This autumn, Sharjah Art Museum presents key pieces from the permanent collection of the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.
The horseshoe-shaped, dynamic brushstrokes of I Am You by Jordanian painter and art historian Wijdan are at once abstract and spiritual. The 2008 work is an ode to the Sufi interpretation of Islam and pays tribute to the beauty of Arabic calligraphy as an art form.
Read MoreSharjah has long straddled the divide between ancient and contemporary. The emirate has led the charge in embracing its deep-rooted history while at the same time hosting a plethora of heavyweight cultural events in art, literature, music, and more. Tanweer Festival, which makes its much-anticipated debut this November, continues this rich tradition. The festival is a showcase of world music, art, and culinary journeys aimed at fostering cultural understanding and global harmony.
Read MoreAlthough Lamya Gargash often turns her lens to forgotten spaces, vacant rooms or objects, it is the trace of human presence that she seeks to capture. In the rapidly modernising UAE, change is a subject that continually draws attention, but in Gargash’s work there is also a kind of stillness. A viewer can sense traces of the people that once inhabited the space, or the forces of nature that are taking over. It is a documentation of transition.
Read MoreVisiting Sharjah Mosque in the height of summer is a spiritual experience and a journey of discovery.
The burning heat of the Gulf summer makes the light play tricks. Even as the sun descends towards the horizon, as scorching day promises to make way for the respite of evening, shimmering waves of heat-refracted light hang in the air. This atmospheric phenomenon makes the approach to Sharjah Mosque one late afternoon in June feel like the building is a mirage rising from the searing sands.
Read MoreRenowned for its creativity, state-of-the-art technology and the virtuosity of its artisans, Chopard has become one of the leading names in the luxury Swiss watch and jewellery industry. Labelled as “the artisan of intense emotions” the jewellery house is the official partner for the Cannes Film Festival for which Chopard’s High Jewellery artisans have been crafting objects of art since 1998.
Read MoreFor the third edition of the Richard Mille Art Prize that ran until 18 February 2024, seven artist works from eight artists were showcased at Louvre Abu Dhabi for Art Here 2023. .e application was open to all GCC residents and nationals and is part of the Richard Mille brand’s commitment to the progression of contemporary art. .e prize is part of a 10-year agreement between the museum and the luxury watch brand reinforcing the bond between visual and horological arts as well as championing visionary creativity and innovative perspectives on a global scale. .e prize serves as a platform for support and recognition of artists committed to pushing the boundaries of contemporary art and is held annually as a space of interaction and exchange.
Read MoreUpon entering Garden of Emeralds – the inaugural exhibition to mark the opening of L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Art’s newest permanent space in Dubai – visitors encounter a magnificent treasure called the Goliath Mineral. It is a huge specimen weighing 33 kilograms that was extracted from a mine in Zambia in 2010. .e uncut mineral stone is filled with more than 100 raw emeralds protruding from its natural base that convey the journey of the treasured gems, straight from the heart of the planet.
Read MoreImagine extracting Charles Darwin (or perhaps just his theory of evolution) from Victorian England and implanting him two centuries into the future to a time when technological and human intelligence are inseparable. In our age of AI, advanced medical science, and engineering, how would Darwin chart the survival of the fittest? Would man-made inventions be considered the building blocks of life? And who would the most likely survivors be?
Read MoreFor the past nine years, over the course of a week in early November, Dubai Design District [d3] transforms into a hub of creativity. True to its name, the district is the location for Dubai Design Week, a festival that provides a platform for both emerging and established designers, architects, educators, companies, and all creative practitioners. In addition to attracting industry professionals, it is also something that engages the public with large-scale outdoor installations, exhibitions and public interventions – and it's free to attend, which means it’s something everyone can enjoy.
Read MoreAbu Dhabi Art 2023: a preview and a summary
Read MoreIn Shakespeare’s 1601 poem, The Phoenix and the Turtle — known to some as the first great metaphysical poem — the two protagonists die. Interpretations vary but it is assumed that the poem charts an unrealised love affair between two birds — a phoenix and a turtledove — who represent truth and beauty. Its tragic end is countered with a hopeful prayer that this ideal union will re-emerge — like a phoenix from the ashes.
