ARAB TIMES, SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2017
25
Artists give a voice to under-represented populations
Venice Biennale taps artistic angst amid rising nationalism
VENICE, Italy, May 13, (AP): With nationalism
on the rise, political engagement is central to
the artistic dialogue at the Venice Biennale, the
world’s oldest contemporary art fair, opening
Saturday.
From the main show, “Viva Arte Viva,”
curated by Christine Macel, to 87 national
pavilions in the Venice Giardini, Arsenale and
throughout the historic city center, artists are
contemplating the world around them and giving
a voice to under-represented populations.
Macel said artists “are able to respond to this
moment of complexity” even if art “should not
be reduced to politics.”
The show runs through Nov. 26. Here are
some highlights.
Green light project
Berlin-based artist Olafur Eliasson’s “Green
light” is an onsite workshop where 100 migrants
create lamps lit by green bulbs from simple
materials.
Visitors can engage with the migrants — for
many a faceless, nameless category repeated on
the news — maybe pitching in, maybe asking
their stories.
Eliasson says being a migrant is not an identity, but a condition. “What we see is ourselves,”
Eliasson said. “The migrants are a little bit like
actors in a play. Fair enough. But I am doing it
on the condition that they are volunteers. They
are given a subjective space, they are not being
objectified.”
An immigration lawyer and psychological
counselor are among 90 volunteers participating. The project aims to help the migrants learn
skills, and build self-esteem, while exploring a
platform that could be repeated in other contexts.
Dutch self-image
The Dutch pavilion examines the Netherland’s self-image as progressive and tolerant,
which has been put to the test during Europe’s
refugee crisis.
One film explores how the Dutch selfnarrative papered over the difficult assimilation
of mixed-race children of Dutch and Indonesian
parents after Indonesia’s independence.
Artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh discusses
the issues in three short films. Because the
children entered the country smoothly as Dutch
citizens, vast differences in their experiences
have been overlooked, from those who were
abandoned by their white fathers and impoverished, to the wealthy, well-educated arrivals who
still found barriers to assimilation.
Brexit melancholy
Phyllida Barlow’s show of sculptures for the
United Kingdom’s pavilion titled “folly” isn’t
about overtly about politics, but that did seep
into the work as the Brexit campaign raged
around her.
“As I was making the work, I began in April,
before the referendum, I had this sense of
unease, melancholia really, about this idea of occupying the British pavilion and what it means
to be British ... when it’s leaving Europe and I
feel I’m European,” Barlow said.
She said the mood permeated her sculptures,
which while robust “show fragility, and a sense
of things being uneasy.”
Hungarian utopia
For the Hungarian pavilion, artist Gyula
Varnai discusses the “viability and necessity of
utopias” in his show titled “Peace on Earth.”
He uses many defunct communist symbols,
including a reproduction of a large neon Peace
on Earth sign from a building in Hungary, to
a rainbow made of 8,000 pins bearing Cold
War-era symbols. Curator Zsolt Petranyi said
they asked themselves “is it true, that we can
just speak about dystopias, that there is not any
positive vision?”
He realized that technology has become utopia’s stand-in, “covering the deeper problems of
today. Wherever you go, from China, to Africa,
to India, if there is a new kind of television, a
new kind of whatever, everybody is celebrating
it.”
Illegal journeys
With cinematic tableaus, photographer
Tracey Moffatt recreates scenes of “journeys, secret journeys, illegal journeys,” in a
series called “Passages” for the Australian
pavilion.
The opening photograph features a mother
grasping a child seen through a fog looking
out over the sea. “The baby is squirming. The
baby will leave her. She might be giving the
baby away for her passage. There are many
scenarios,” Moffatt said.
While the scenes bring to mind modern-day
click
migrants, Moffatt said “for me it is old fiction. A
fake old film. It is a celluloid that I claim I found
in a vault.”
Adolescents then and now
Troubled Polish adolescent girls are both
inspiration and actors in U.S. artist Sharon
Lockhart’s show for the Polish pavilion titled
“Little Review,” named for a pre-war Jewish
newspaper by and for adolescents in Poland.
The broadsheet published weekly from
1926 to Sept. 1, 1939, the day Hitler invaded
Poland.
Lockhart had the girls choose issues of the
paper to reproduce each week at the Biennale,
finding similarities in their lives and global
political tensions, according to curator Barbara
Piwowarska. They also appear in photographs,
and a film they choreograph themselves.
