Majida khattari biography of martin luther
Lisa Farjam
Bidoun is a loaded word. One meaning is a name given to 180,000 people who, although they live in the country of Kuwait, are officially noncitizens. They are, in many senses, stateless. They have no passport, no official status other than the designation of a people without citizenship: bidouns. No matter how long or hard they work, they will never belong to a country they consider home. The situation connected to this meaning of the word is sad and unjust.
But it its simplest form, in both Arabic and Farsi, the word bidoun means “without.”
It can mean without a home, without a country or without judgment. In our understanding, it can also describe someone who feels comfortable living in many different worlds, but who does not belong to one in particular. It describes the undeniable warmth upon entering a Middle Eastern store in a foreign city or the surprising familiarity when meeting someone who is also from that region. It defines the positive feeling of participating in many cultures, of being stateless, and in a sense, free.
When we first began working on the concept for this magazine, I was shocked to discover that something like it didn’t already exist. Why was there no platform for the people of the Middle East, when we are so many, scattered all around the world? Why was there no place for our artists? The answer I received while talking to the business executives I had come to for advice was, “It’s because no one cares what is happening outside of their country. Why should an Iranian living in Los Angeles care about what an Egyptian is doing in Cairo?”
We beg to differ.
And that’s why we decided to just go ahead and make this thing. We cannot say definitively what it means to be Middle Eastern. What we can say is that it is a part of this world that has been misrepresented for too long. This magazine is a place where art stands for itself, unencumbered by editorial superficiality and unmarre French artist Ludo is returning to Paris after five years with a new solo show namely titled ‘I’ve been missing you’ at Magda Danysz Gallery. After extensive travelling, creating installations in New York, monumental walls throughout the world and institutional projects, like at the Power Station of Art Museum in Shanghai, Ludo invites us for a journey through his multi-faceted works, whether photographs, paintings, drawings or sculptures. In this exhibition LUDO also presents an installation made up of an army of fireflies whose phosphorescent light dazzles and envelops while letting emerge a certain question about the relation of man to technology. Hybrid creatures emerge from the artist’s imagination with botanical precision using a colour palette ranging from grey to his signature green. The images of LUDO explore the environment, the future, the space, the human. His biotechnological creations come to colonize the three levels of the gallery and plunge us into a chimerical universe where we find the passions and multiple inspirations of the artist. In parallel to the show, wandering through the streets of Paris in the 20th and 11th district, visitors can discover some of the artist’s latest creations, from a snake to a ‘BeeLice’ and a Grim Reaper. View full set of pics here US artist Tristan Eaton who is currently on the front cover of SC Exhibition Magazine is exhibiting in Paris at Galerie Itinerrance. The solo exhibition titled ‘UPRISE’ is a visual history of protest and resistance. A look back on human history reveals time and again how the powerless have risen to topple the powerful and how the little man can vanquish tyrants with peaceful protest and the power of ideas. This exhibition is a reminder of that awesome power, a reminder that protest a SCAD presents the U.S. premiere of “The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists.” Curated by the internationally acclaimed Simon Njami, this monumental exhibition explores the thematic sequences of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem through works by more than 40 contemporary artists from 19 African countries as well as the African diaspora. For centuries, Dante’s literary works and metaphorical language have been a source of inspiration for visual artists, inspiring European masterpieces by Sandro Botticelli, Eugène Delacroix, William Blake and Auguste Rodin, among many others. Through a variety of media, this exhibition demonstrates how concepts visited in Dante’s poem transcend Western traditions and resonate with diverse contemporary cultures, belief systems and political issues. Overall, the exhibition provides a probing examination of life, death and the continued power of art to express the unspoken and intangible. “The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists” is the largest exhibition in the museum’s history. In addition to engaging the museum’s entire exhibition space of nearly 20,000 square feet, installations will also extend to the outdoor courtyard and to nearby satellite locations along Savannah’s Martin Luther King Jr. corridor. Originally shown at Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main earlier this year, the SCAD Museum of Art’s presentation will include several works not previously exhibited including neon work by Kendell Geers, a photo series by Youssef Nabil, large-scale works on paper by Christine Beatrice Dixie, a sound installation by Frances Goodman incorporating bridal fabrics cascading from the ceiling, a calligraphy garden by Moataz Nasr and a collage by Wangechi Mutu. With: Jane Alexander (*1959 Johannesburg, South Africa), Fernando Alvim (*1963 Luanda, Angola), Ghada Amer (*1963 Kairo, Eg .
Ludo – I’ve been missing you
Until 29 July 2017
Magda Danysz Gallery,
Rue Amelot, Paris