Art
Selfies Can’t Capture Indian Streets
Modern day photography is digital and is available at a single click of the button. Almost every magazine or journal is available online. The posters and photographs in the magazines of the yesteryear are long gone out of fervour. They still manage to have a following, so do the photo stories in the newspapers and […]
Hip-Hop: A Culture That Transcends Songs
Say Yo! Wear a hip hop cap, bling it up with diamond earrings and garland a gold chain or two around your neck, then sport a loose T-shirt that almost hugs your knees. Round it off with a collection of bright ankle length shoes for everyday of the week. And hey, there’s hip hop for […]
When Art Explores the World’s Mysteries
MUHAMMED NOUSHAD reviews the recently concluded Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Art opens a door: to the infinities of universe, to the obscurities of human innerness, to the possibilities of another world. Sometimes a spiritual ascension. An unexpected prophetic rescue from the imminent descent into the cave of evilness. Existing or nonexistent. Realistic or surrealistic. Standing before certain […]
Artist, from the Mount
Chafic Abboud’s paintings are a manifesto for freedom, colour, light and joy, as well as being a permanent bridge between the art scenes of France and Lebanon and that of Lebanon and the Middle East. Chafic Abboud was deeply attached to Lebanon, its landscapes, its light and his own childhood memories. Abboud’s grandmother was the […]
A Moving Art Gallery without Walls
In the summer of 2002, two Pakistani artists were brought to Smithsonian Folklife Festival along with a 1976 Bedford truck. They were Hyder Ali and Jamiluddin from Karachi’s Garden Road area, famous for vehicle decoration. As outdoor artists-in-residence they decorated the Bedford top to bottom in front of curious onlookers at Washington, D.C. Now, that […]
Art in Sharjah: a new vista for Muslim women
Artists in the UAE are calling people to visit a new online exhibition to expose themselves to the plight and success of Muslim women around the world, and challenge common stereotypes. Artist and University of Sharjah College of Fine Arts and Design lecturer Dr Fatima Zahra Hassan said Emirati women, in particular, should view a […]
Digital Reincarnation for Dunhuang’s Buddhist Art
Inching their cameras along a rail inside the chamber, specialists use powerful flashes to light up paintings of female Buddhist spirits drawn more than 1,400 years ago. One click after another illuminates colourful scenes of hunters, Buddhas, flying deities, Bodhisattvas and caravanserais painted on the walls of the Mogao caves in northwest China, considered the […]
Biennale’s Spiritual Solace
In the classic tradition, every great work of art quintessentially offers a refuge in peace, and a profoundly personal and yet universal spirit. It digs its way into your deeper inner self in strange and unexpected ways. You feel like being hugged by a friend who, you thought, would never come back to you. It’s […]
Whither Art?
The Kochi Muziris Biennale, the first of its kind in India was initially celebrated in the media as an Olympics of contemporary art. The Biennale was expected to cater to and enhance the prospects of art works based on the local life of Kochi, especially the Fort Kochi, Mattancherry regions having a rich legacy of […]
What is Islamic About Islamic Arts?
I was slightly disappointed at having not been able to go to Jaipur to attend India’s most reputed literary festival, especially when I read a report in the Hindu about an open forum featuring writers Ahdaf Soueif, Tahar Ben Jelloun and Selma Dabbagh, Jonathan Shainin and William Dalrymple. In the forum, Moroccan author Tahar Ben […]
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.