Greek Catharsis
George Drivas explores the complexity of the
refugee crisis in his show for the Greek Pavilion.
In a video installation that draws on ancient
Greek tragic theater, Drivas outlines a 1960s
experiment where foreign cells endanger the
native.
art
Latest
Continued from Page 24
Contact for more information: Mubarack
Kambrath, 66387619; Reji Chirayath,
99670734; Anil Anad, 50605767; Sebastian
Vatukkadan, 99163248; Susan Mathew,
66542556; Ravi Pangode, 50424255; Vanaja
Rajan, 50379398; Salim Koduvally, 66340634;
Rafeeq Olavara, 55682771.
May 19
Goan drama Silver Jubilee show: ‘Maim
Pai Tim Maim Pai’, a Goan drama written and
directed by Dominic Fernandes is scheduled to
celebrate a Silver Jubilee show at SIMS school
on May 19 starting 04:45 pm.
The drama, apparently based on a true story
from Kuwait, will consist of some well-known
Goan artistes specially flown in for the show.
Stars that will be seen on stage include Seby
de Divar, Mario de Vasco, Evon, Soccoro de
Santa Cruz, evergreen Comedy Queen Querobina Carvalho, Alberto, Valentina, Wilton,
Esparansa, Gasper Crasto, Baba Valentino,
Comedian Lino, Comedian Agnelo, Comedian
Nelson, Braz de Parra, Jennifer Marshall,
Zelia, Dominic Fernandes, etc.
Music for the show is provided by Maestro
Faustino, Soccoro de Melo, Melvin, Chris,
Dennis, Flavian and Tony Fernandes (drums).
To avail gate-passes please call Agnelo
– 50796693, Apolonio – 55423805, Alex
Mascarenhas – 50796995 (Salmiya), Carmo
Santos – 99047401, Gasper Crasto – 99502686
(Salmiya), Dominic – 66468570.
❑
❑
❑
KWS annual meeting: Members of Kokan
Welfare Society (KWS) – Kuwait are hereby
informed that the Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held on Friday, May 19.
Nomination forms are available with the Election Commissioner Tajammul Parkar and the
General Secretary Dr Rahmattullah Galsulkar.
For applications and further information kindly
write email to [email protected].
May 20
‘Treasure of Talents’ festival: Kuwait
Music Academy announces Gala Concert
of the annual Festival Of Young Musicians
‘Treasure Of Talents’ on Saturday, May 20, at
6:00 pm at Al Shaheed Park (along 1st Ring
Road). The event will be performed by soloists
of piano, violin, guitar and vocal (from Kuwait
and several European and Asian countries) —
lecturers of the Kuwait Music Academy and
winners of the mains prizes of the festival.
Programme includes the rich repertoire of classical and modern music. Sponsors of the event
are KGL - KMC (the main sponsor) and Tanagra (the constant sponsor of TOT festivals).
On Saturday there will be a series of concerts
performed by 150 festival’s participants from
10:00 am continuously. All are welcomed.
Entrance is free.
May 25
Ramadan Sports Mania 2017: Don
Bosco Oratory Kuwait is once again pleased
to announce its Ramadan Sports Mania for the
Indian Community in Kuwait.
The event will conclude the following indoor sports: 4-a- side rink football tournament
(men’s and ladies); 3 -a- side rink tie breaker
tournament; 7-a-side men’s, ladies and mixed
box cricket tournament; open carom (single/
doubles) tournament.
The tournaments will be played on a league
cum knockout basis during the Holy month of
Ramadan at the IEAS Quadrangle (Don Bosco)
in Salmiya.
For registration and more information:
Contact 60477786.
General
IEI Kuwait Chapter membership: The
Institution of Engineers (India), Kuwait
chapter invites all its members to update their
membership information for the year 2016-17
and actively participate in the chapter activities. Indian engineers residing in Kuwait are
welcome to join the pool of more than 700,000
engineers by becoming corporate or non-corporate members of The Institution of Engineers
(India). IEI, Kuwait Chapter conducts many
technical events for the benefit of its members. Please watch for the upcoming events in
your registered e-mail or announcement in the
media. The chapter has science club activities for member’s children, and ladies wing
activities for the member’s family. IEI, Kuwait
chapter has facility to register student members
for AMIE Examination for those interested in
pursuing career enrichment.
For more information and on chapter membership, kindly contact IEI, Kuwait chapter
office on 22445588 extn. 314 between 5:30
pm to 8:30 pm (Sunday through Thursday)
or through email to [email protected].