Read MoreIn a 2014 essay titled ‘Artworld Ethereum — Identity, Ownership and Authenticity’, Rhea Myers expounded upon the concept of smart contracts, a term that was coined circa 1993 by computer scientist Nick Szabo. In doing so, she drew upon Lawrence Lessig’s 1999 argument that “code is law”, cleverly and swiftly moving to the notion of truth. The phrase ‘code is law’ had become popular in the blockchain era with suggestions that code should replace law for blockchain based transactions due to its technological prospects for certainty. Or as Myers says: “it is a libertarian attempt to reduce the costs and uncertainty of having to trust human beings and interpret ambiguous human language, or possibly a dystopian replacement of rights and safeguards with binary logic.”
Read MoreDADA is a collaborative art platform where people worldwide speak through drawings and creative collaboration, resulting in participatory works. It is a decentralized community committed to building a blockchain token economy for the arts. The 2017 launch of “Creeps & Weirdos” an NFT project and collection containing 108 unique pieces created by 30 platform artists, established DADA’s position among the pioneers of crypto art.
Judy Mam and Bea Ramos, the founders of the movement talked to MORROW about the roots of DADA, the Creeps & Weirdos collection and the Invisible Economy that they are creating.
Read MoreSince 2001, Steven Sacks, has been exhibiting works of the foremost new media artists, building an audience and collector base whilst prioritizing history, context and flawless presentation. His gallery, bitforms, in New York has an impressive roster including: Manfred Mohr, a German artist who has been working with algorithms in his art since the 1970s; Beryl Korot, a pioneer of video art; Rafael Lozano-Hemmer who creates large-scale interactive installations in public spaces; and Refik Anadol, whom he exhibited before he reached international fame.
Read MoreAs an artist and legal scholar, Primavera De Filippi has been researching ways to investigate the challenges of copyright in the digital realm, both academically and artistically for many years. In 2013, she went to Harvard University to investigate the legal challenges of digital technology, with a specific focus on peer-to-peer technologies and decentralized networks. In this context, she was initially fascinated by Bitcoin During her fellowship at Harvard, she decided that Ethereum would become the core focus of her research, and in particular the legal challenges and opportunities raised by smart contracts, DAOS and blockchain technology more generally.
Read MoreOne day in early 2014, Edwin Rosero, a self-taught digital artist and graphic designer who had been tinkering about in Photoshop since a friend gave him an early Wacom tablet in high school, saw an online open call for a pop-up exhibition slated for later that year at London’s Tate Britain museum. The event Loud Tate: Code was a one-day event of art, music and performance exploring how code in language, fashion and technology shape culture. The work he created for that show was a digital derivative of English-born artist Peter Monamy’s 18th century painting Ships Distress in a Storm and was part of a wider series where he used a synthesis of 3D modeled geometry, digitally painted texture mapping, algorithmic pixel sorting and color-channel processing. His conceptual framework — an exploration of technological singularity, and the continuum of consciousness — is still topical today and speaks of the surprising prescience that Rosero also had about the way blockchain technology could impact the art market. In 2014, as he was learning and reading about Bitcoin, he had the idea to hide a public key in the color channels of his art, then send funds to that key, thus proving its provenance using blockchain’s immutable ledger.
Read MoreKevin McCoy’s Quantum is widely credited as being the first NFT. It appears as an octagonal aura, floating on a black background with color pulsating from its core. Kevin McCoy has described the work as his interpretation of the moment of creation. Minted on the Namecoin blockchain in 2014, and later on Ethereum, after which it sold at Sotheby’s Natively Digital sale for $1.4 million, Quantum is now iconic, standing as it does at the first intersection of the blockchain and art.
Read MoreIt was a play on words that sat atop another play on words. When Sarah Meyohas envisioned Bitchcoin (2014) and launched the project in January 2015 as a physically-backed asset on a fork of Bitcoin, she was fusing art and tech with a clever metaphor. Bitchcoin was a spin off from Bitcoin, itself a name that references the financial worlds of gold, mining and speculation but Meyohas added another layer — gender.
Read More
