Issue 12-6

In this issue we pay tribute to the late Syrian Marwan Kassab-Bachi who spoke with great pride about his country when our Editor-in-Chief visited his studio in Berlin several years ago. Meanwhile, a show in Paris pays tribute to the Art and Liberty group of Egyptian Surrealists and this month sees the eighth edition of Abu Dhabi Art. We review Beirut Art Fair which spurts out of the rough and tumble of the city as well as the Yinchuan Moca biennale and Frieze. Dia Al Azzawi holds the largest retrospective of an Arab artist to date at two instituions in Doha and Mehdi Farhadian peers into Iranian history and imagination in New York. In Dubai, NYUAD gallery explores anxieties of modern technology in their recent exhibition and in addition we profile Syrian artists Tammam Azzam and Othman Moussa.