You may also contact Engr Ashok Kumar
(97275974) or Engr Karthikeyan (99840191)
for any further clarification.
❑
❑
❑
Share your story with Amricani: Do you
or any of your family members, acquaintances or friends happen to have a story with
the American Missionary hospital in Kuwait
(Mustashfa Lemraicani) during the years from
1914-1967, the official period of offering
medical services in Kuwait?
NEW YORK: Jean-Michel Basquiat occupies star billing on the auction block in
New York this season, catapulting the artist into the rostrum of 20th century greats
nearly three decades after his death.
Riding high on last year’s $57 million
auction record set when a Japanese billionaire snapped up a self-portrait, at least
14 works by the US wonderkid of Haitian
and Puerto Rican descent are on sale at
Christie’s and Sotheby’s next week.
“He was a street artist so it took a bit of
time for him to be assimilated,” explains
Loic Gouzer, chairman of post-war and
contemporary art at Christie’s. “Now
every museum in the world is begging to
get Basquiat.”
Christie’s and Sotheby’s — the esteemed houses founded in 18th century
London — are chasing combined sales
of at least $1.1 billion when they auction
hundreds of contemporary, modern and
impressionist works of art from May 1519 in New York.
The top estimate for the week is a 1982
Basquiat, “Untitled” — a skull-like head
on a giant canvas in oil-stick, acrylic and
spray paint, for which Sotheby’s hopes
to smash a new record at more than $60
million.
It has been held by its current owners
ever since being bought in 1984 at Christie’s for $19,000.
The Brooklyn-born artist died of an
overdose aged 27. Artprice says the value of Basquiat works rose 506 percent
from January 2000 to October 2016.
“It’s the golden kid, it’s the one that
died young, lived strong and has been
creating a body of work that looks like
nothing before and looks like nothing
after,” says Gregoire Billault, Sotheby’s
head of contemporary art.
An African American in a white art
world, much of his work focused on
ordeals endured by blacks — a subject
of renewed resonance in the wake of
nationwide US protests since 2014 about
the shootings of unarmed black men by
police.
Fittingly, Christie’s top Basquiat offering is “La Hara” — a 1981 acrylic and oilstick of an angry-looking New York police
officer estimated at $22-28 million.
“Context is the best helper to explain art
and I think it’s great to have it right now,”
says Gouzer.
Otherwise Christie’s top lot is Francis
Bacon’s “Three Studies of George Dyer”
valued at $50 million, the British artist’s
first portrait of his long-time muse and
lover, a handsome petty thief from London’s East End.
The triptych was once owned by author
Roald Dahl and has been shown at the
Tate Britain and the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York.
Christie’s is also chasing big bucks
for another artist who is even less of a
household name but another increasing
Please share with us your story or your
memory during those old days by writing the
event and sending it to the following email address: [email protected]
Notes: 1. Please send your story only to
the above mentioned email. Story shared in
Instagram, Facebook or Twitter will not be
considered.
2. Please write your story or memory and
sign it with your full name, and your contact
number.
3. It will be great if you send us your personal photos or those of the place related to the
story (optional).
Your story will be part of a new book to be
published by DAI.
I am confident that your contributions will
be an essential part of the history of Amricani.
Share with us!
❑
❑
❑
commercial force: $35-55 million for Cy
Twombly’s largely abstract “Leda and the
Swan.”
“Most people even today will say, ‘Oh
my child can paint this.’ Your child cannot
paint this,’” says Christie’s specialist Koji
Inoue.
Sotheby’s set the Twombly auction
record in 2015 at $70.5 million. The artist
was the subject of a retrospective in Paris
last year.
“We feel like he’s finally getting his
due,” Inoue told AFP.
Highlights of the impressionist and
modern sales are a Picasso portrait of his
mistress Dora Maar, valued at $35-55
million at Christie’s, and Egon Schiele’s
“Danae” at Sotheby’s for $30-40 million,
painted when he was 19 years old.
Much of the art being offered this
season is fresh to market — at Christie’s
more than 80 percent of the works in both
categories have never been offered at
auction or have been off the market for 20
years or more.
Experts say they are focusing on quality
rather than quantity, not expecting to reach
the giddy heights of 2015, when records
tumbled and Picasso’s “The Women of
Algiers (Version 0)” became the most expensive art ever sold at auction for $179.4
million.
