I went to Louvre Abu Dhabi earlier this month and because I'm a member I didn't have to wait in line. But I was delighted by the fact that there was a line, perhaps because I am a recovering New Yorker for whom "waiting in line" is a quasi-perpetual occupation, as is the discussion about whether one waits "on" line or "in" line. You may laugh, but I've seen people almost come to blows about that simple prepositional shift.
In Abu Dhabi, of course, we just say “there was a queue,” and that Saturday, the queue extended the length of the lobby. I smiled at the people waiting because I was happy to see that even after the opening-weekend novelty, the museum continues to draw a crowd.
As I walked through the galleries, I noticed a crowd of people in front of Van Gogh's self-portrait. "It's so beautiful," a woman murmured to her friend as she snapped a photo of the painting. Putting aside the question of what it means to replicate a work of art in a photo doubtless to be shared on social media, I wondered about this question of beauty. Does "beautiful" blunt our perceptions; is it too easy a response to something as complex as a Van Gogh painting?
I had the same question about beauty in a different gallery earlier in the week, in reference to a very different type of art.
I'd gone to see an exhibit of photographs from Markazi, a refugee camp in Djibouti that houses tens of thousands of refugees, including about two thousand refugees from Yemen. The photographs were the visual component of a year-long ethnographic research project conceived by an NYUAD anthropologist, and at the opening, I overheard some people talking about the beauty of the images.
The photographs are beautiful, there is no doubt, but the beauty unsettled me. These pictures of people living in plastic tents and metal shipping containers, hemmed in by fences in the middle of a desert plain, thousands of miles from their homes: how could these images be “beautiful” when they documented people in such circumstances?
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The photographs don’t capture the smells of the camp, or the heat of the wind; we don’t see the sand, the flies, the dirt. “Misery is easy,” the photographer told me. “But how do we see the dignity of these people?” Some of the families in these photographs pose in their best clothes, smiling for the camera, while others look more relaxed. Regardless of their pose, their gaze demands that we see them as more than beautifully composed images; we need to see them, as the anthropologist suggested, “as if they could be our neighbours.” We might even see them as ourselves: as if we might be there, except for whatever twist of fortune’s wheel that kept us out of a conflict zone, or allowed us to escape a conflict zone without being herded into a camp.
The photographs and stories that emerge from Markazi reveal an all too common narrative: people displaced by events over which they themselves have little or no control, spun into a seemingly endless flood of movement that is, at the same time, constantly curtailed: the displaced can go here but not there, enter this country but not that. They stream into designated areas and cluster there, waiting.
I found a possible description for the Markazi show in a write-up about a New York gallery show featuring Kathe Kollwitz and Sue Coe. The reviewer wrote that the aim of these artists was “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” paraphrasing a comment intended satirically by a 19th century newspaper writer.
The women who put together the Markazi exhibit say the refugees wanted their portraits taken, and wanted to use the cameras themselves to show the world their lives. The combined art of text and image became, even if only briefly, a source of comfort.
The question of beauty may obscure the question of discomfort, of being pushed to regard what we see not as objects in a frame on the wall but as elements of our own humanity, positioned so that we can see the world itself in brutal and unsettling detail.
Deborah Lindsay Williams is a professor of literature at NYU Abu Dhabi
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The specs
Engine: 0.8-litre four cylinder
Power: 70bhp
Torque: 66Nm
Transmission: four-speed manual
Price: $1,075 new in 1967, now valued at $40,000
On sale: Models from 1966 to 1970
Scoreline
Al Wasl 1 (Caio Canedo 90 1')
Al Ain 2 (Ismail Ahmed 3', Marcus Berg 50')
Red cards: Ismail Ahmed (Al Ain) 77'
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Best Academy: Ajax and Benfica
Best Agent: Jorge Mendes
Best Club : Liverpool
Best Coach: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)
Best Goalkeeper: Alisson Becker
Best Men’s Player: Cristiano Ronaldo
Best Partnership of the Year Award by SportBusiness: Manchester City and SAP
Best Referee: Stephanie Frappart
Best Revelation Player: Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid and Portugal)
Best Sporting Director: Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)
Best Women's Player: Lucy Bronze
Best Young Arab Player: Achraf Hakimi
Kooora – Best Arab Club: Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)
Kooora – Best Arab Player: Abderrazak Hamdallah (Al-Nassr FC, Saudi Arabia)
Player Career Award: Miralem Pjanic and Ryan Giggs
Indoor cricket World Cup:
Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23
UAE fixtures:
Men
Saturday, September 16 – 1.45pm, v New Zealand
Sunday, September 17 – 10.30am, v Australia; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Monday, September 18 – 2pm, v England; 7.15pm, v India
Tuesday, September 19 – 12.15pm, v Singapore; 5.30pm, v Sri Lanka
Thursday, September 21 – 2pm v Malaysia
Friday, September 22 – 3.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 3pm, grand final
Women
Saturday, September 16 – 5.15pm, v Australia
Sunday, September 17 – 2pm, v South Africa; 7.15pm, v New Zealand
Monday, September 18 – 5.30pm, v England
Tuesday, September 19 – 10.30am, v New Zealand; 3.45pm, v South Africa
Thursday, September 21 – 12.15pm, v Australia
Friday, September 22 – 1.30pm, semi-final
Saturday, September 23 – 1pm, grand final
Copa del Rey
Semi-final, first leg
Barcelona 1 (Malcom 57')
Real Madrid (Vazquez 6')
Second leg, February 27
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
ALL THE RESULTS
Bantamweight
Siyovush Gulmomdov (TJK) bt Rey Nacionales (PHI) by decision.
Lightweight
Alexandru Chitoran (ROU) bt Hussein Fakhir Abed (SYR) by submission.
Catch 74kg
Omar Hussein (JOR) bt Tohir Zhuraev (TJK) by decision.
Strawweight (Female)
Seo Ye-dam (KOR) bt Weronika Zygmunt (POL) by decision.
Featherweight
Kaan Ofli (TUR) bt Walid Laidi (ALG) by TKO.
Lightweight
Abdulla Al Bousheiri (KUW) bt Leandro Martins (BRA) by TKO.
Welterweight
Ahmad Labban (LEB) bt Sofiane Benchohra (ALG) by TKO.
Bantamweight
Jaures Dea (CAM) v Nawras Abzakh (JOR) no contest.
Lightweight
Mohammed Yahya (UAE) bt Glen Ranillo (PHI) by TKO round 1.
Lightweight
Alan Omer (GER) bt Aidan Aguilera (AUS) by TKO round 1.
Welterweight
Mounir Lazzez (TUN) bt Sasha Palatkinov (HKG) by TKO round 1.
Featherweight title bout
Romando Dy (PHI) v Lee Do-gyeom (KOR) by KO round 1.
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
