Dubai goes arty while the region has worst unrest in a generation
Posted on 18 March 2011 with 1 comment from readers
Read the websites or watch the television channels of some state-owned media in Dubai this week and you would not know that Bahrain was now under martial law or that UK expats have just been evacuated to the safety of Dubai. But what you would see is Art Dubai, the now annual festival in progress.
Nero once famously fiddled while Rome burned, and Dubai has been indulging in art during the mounting chaos in Bahrain. The excellent Terminal exhibition by Edge of Arabia in the Dubai International Financial Centre’s Gate Village is well worth a visit.
Saudi protest
Seven modern Saudi artists are behind this spacious pastiche depicting the interior of an airport terminal with even a flight of protesting birds, each emblazoned with an exit pass of the type required by Saudi women. As protests go in the region it is low key and only understandable if you speak Arabic unlike most residents of Dubai.
Or try the lavish Art Dubai show itself in the Madinat Jumeirah complex. It’s a bit bigger this year with British expatriate Antonia Carver behind the international build-up for the show. But this is still primarily a showcase for regional art, priced below $30,000. You have to go to Art Abu Dhabi to buy a Picasso.
Art Dubai
Art Dubai started in 2005 and is a survivor of the recession that hit Dubai after the global financial crisis and the real estate crash. Global art prices have been very resilient and the prospect of inflation is music to the ears of those who treat art as an investment class rather than aesthetic experience.
In the later 1970s collectibles like art and postage stamps beat stocks and bonds hands down, and with inflation picking up that could happen again. Art and revolutionary periods also tend to fly together, with serious emotional disturbances producing the best of work from artists. Sadly we may see a lot of this now.
1 Comment posted by readers:
As I was reading your first paragraph, a scene from one of those WW II documentaries came into my mind. (The History Channel is quite impressive on a 55″ TV. Black & white film remains amazingly clear, even when you blow it up that big. Those Germans must have filmed everything Hitler did!) It showed the Nazis celebrating Christmas in 1944 as they were about to be sandwiched by the massive Allied armies. Hopefully, things in that region won’t get to anywhere near that level of violence and destruction.
I must say, your article is quite good. Very well written. It made me think, which is difficult.
And the lawn tractor started right up. I may have to re-evaluate my opinion of gasohol. Of course, the past winter here was so cold, evaporation was somewhat limited. I probably shouldn’t complain with an average energy bill of $130 a month for a free standing brick house. Mild climates are cheap places to live. And the new condenser unit is cooling fine. It has a scroll compressor made in Mexico. The fan motor is made in India. Peak oil will change that. Now if only I can avoid hurricanes.
The weather guy on CNN just said that a high pressure system was moving over Japan. The radiation will now spread inland, instead of being blown out over the rather large Pacific Ocean. Expect to see the levels being detected in Japan go way up. (Although nowhere near the level needed to make people, not at the plant, sick.) Some fellow on Fox News is pushing his radiation dose cards for over here in your former colonies, 5,500 miles (8,800 km) from Japan. That Fox is a trip.