I see,” says Palestinian artist Samia Halaby. “I learned not to do so, and share beauty through painting.”
Today in her eighties, Samia Halaby is a pioneer of abstract painting and a central figure in Palestinian art, with an artistic career that started in the late 1950s and was also accompanied by a strong commitment to the liberation of her country.
I have interviewed the artist for The New Arab.
Here is the link to the interview
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My latest piece for The Financial Times. I have interviewed the Taiwanese artist Su-Hui Yui about his work on collective memories, transgression and technological change in Asian societies that he presented during the Singapore Art Week.
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My piece on the light art festival Noor Riyadh has just been published on Al-Monitor.
“Standing in the middle of the King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) in Riyadh, a swarm of drones creates delicate constellations on the horizon. A virtuoso is playing the piano on a stage, complementing the 3,000-drone performance conceived by Studio Drift — an artist duo formed by Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta — called ‘Desert Swarm’.”
Here is the link to the article
The Italian Magazine Arabpop has just published my interview with Libyan artist Marwa Benhalim in Italian, with the title “The history of the world in a fist of couscous.”
This issue magazine themed “feast” is now out in the press.
What is the role of art in times of conflict? I wrote a piece about it for Middle East Monitor, centered on the art light festival, Manar Abu Dhabi, curated by Reem Fadda and Alia Zaal Lootah from 15 November 2023. The festival runs to 30 January 2024.
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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
