Global Art Forum_6 Contributors
GEORGINA ADAM_has spent more than 25 years writing about the art market and the arts. In 2000 she joined The Art Newspaper as editor of the Art Market section, and she now has weekly column in The Financial Times. As well as her specialisation in the art market, Georgina is particularly interested in emerging cultural centres.
HAIG AIVAZIAN_ is an artist, writer and curator, currently based in New York.He works with text, sculpture, video, performance and drawing in order to weave in and out personal and geo-political, micro and macro narratives in the search for ideological loopholes and short circuits.Aivazian was associate curator of the 10th edition of the Sharjah Biennial in 2011 and his writings have appeared in a number of publications, including Bidoun, AdBusters, FUSE, AMCA and The Arab Studies Journal.
HALA ALI_(b. 1986, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) is an artist living and working in Dubai, UAE. She received a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Sharjah, UAE. Hala’s work engages in the exploration of text, language and contextual meaning. Through use of various media in installations, the works investigate the politicization of objects with text as a vehicle to alter meaning. Hala has exhibited in Dubai, Jeddah, Berlin, Istanbul, and Chicago
FATIMA AL QADIRI_is an artist and musician based in New York. She has performed and exhibited at the Tate Modern (part of K48 Kontinuum), MoMA PS1, the 4th Gwangju Design Bienniale, Art Dubai, Performa Biennial, the New Museum, The Third Line and Sultan Gallery. Al Qadiri is a contributing editor at DIS Magazine. She produces music under her name and as Ayshay.
KARI ALTMANN_(b.1983) is a wi-fi based American artist focused on the idea of global prosumerism and post-production. Her work deals with the morphing interface between formats, versions, genres, contexts and material states, and the translation errors that occur between each realm.
NEGAR AZIMI_is Senior Editor of Bidoun. Her writing has appeared in Artforum, Frieze, Harper’s, and The New York Times Magazine among other venues. She studied politics at Stanford and Harvard, and anthropology at Columbia University. She is a member of the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation and a board member of Artists Space in New York City.
RAYYA BADRAN_ (b. 1984, Beirut, Lebanon) is a writer based in Beirut. Her first publication, Radiophonic Voice(s) was published by Ashkal Alwan during Homeworks 5 in 2010. She is currently working on short form sound pieces including (In)action.
SHUMON BASAR_is a writer, curator and Editor-at-Large at Tank magazine and contributing editor at Bidoun magazine. In London, he directs the Cultural Programme at the AA School. Recent projects there include Format: The Shapes of Discourse, and the exhibition Translated By (with Charles Arsene-Henry), which tours to CCA Kitakyushu and SALT in Istanbul. He is writing a novel, set in Dubai, entitled World!World!World! Shumon Basar is the director of Global Art Forum_6.
ISAK BERBIC_is an artist from Sarajevo. In 1992 as Bosnia was under attack he and his family found refuge in the US. He studied at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Currently, he teaches photography at University of Sharjah, UAE. His research deals with histories, politics, memory, exile, and the limits of representation.
JOSEPHINE BOSMA_is a writer and critic. She specializes in art in the context of the Internet. In 2011 her book Nettitudes was published, with essays about the different histories and practices of art in new media networks. Bosma currently works on a Ph.D. thesis at the University of Amsterdam.
IGNACIO GOMEZ_editor of Brusselssprout and Associate Partner at GAJ Architects. Established in 2009 with Blanca Lopez, Brusselssprout is an independent curatorial magazine based in Dubai, focused on developing cultural action, thought, and desires by proliferation, sprouting, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization. Brusselssprout has been working in several projects as Dubai Manifesto, Graphic Encyclopedia and recently on Dubai Art Cartography.
VICTORIA CAMBLIN_is a writer, Editor of 032c magazine (Berlin), and a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge (UK), where her research is devoted to Georges Bataille's 'Acéphale'. She has worked as a part of the collective Slavs and Tatars, and recently co-founded a new collaborative entity, Body & English, which seeks to locate the incommunicable within and without text and image.
