Taste Binds the Tribe
"No one lives in a white box with a grey floor," says the Showcase Gallery director Sharon Harvey, as we admire a marvellously restudded and restored Omani chest. "I just feel that a good piece of furniture in the gallery stimulates one's curiosity, it gives the space some personality and warmth."
Despite this, Harvey says she's been criticised in the past for exhibiting Showcase's extraordinary array of antiques alongside art. "Of course, there are artists who say they don't want anything else shown with it, and that's fine. But we live in coloured homes with furniture, and 99 per cent of the time, people are buying art because they want to put it in their living room."
Showcase Gallery relocated from its headquarters on Jumeirah Beach Road earlier this year. It is one of Dubai's art scene stalwarts, as it has provided framing for some of the region's leading artists when their work has passed through Dubai on its way to international recognition.
But while the space has exhibited art in the past, the move to Alserkal also signalled a directional sea change. Harvey outlines for The National an ambitious calendar of shows over the next six months, all of which have some connection to the emerging art scene in southern Africa.
"Middle Eastern art still has its place and always will, but now it's reached a level that many people just can't afford," she explains. "People look at a work and say, 'If I pay Dh100,000 for that, where is it going to go from here?'
"But African art is still way down there [in terms of price], and has to be the next thing."
Harvey has collaborated with the curator Bren Brophy who heads up the Durban-based KZNSA, a non-profit institution that works closely with major artists in South Africa and its surrounding countries. Together, they've assembled a list of names to inject into Dubai's art scene.
"For a serious investor, you only have to look at the CVs of these artists and the collections they're in to know how important they are," says Brophy.
Post-Ramadan, the gallery will host works by Andrew Verster - a firmly established painter living in Durban who creates stirring portraits adorned with angels, iconography and invented alphabets, all enacted with a tattooist's eye for bodily composition. The space is given over to photographs of Angola by Francesca Galliani during October, and Isaac Nkosinathi Khanyile - a senior lecturer in the fine art department at the Durban University of Technology - will fill the gallery with his large-scale sculptural installations in November.
As a taste of things to come, Harvey currently presents works by Daryl Nero from Zimbabwe and the late Isaac Sithole from Mozambique, who died earlier this year.
Along one wall, we see Nero's bread-and-butter - the paintings of architectural grandeur around Harare, people passing by on bicycles, a sort of standing heat holding fast in the air. But it's his portraits that are far more daring; scratchy bodies etched in repetitive lines, and a wonderfully emotive portrait of Nero's deceased friend.
Sithole, on the other hand, begins with a woodcarved tableau and uses this to print directly onto paper. According to Brophy, the manner in which he prints usually means that only one image per cut can be created, giving these works a further aura of virtuosity.
Throbbing colours abound as images of almost spiritual pastoral grandeur meet inner-city football pitches and the horizon. It's exuberant work and an insight into one of Africa's influential but sadly departed artists.
Continues until August 7, then the gallery will close and reopen on August 21. Sharon Harvey has also opened up the upstairs of the gallery as a respite from the summer sun - peruse her books and a few pieces of art and antiques from her collection.
Crossroads #7 - A Journey through the Masai Mara
The British-born photographer Charlotte Simpson runs a creative photography agency in Dubai snapping celebrities, CEOs and designers in the city. To push her own work outside the office, however, she headed to the Masai Mara in Kenya last year and returned with some rather epic representations of this unforgiving environment. A mixture of reflections on the attuned lifestyle of those who carve out a life in the Mara and the animals that they're faced with each day are currently being presented at the Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi on Yas Island.
Swiss Art Gate, the company hosting Simpson's work, describes her trip to the Mara as her "artistic turning point". Indeed, there's lots of imaginative inflections gone into these works, and a personality sought out in the landscape. She attempts this with the animals as well; noting the elephants "high-fiving" with their trunks in the Serengeti and the visceral movement that is captured about lions when photographed at astonishingly close range.
Continues at Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi's Light Box gallery throughout Ramadan, until September 10.
* Showcase Gallery is located at Unit 35, Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz, Dubai, 04 379 0940, www.showcasegallery.com, Saturday- Thursday, 10am-6pm.
* Light Box gallery is located at Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi, Yas Island, 02 656 0000, www.viceroyhotelsandresorts.com, open daily 10am-10pm.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The specs: 2019 BMW X4
Price, base / as tested: Dh276,675 / Dh346,800
Engine: 3.0-litre turbocharged in-line six-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 354hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 500Nm @ 1,550rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 9.0L / 100km
The biog
Age: 35
Inspiration: Wife and kids
Favourite book: Changes all the time but my new favourite is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Best Travel Destination: Bora Bora , French Polynesia
Favourite run: Jabel Hafeet, I also enjoy running the 30km loop in Al Wathba cycling track
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Constant Variable (CVT)
Power: 141bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: Dh64,500
On sale: Now
Without Remorse
Directed by: Stefano Sollima
Starring: Michael B Jordan
4/5
DMZ facts
- The DMZ was created as a buffer after the 1950-53 Korean War.
- It runs 248 kilometers across the Korean Peninsula and is 4km wide.
- The zone is jointly overseen by the US-led United Nations Command and North Korea.
- It is littered with an estimated 2 million mines, tank traps, razor wire fences and guard posts.
- Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un met at a building in Panmunjom, where an armistice was signed to stop the Korean War.
- Panmunjom is 52km north of the Korean capital Seoul and 147km south of Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital.
- Former US president Bill Clinton visited Panmunjom in 1993, while Ronald Reagan visited the DMZ in 1983, George W. Bush in 2002 and Barack Obama visited a nearby military camp in 2012.
- Mr Trump planned to visit in November 2017, but heavy fog that prevented his helicopter from landing.
'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
The Sky Is Pink
Director: Shonali Bose
Cast: Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim, Rohit Saraf
Three stars
