Spreading its Wings…..Art Dubai 2013

Text: Salwat Ali

Photographs: courtesy Art Dubai

 Dubai, commonly considered a booming tourist destination and a glitzy shopper’s paradise is primarily an international trading hub where spectacular bouts of financial speculation, bold building projects and gold / diamond commerce are just some of the principal activities defining its intensely commercial culture. Formerly indifferent to the finer arts it was devoid of indicative infrastructure like art academic institutions, galleries and museums.  The city’s rising prominence as a center of art and cultural discourse is a very recent phenomenon that owes its occurrence in a large measure to the traffic and debate generated by its flagship annual art event simply titled Art Dubai. For other Muslim countries, in close proximity to UAE, whose art history traverses millennia but has yet to gain significant recognition, the evolution and success of Art Dubai is not just a case – study for developmental research but also a viable gateway into the international art arena where the established western sensibility and the rising eastern ethos have a productive interaction.

 Instituted only seven years ago Art Dubai has managed to establish its credentials as an art festival where marketing strategies are being balanced with a visionary outlook.   What started as an event solidly grounded on market principles – bringing wealthy patrons with bare walls together with decoratively pleasing artworks – it is turning into something more substantial. Critics from the west were initially skeptical about the fair’s status but approval is beginning to mount as every successive edition of Art Dubai expands its art dialogue in relevant directions. The cultural, economic and political context of Art Dubai and its symposium the Global Art Forum, as well as its commercial, educational and curatorial role and the related flourish of galleries in Dubai address the complex connections that exist in the MENASA (Middle East North Africa South Asia) region between art as a critical practice, art as a marker of modernity and a commodity of hyper-capitalist consumption. 

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Art & Architecture Education

Text: Ar. Pervaiz Vandal

Part I

The purpose of formal education, since its beginnings in India in the Vedic age (ca 2000BCE), was to inculcate holistic thinking about existence in its interaction with Nature and the Unknown. Human inquiry was directed towards understanding the Self with all its physical and psychological layers and the context within which it operated as an integrated, interactive system. In the axial age,[1] (ca 1000-300 BCE) humanity discovered values, which transcended the simple struggle for physical survival. Compassion for others, appreciation and creation of beauty brought pleasures that made life worth the struggle and it was this innate quality that uplifted humans to a level higher than other animals[2].

In Europe, before the industrial revolution, education had no divisions of art or science disciplines; astronomers, mathematicians, physicists could be well versed, in logic, poetry, philosophy and the classical languages, Greek or Latin. Education was transferring of awareness and wisdom; in more advanced cases it meant a deeper knowledge of both the tangible and intangible natural phenomenon. With the advent of large scale production, specialized and trained labor was required.  Slave labor was undoubtedly used earlier to perform unskilled work, but for the first time human beings were reduced to usable skilled man-power through a deliberate process of education and training. The purpose of education began to be linked with production.

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AN ARTIST’S VIEW OF THE WORLD | TASADAQ SOHAIL

Text: Marjorie Husain

Visuals: Courtesy Chawkandi Art

In a recent exhibition of the veteran artist Tasadaq Sohail’s paintings mounted at the Chawkandi Art gallery, the artist led the viewer to wondrous vistas with exotic birds, and flowers introducing his story. The textured brush strokes, palette-knife and the artist’s frotting technique created landscapes of golden grass in the sun dappled scenario of optimism. Though glimpses of misshapen figures wearing the authority of pointed hats are seen drawing together in groups, there are also glimpses of the woodland nymphs symbolizing innocence and joy. Parrots, traditionally the story tellers of folk lore, are in evidence though each of the artist’s paintings invites the viewer’s own interpretation. In the landscapes of the painter strange creatures, gorgeous birds, luminous forms and goblins of the psyche are found. Sohail’s paintings create narratives of sly and perceptive irony, symbolizing everyman’s secret thoughts, dreams and often unspoken fears.

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