BANU CENNETOGLU_works with photography, installation and printed matter. In 2006 she initiated BAS, a project space in Istanbul focusing on artists’ books and printed matter. Her recent solo and group exhibitions include Guilty feet have got no rhythm, Kunsthalle Basel (2011), Sample Sale - 2010 BC, Rodeo Gallery, Istanbul (2010), Beyond, Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn (2011), La revanche de l’archive photographique, Centre de la Photographie, Geneva (2010), Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010). In 2009 Cennetoglu co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennial. She lives and works in Istanbul.
AARON CEZAR_is the founding Director of Delfina Foundation, where he develops and directs its interrelated programme of international residencies, exhibitions and public platforms with artistic practitioners from the UK, the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. Also working as a creative producer, he develops arts projects and publications.
DOUGLAS COUPLAND_is a Canadian writer and artist whose work, both written and visual, seeks to explore broad new modes of thinking and being. The interior and exterior effects of technology are continuing themes over the past two decades. In 2011 he published a biography of media theorist Marshall McLuhan.
MARIAM WISSAM AL DABBAGH_is a writer and researcher who focuses on new media, contentious politics, and Iraqi Diaspora. She currently resides in Dubai and London.
SHEZAD DAWOOD_'s film projects are performed in particular contexts, as specific enactments blurring the boundaries between audience/performer. His interests include interrogating the dissemination of the filmic artefact between gallery, cinema and other experimental platforms. His work has been exhibited in ‘Altermodern’ (Tate Triennial 2009), ‘Making Worlds’ (53rd Venice Biennale 2009) and ‘Living in Evolution’ (Busan Biennale 2010). He is Senior Research Fellow in Experimental Media at Westminster University.
EMILY DISCHE-BECKER_is a freelance writer and filmmaker. She currently divides her time between Beirut, Berlin and upstate New York.
CONSTANT DULLAART_(1979), former resident of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, lives and works in Berlin. Originally trained as a video artist, he recently started focusing on visualizing internet grammar and software dialects. By editing online forms of presentations and by re-contextualising 'found' material he creates installations, performances, prints, videos, websites and blog postings. He recently co-founded an internet art documenting initiative, http://net.artdatabase.org
GHIDA FAKHRY KHANE_ is an Anchor for Al Jazeera English. She recently moved to Doha from Washington DC where she was the Lead Female anchor since the channel’s launch in 2006. She was also
the host of Witness, AJE’s main documentary programme. She has reported extensively from the United Nations in New York, where she conducted in-depth interviews with policy-makers. She interviewed
the Libyan Leader, Muammar Qaddafi, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai and the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad among others.
YASMINE EL RASHIDI_is a Cairo-based writer. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, a contributing editor to Bidoun magazine, and the author of ‘The Battle For Egypt: Dispatches from the Revolution’ (Random House/NYRB 2011). Her writing has also appeared in the London Review of Books, Monocle, Aperture, TIME, The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, Index on Censorship, The Wall Street Journal, Al-Ahram, Ms., and the Arabic literary journal Weghat Nazar.
SOPHIE FIENNES_was born in Suffolk, England, in 1967. Her films include Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010), her infamous The Perverts Guide to Cinema (2006), a collaboration with radical thinker Slavoj Zizek and Hoover Street Revival (2002). Future projects include Grace Jones, The Musical Of My Life, and The Perverts Guide To Ideology, her second collaboration with Slavoj Zizek. Fiennes was awarded a NESTA fellowship in 2000 and at Rotterdam’s 2008 Cinemart, she won the ARTE FRANCE CINEMA AWARD.
TOM FRANCIS_is a graduate student at Yale University, where he works on Human Rights and Islamic Law. From 2008-9, he worked as a researcher in Afghanistan. He has written for Bidoun, The Nation, and openDemocracy, among other publications.
KAI FRIESE_ is the editor of GEO in India. His writings have appeared in several publications including Bidoun: Art and Culture from the Middle East and Transition: An International Review.
MISHAAL AL GERGAWI_is an Emirati analyst. He began his career as an investment banker, shortly afterwards set up a building materials business. After maintaining a weekly opinion column in the local papers, he joined the Dubai Culture& Arts Authority to establish its contemporary cultural projects strategy. Mishaal continues to write a column with a specific focus on the GCC. He analyses the challenges and opportunities of the region, its member states and cities from geopolitical, economic and socio-cultural considerations.
