Insight and opinion from The National’s editorial leadership
November 22, 2024
“There is a connection,” US president John F Kennedy wrote in an American magazine in 1960, “hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.” A society meeting its moment often goes hand in hand with a golden age in its artistic scene. “The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo da Vinci, the age of Elizabeth also the age of Shakespeare,” Mr Kennedy wrote.
As the Emirati scholar Abdulkhaleq Abdulla observed in a book of the same name, the Arab world is now witnessing “the Gulf moment” – the emergence of the Gulf states as engines of economic power and creativity in the region. It is little wonder, then, that local appetite for the arts is booming.
November 15 saw the opening of the inaugural Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial, a sprawling exhibition of local, regional and international artists that spans the UAE capital and Abu Dhabi emirate’s second city, Al Ain. The biennial, an initiative by the emirate’s Department for Culture and Tourism, runs until April 30 next year and features installations, talks, workshops and performances in some of its home cities’ busiest public spaces.
The intent is “featuring public art that engages the community and enhances walkability”, the event’s organisers say. In a country that has undergone remarkable transformation in the past half-century, one of the biennial’s more thought-provoking aims is to “examine the interplay between [Abu Dhabi’s] modern development and its indigenous practices, addressing the challenge of preserving traditional values amid urban growth”. That is a challenge increasingly faced in cities around the world.
Telling a universal story through a local lens is a fitting goal for Abu Dhabi’s flagship arts event. The emirate, alongside the UAE as a whole, has risen as a major player in the art world. Globally, the arts have had a difficult couple of years, with public funding declining in many countries and the momentum the pandemic brought to the art business slowing down.
Sales in the art world are traditionally driven by private wealth, and the global art market has become caught in a cycle of bearishness. The world’s premier auction houses saw revenues decline in the first half of this year, following earlier declines in 2023. Sales among dealers dropped last year as well.
The growing divide between West and East has also made cross-border transactions between major markets, like the US and China, more difficult. But there are rising art market opportunities in the Arab world. “Some of this trade now flows to the Middle East,” notes a report published this year by Art Basel and Swiss bank UBS. It is an opportune moment for a multitude of reasons, including encouraging creative talent, for the region to put its artists on show.
That is happening in the UAE, where galleries featuring local and regional artists are brimming with visitors, helped along by a strong, attractive economy and major investment in events like Art Dubai, Abu Dhabi Art and the Sharjah Biennial. Saudi Arabia, where Christie’s opened an office this autumn as it continues strong UAE activities, plans to stage its own biennial starting next year. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi’s ADQ has invested $700 million in art auction house Sotheby’s, as it seeks to strengthen its own presence in the region.
Initiatives like the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial benefit from the wider buzz in the regional art scene, but they are also themselves the scene setters. They bring the community directly in touch with artistic expression, inspiring future artists who may not have access to private gallery collections or auction houses. In a world that could use another artistic golden age, that is a profoundly important endeavour.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Etihad, Emirates and Singapore Airlines fly direct from the UAE to Singapore from Dh2,265 return including taxes. The flight takes about 7 hours.
The hotel
Rooms at the M Social Singapore cost from SG $179 (Dh488) per night including taxes.
The tour
Makan Makan Walking group tours costs from SG $90 (Dh245) per person for about three hours. Tailor-made tours can be arranged. For details go to www.woknstroll.com.sg
What can you do?
Document everything immediately; including dates, times, locations and witnesses
Seek professional advice from a legal expert
You can report an incident to HR or an immediate supervisor
You can use the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s dedicated hotline
In criminal cases, you can contact the police for additional support
WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023 More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
