Issue 7-4

This summer a triumphant tone sounds out at recent auctions pertaining to Middle Eastern art around the world and with the donation of Chanel’s Zaha Hadid-designed Mobile Art Museum to Institut du Monde Arabe. Less dazzling and repetitive was Art Basel’s exhibit of Middle Eastern art this season. Pioneering Saudi Basma Al-Sulaiman has created a virtual museum which houses her collection and our art patron section highlights our discussion with Iranian Ramin Salsali on his collection and upcoming museum in Dubai. Inspirational was the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, which hosts a superb collection of Islamic art and Atassi gallery in Damascus which has sought to engage audiences through its representation of Syrian artists. We also look at Devrim Erbil’s evocative visual poetry, Ahmad Moualla’s fusion of the figurative and abstract, Iranian Shahriar Ahmadi and Tunisian-born Feryel Lakhdar.