GOLDIN+SENNEBY_(since 2004) is a framework for collaboration set up by artists Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby; exploring juridical, financial and spatial constructs through notions of the performative and the virtual. Since 2010 their work has focused on The Nordenskiöld Model, an experiment in theatrical finance. Solo exhibitions include: ‘The Decapitation of Money’, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (2010); ‘Headless. From the public record’, Index, Stockholm (2009); ‘Goldin+Senneby: Headless’, The Power Plant, Toronto (2008).
MICHAEL GOVAN_is CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA.) Since 2006 he has overseen all activities of the museum, including the ambitious Transformation campaign to expand and unify the museum’s 20-acre campus. From 1994-2006 he was President and Director of Dia Art Foundation in New York, where he spearheaded the creation of Dia: Beacon. Previously he was Deputy Director of the Guggenheim Museum.
SHAHIRA ISSA_ (b.1982) is currently working on a long-term project that explores the tension between artistic impulses and notions of culture that inform the circulation of artworks. In 2008, Issa co-founded Pericentre Projects that developed the ongoing project Kharita. In 2009, she was nominated for the 5th Bonaldi Art Prize. Issa lives and works in Cairo.
LARA KHALDI_(born in Jerusalem) received her B.A in Archaeology and Art History in 2005. Lara curated the Jerusalem Show IV: On/Off Language, October 2011. Khaldi has curated several video and film programmes in Cairo and Jerusalem. She was Assistant Director for programmes at the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE from 2009 - 2011 and, Co-edited Provisions I&II (Sharjah Biennial 10 catalogues). She currently lives between Beirut, Amman, and Jerusalem.
PARAG KHANNA_is a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, Visiting Fellow at LSE IDEAS and Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute. He is author of the international bestseller The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008) and How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011).
KRISTINE KHOURI_is a researcher, writer and photographer based in Beirut, Lebanon. She has worked with several artists as a researcher and a major focus of her current work is on the history of modern art in the Arab world.
LUCKYPDF_is an artists’ group that has been active in Peckham, south-east London, since late 2008. They are: James Early, John Hill, Ollie Hogan and Yuri Pattison (all b. 1986). Working collaboratively with an ever-changing network of emerging artists, they produce online television programmes, Internet interventions and live events.
HUDA LUTFI_lives and works in Cairo; trained as a cultural historian, she taught at the American University in Cairo since the mid 80’s. With her second profession as a visual artist, Lutfi emerged as one of Egypt’s contemporary image-makers in the 90’s, exhibiting her works both locally and internationally. In her art work she draws on her experience and interest in the city of Cairo, as well as on the politics of gender and identity.
AMIN MAALOUF_is a Lebanese-born French author. His literary work, written in French, is translated into more than 40 languages and includes novels, essays and opera librettos. Notable works include The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1984), Leo Africanus (1992), and winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1993, The Rock of Tanios. In addition to the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature (2010), Maalouf is also the recipient of honorary doctorates by the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), the American University of Beirut (Lebanon), the University of Tarragona Rovira i Virgili (Spain) and the University of Evora (Portugal).
SOPHIA AL-MARIA_is based in Doha, Qatar where she works at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Her writing has appeared in Bidoun, Triple Canopy and Harper’s Magazine. Her first book, The Girl Who Fell to Earth will be published by Harper Collins in Fall 2012. Her blog is www.sophiaalmaria.me
HIND MEZAINA_is a photographer and blogger from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Her blog, www.theculturist.com, contains all things culture-worthy in Dubai and beyond.
NAT MULLER_is an independent curator and critic. She is a regular contributor for Springerin and MetropolisM. Her work has been published a.o. in Art Papers, Bidoun, ArtPulse, X-tra, Majalla Foreign Affairs Magazine, De Volkskrant, The Daily Star. She has taught at art academies and universities across Europe and the Middle East. Nat Muller is the 2012 ACAP curator.
TURI MUNTHE_is CEO and Founder of Demotix – www.demotix.com – the crowd-sourced newswire. Demotix has been described as “Journalism for the 21st Century” by the Telegraph, and is a Webby Honoree 2011. Turi has been a publisher, editor, think tank analyst, lecturer, journalist and talking head. He lives in London.
