I wrote a piece for ArtAsiaPacific on the Parisian art fair AsiaNow. What clearly emerges from the fair, is how the economic dynamism of the Middle East is fostering new connections between the Gulf and other thriving art scenes, from Korea to Southeast Asia.
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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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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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Are we watching or being watched? Ali Cherri’s new show in Marseille, on view through the 4th of January 2026, deconstructs the museum from the inside out. I wrote the article for The Markaz Review.
Here is the link to the review
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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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Beyond its commercial ambitions, the inaugural edition of VIMA art fair carved out space to consider Cyprus’ complex geopolitical position. I wrote a report on the fair for the Observer.
Here is the link to the article
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The Arab World Institute’s exhibition on Gaza’s archaeological treasures offers European visitors a vital glimpse into the history of the Palestinian enclave.
I wrote the piece for The New Arab
Here is the link to the article
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I wrote for Middle East Monitor an article about “Beyrouth Ya Beyrouth”, a comic book collection in the form of a newspaper created last year by the comic book festival “Rencontres du 9e Art, Festival BD d’Aix” at Aix-en-Provence in the South of France.
The collection sees a group of Lebanese artists sharing different sides of Beirut that are less known to the media. Rather than focusing on the crises and turmoil, they aim to capture the city’s everyday life, emotions and experiences through the medium of comics.
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.
Middle East Monitor has published by review of the exhibition Seeing is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gérôme at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.
The French artist, who lived and worked in the 1800s, was extremely influential in his depictions of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, shaping Western perceptions of these regions during the very century when colonialism and so-called “Oriental Studies” were entrenching global power dynamics.
Here is the link to the article
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My interview with Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh has been published by Middle East Monitor.
“In the past few months I have been making, just making, making, making those pieces and trying to translate emotions into colours and glazes and firing them and creating this alchemy of understanding around them,” she explained. Her move to Lisbon, added Mirna, is a welcome pause from producing so much work.
However, one conviction resonates very strongly with her; whether in a commercial context like the fair, an experimental gallery like Nika, or an institution like Shanghai: she believes in the meaning of standing up for what’s right. “As a Palestinian, all my life I was told that my voice is not important,” she concluded. “But it is. It is very important. It is very important to speak up.”
Here is the link to the interview
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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
