last week was fascinating. I was there for the opening of We Need to Talk, billed as the most significant exhibition of contemporary art ever held in Saudi Arabia.
Here’s my write-up in the Art Newspaper. Also interesting is this piece in the current Economist about the show in the context of Saudi Arabia post-Arab Spring.
And here’s a video of the artists doing their thing:
‘Against Modern Football’ from Henry Hemming on Vimeo.
Does anyone know more about this – like who made it, when and why?
I don’t know why I love these, but I do. For the benefit of those who can’t read Arabic (like me) every candidate in the Egyptian elections has been assigned an icon by the election authorities; here are some of the ones in Zamalek (p.s. if you want to see people queuing to vote go here for the Guardian‘s snaps, and here for more on storify):
Every fifteen minutes or so there’s a low humming sound from the crowd, a hooooooooooo, which means something is about to happen near the front. If the hoooooooooooo gets loud enough – and it doesn’t have to get very loud, everyone begins to race off in the opposite direction. Those on mopeds do the same, honking their horns, adding to it all, weaving in and out of the crowd. It’s amazing how fast everyone runs at times like that. Also amazing how hard it is to stay put when a heaving crowd to which you belong runs in a single direction.
A little later everyone stops before heading back. There’s a defiance to this part of the cycle, the return. Everyone seems to walk back a little taller than they were before, hands often aloft, palms open. There’ll be more Allahu Akbars (when everyone’s static in the square the chants are more political).