“I think that this market is very smart
right now, I don’t think it’s the same craziness it used to be in 2015,” said Billault.
ing counseling, seminars etc. to educate the
Indians living in Kuwait informed President
Saifudheen Nalakath in a press release. For
more details contact: 55062071 or email at
oldest auction houses, is holding its first
ever sale of modern and contemporary
African art in London in response to a
surge in demand.
African artists currently account for just
0.01 percent of the international art market
but the auctioneers are confident they are
tapping into a fast-growing market.
Some 115 artworks by 63 artists from
14 countries across the continent are going
under the hammer on Tuesday next week.
They include works by Ghana’s El
Anatsui and William Kentridge and Irma
Stern from South Africa, all of whom have
sold for more than $1 million (920,000
euros) before.
“Sotheby’s has been watching this market grow for several years,” said Hannah
O’Leary, head of modern and contemporary African art at the auction house
established in 1744.
“We’re on the verge of African art finally
being acknowledged and represented in the
international art scene,” she told AFP.
“In recent years, I’ve seen an exponential increase in market demand,” she said.
The sale is expected to fetch £2.8 million-£4 million ($3.6 million-$5.1 million;
3.3 million-4.7 million euros).
The main countries represented are
South Africa and Nigeria, but there are
also works from Angolan, Malian and
Ugandan artists, among others. (Agencies)
[email protected].
❑
❑
❑
NYF offers free yoga classes: NYF Kuwait
An employee poses in front of an
artwork entitled ‘ICARUS CHOCOLATE’, 2013 by artist Angolan-Portuguese artist, Francisco Vidal with
a starting price of 15,000-20,000
pounds/18,700-24,900 dollars, during
a photocall to promote the forthcoming inaugural ‘Sale of Modern and
Contemporary African Art’ at Sotheby’s
in London on May 12. (AFP)
offers free yoga, breathing, meditation and reiki
classes by a well-experienced female yoga teacher
Continued on Page 27
‘Seated Ballerina’ represents to all people
Koons unveils giant inflatable ballerina
KIFF anti-drugs campaign: As part of the
Fraternity fest, Kuwait India Fraternity Forum
(KIFF) is conducting Anti-Drugs Campaign
among Indians living in Kuwait. According
to the available statistics of Indian Embassy,
60% of the convicted Indians in Kuwaiti Jails
are arrested on drug-related cases. The recent
cases of death and captives of Indian drug
abusers is a threatening news. To defend and
to campaign against such social crisis by protecting individuals as well as the society has
become obligatory. In this current situation,
Kuwait India Fraternity Forum is conducting
campaign by distributing handouts, conduct-
Also:
LONDON: Sotheby’s, one of the world’s
‘Seated Ballerina’ (center), the public art
exhibition of a 45-foot-tall inflatable nylon
sculpture depicting a seated ballerina from
artist Jeff Koons’ Antiquity series, is displayed at Rockefeller after it was unveiled
on May 12, in New York. (AP)
NEW YORK, May 13, (AFP): Artist Jeff
Koons on Friday unveiled an enormous inflatable blonde, silver-limbed ballerina in one of
the busiest plazas in New York.
Seated on a stool and attending to a blue
pointe shoe, the nylon figure in a light blue tutu
towers a whopping 45 feet (nearly 14 meters)
above the Rockefeller Center just off Fifth Avenue where she will remain through June 2.
The public installation, which marks the third
time that the “king of kitsch” has exhibited his
work in the plaza, was designed to bring awareness to America’s National Missing Children’s
Month which falls in May.
“I really hope that Seated Ballerina can represent to people of all ages a sense of hope
and optimism for the future, but specially that
young children can look at this and can get a
sense of their own potential,” the artist told reporters.
He took inspiration from a small porcelain
figurine of a seated ballerina, which he then
enlarged into a stainless steel sculpture before
thinking that an inflatable version would have a
“tremendous” impact.
The use of inflatable nylon, colored metallic,
is a play on Koons’s famous Balloon Dogs that
appear to be inflatable but are actually stainless
steel.
“Every time we take a deep breath and expand our lungs, we are inflatable and that’s kind
of a symbol of optimism,” Koons explained.
The statue was built to withstand high winds,
but can be deflated if necessary.
In 2013, Koons set an auction record for the
highest price paid for any work by a living artist
when his Balloon Dog (Orange) sold for $58.4
million.
The 62-year-old artist told AFP on Friday
that the Donald Trump presidency, which has
much of liberal America up in arms, was a great
time to make art.