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Utilities by Dia Mrad opens today at Zawyeh Gallery Dubai
DUBAI.- Zawyeh Gallery has announced their opening of Dia Mrads solo exhibition Utilities at Alserkal Avenue from January 11 until February 22, 2023. The show can also be attended virtually. Lebanon is now the site of one of the worlds worst economic crises since the 1850s. Through an ethnographic lens, Utilities seeks to explore Beiruts economic collapse by excavating and documenting the multilayers of the crisiss material manifestations across the citys urban fabric. The work focuses on the infrastructural dimensions that were most aﬀected, namely the electricity grids, water supplies, and the banking sector. Mrad's work reﬂects how Beiruts infrastructure has changed as a product of the crisis: residents turning to solar power as an alternative to the citys energy grid; private water companies thriving as households and businesses run dry of water; and banks, where depositors sav ... More

Raising money for one of London's oldest charities
LONDON.- Contemporary art from the collection of one of Londons oldest charities forms part of Lyon & Turnbulls Contemporary & Post War Art // Prints & Multiples auction on January 11. Eleven works are being sold to raise funds for The House of St Barnabas. Based at a Grade I-listed townhouse in Soho, The House of St Barnabas has helped Londoners affected by homelessness since 1862. In 2013 the building became a private members club with a difference; combining a not-for-profit creative and cultural space at No. 1 Greek Street with an Employment Academy for people affected by homelessness. Participants learn their craft in front of house, in the kitchen or in the charitys offices: since opening, 254 participants have graduated from the 12-week programme, many of which have secured lasting employment after graduation. Music, cultural events and the generosity of members are key to the success of The House of St Barnab ... More

Rula Halawani, For Your Mother, opens today at Ayyam Gallery
DUBAI.- Ayyam Gallery begins today the presentation of For You Mother, a solo exhibition featuring Rula Halawanis most recent body of work. The presentation, which ends on February 23rd, 2023, will include chapter I and II of this series. Please join us today January 11th for the vernissage from 6 to 9 pm. When I finished the For My Father series, I showed it to my Mother, told her that it was in honor of my Baba, and asked if she liked it. She replied: Yes, of course, darling, I like it very much! Then she asked, Rula, are you going to make a series for me when I leave this universe? I said: Do not mention death, Mama. I will honor you now while you are still with us. Rula Halawani. The For You Mother series is split into two parts, the first chapter, which was worked on in 2018-2020, and the second, which was completed in 2022 after Rula was chosen as a recipient of the 2021 She ... More

Daylight Books publishes 'EXCAVATION: A Journey Through Loss, Photographs by Jason Paul Reimer
NEW YORK, NY.- Grief, like memories, attaches itself to random moments and fragments of thought. It's nonlinear and omnipresent at the same time, deserving of honor, but also requiring relief from the carrying of its weight. Photographer Jason Paul Reimer's sister died within months of his daughter's birth. The resulting coexistence of grief and joy is explored in this moving collection of color photographs which he has described as "...a metaphorical visualization of my struggle to reconcile the heartache of my sisters loss, [and] the awe and wonder of meeting my daughter" The sequencing and design of the book reflects how the mind and heart interact glimpses and fleeting wonders, images that hold context and reinforce each other in double page spreads and stand-alone photographs presented in a journal-type spiral notebook. The book's content is personal, and this feeling is reinforced with the occasional scrapbook presentation of images in photo corners. The viewer feels as though ... More

In New Orleans, spreading the gospel through song and community
NEW ORLEANS, LA.- On the final day of the 13th annual Praise Fest, the free gospel music festival that started after Hurricane Katrina to bring locals back to New Orleans, the skies above Bayou St. John turned gray. Then, around 2 on an afternoon in October, an eerily familiar sight appeared: torrential rainfall. Pools of water pocked the bayou grass as festivalgoers scrambled to their cars. Attendance for Praise Fest, the first one held in person since the pandemic began, was modest (though organizers said it was about what they expected) the conditions may not have helped. Bishop Ryan Warner, president and CEO of Versatile Entertainment, which runs Praise Fest, clomped around the grounds in his rain boots, directing traffic. The rain would pass, he insisted, and the festival would continue. That was the New Orleans way. Anchored by the sound of organs, pianos, tambourines, drums and melodic voices preaching the word of God, gospel music is a fixture in Black Christian churches across the United ... More