HANS ULRICH OBRIST_is co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London. He has served as curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and museum in progress, Vienna. Obrist has curated over 250 exhibitions worldwide and is a contributing editor of Abitare, Artforum, Paradis Magazine, and 032c Magazine.
HUSSEIN OMAR_ is writing his PhD thesis in modern Egyptian history.
JACK PERSEKIAN_Born and living in Jerusalem., curator and producer Persekian is the founder and director of Anadiel gallery and the Al-Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem. Head Curator of the Sharjah Biennial (2004 – 2007), Artistic Director of the Sharjah Biennial (2007 – 2011), and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation (2009 – 2011).
ALEXANDER PROVAN_is the editor of the online magazine and editorial collective Triple Canopy and a contributing editor of Bidoun. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
SULTAN SOOUD AL QASSEMI_is the Chairman and Partner of Meem Gallery, a prominent art commercial gallery operating in Dubai. He is also the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, which features his private collection of contemporary Arab artwork in curated public exhibitions.
MICHAEL RAKOWITZ_(b. 1973, New York) is an artist based in Chicago. His work has been exhibited at many renowned institutions including P.S.1, MoMA, MassMOCA, Tate Modern, Sydney, Istanbul and Sharjah Biennales and the upcoming dOCUMENTA (13). He is the recipient of a Creative Capital Grant; a Sharjah Biennial Jury Award; a Dena Foundation Award, the Tiffany Foundation Award 2012 and a Design 21 Grand Prix from UNESCO. Rakowitz is Associate Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.
RIJIN SAHAKIAN_(b. 1978, Baghdad, Iraq) has developed multidisciplinary arts programs in the United States and internationally. She received her M.A. in Contemporary Art and Policy from New York University. She was awarded a graduate Fulbright Fellowship in Amman, Jordan, where she was also a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Middle East Research Center. Sahakian founded Sada (Echo) for Contemporary Iraqi Art in 2010, which she currently directs.
SUKHDEV SANDHU_is an Associate Professor of English Literature at New York University; Convenor of colloquium for unpopular culture; Film writer for the Guardian; Radio Documentarian for BBC; Author of ‘London Calling’, ‘I’ll Get My Coat’ and award-winning ‘Night Haunts’.
NICHOLAS SAUTIN_ is a doctoral candidate in English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His essay "The Pleasure of Flinching" appeared in Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics in February, 2010.
WAEL SHAWKY_(b. 1971, Alexandria) has received international acclaim for his work as an artist and filmmaker. His work explores transitional events in society, politics, culture and religion in the history of the Arab world. In 2010 Shawky launched MASS Alexandria, the first Independent Studio Programme for young artists in the city. He is a recipient of the 2012 Abraaj Capital Art Prize and is represented by Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg/Beirut.
MURTAZA VALI_is a critic, curator and Visiting Instructor at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. A recipient of a 2011 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for Short-Form Writing, Vali is a Contributing Editor for Ibraaz.org and ArtAsiaPacific, edited Manual for Treason for Sharjah Biennial X and curated Brute Ornament, currently showing at Green Art Gallery, Dubai.
ANNA LENA VANEY_is a producer working both in art and cinema. Milestone works include Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno and No Ghost Just a Shell, a project involving artists such as Pierre Huyghe, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Liam Gillick. Lives and works in Paris.
MICHAEL C. VAZQUEZ_writes and talks about food, art, music, and magazines. Subjects include Banu Cennetoglu, Hassan Khan, Michael Muhammad Knight, Nekropsi, and The Durutti Column. He is affiliated with the W.E.B. Du Bois Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University and the Colloquium for Unpopular Culture at New York University.
WILLIAM WELLS_is the co-founder and director of Townhouse, the first independent art space in Egypt with a remit to make contemporary arts accessible to all without compromising creative practice. A non-profit platform for creative inquiry, Townhouse supports artistic work in a wide range of media through exhibitions, residencies for artists and curators, educational initiatives and outreach programs.
KAELEN WILSON-GOLDIE_is a writer and critic based in Beirut. She is a contributing editor for Bidoun, writes a column for Frieze, contributes regularly to Artforum, and covers contemporary art and culture for the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star. She has written numerous essays for journals, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues.