Naomi Replansky, revered poet of hardship and hope, dies at 104
NEW YORK, NY.- Naomi Replansky, a self-taught American poet for decades keenly celebrated yet curiously unheralded whose work portrayed a world of labor, oppression and struggle but was no less hopeful for all that, died on Saturday at her home in Manhattan. She was 104. Her stepson, Uri Berliner, confirmed the death. Born and reared in New York Citys Bronx borough, and as at home on the factory floor as at a coffeehouse reading, Replansky wrote of subjects long considered no fit fare for poetry: manual labor, poverty, disenfranchisement, racism, exile and the Holocaust. Her work, critics concurred, was not so much standard protest poetry but rather a minute examination of the vicissitudes of social history through the lens of individual lives, including her own. Poetry for me, Replansky told the Jewish feminist journal Bridges in 2002, is a way of mastering the world. ... More

Charles Simic, Pulitzer-winning poet and U.S. Laureate, dies at 84
NEW YORK, NY.- Charles Simic, the renowned Serbian-American poet whose work combined a melancholy old-world sensibility with a sensual and witty sense of modern life, died Monday at an assisted living facility in Dover, New Hampshire. He was 84. The cause was complications of dementia, his longtime friend and editor Daniel Halpern said. Simic was a prolific writer who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for The World Doesnt End, a book of prose poems. He served as poet laureate of the United States from 2007 to 2008. I am especially touched and honored to be selected, he said at the time, because I am an immigrant boy who didnt speak English until I was 15. His poems defied simple classification. Some were minimalist and surreal, others determinedly realistic and violent. Nearly all were replete with ironic humor and startling metaphors. Only a very foolhardy critic would say what any Simic poem is about, D.J.R. Bruckner wrote in a 1990 profile of ... More

BAM Artistic Director David Binder to step down in July
NEW YORK, NY.- David Binder, the artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, will step down in July, as the venerable institution faces ongoing turnover and the challenge of pandemic-era rebuilding after decades of stability in its leadership team. BAM, which began presenting work in 1861 and describes itself as the nations oldest performing arts center, long played a key role in New Yorks cultural life, presenting adventurous theater, film, music and dance from artists around the world. But the institution was quieter than some at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and Binders departure will follow the 2021 exit of the institutions president, Katy Clark, and the 2020 death of its board chair, Adam Max. Binder joined BAM as artistic director in 2019, making his tenure significantly shorter than those of his two predecessors, Joseph V. Melillo, who spent 35 years at the institution, and Harvey Lichtenstein, who led BAMs artistic work for 32 years. Similarly, ... More

The Museum of Craft and Design announces Kara Owens as its new Associate Director
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Museum of Craft and Design announced Kara Owens as its new Associate Director. Owens will be vital in helping MCD continue to build a culture of innovation, inclusion, collaboration, teamwork, and philanthropy. With over twenty years of experience in the arts, culture, and social justice sectors, Owens brings outstanding leadership skills, grantmaking experience, and project management to MCD. She has worked with myriad communities through nonprofit enterprise and public service to support the Citys manifold creative voices. Owens comments, It is an honor to joinÂ the Museum of Craft and Design as it continues itsÂ upward trajectory as a dedicated space for innovative and provocative contemporary art, craft, and design. I am overjoyed to support JoAnn Edwards and her teams vision to shape new ways art may permeate, inform, and inspire our daily lives. I am thrilled to join a community that does so much to nurture ar ... More