![Artist Manal AlDowayan poses ahead of the opening of the exhibition 'The Future of a Promise' in Venice, Italy on June 1, 2011 [Marco Secchi/Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/GettyImages-115009607-scaled-e1707813275354.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
I am just back from Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia, where artist Manal AlDowayan has two shows in the context of the Al-Ula art festival.
I sat with the artist asking her about her partecipation at the upcoming Venice Biennale, and about her work based on both tradition, community partecipation and women in Saudi Arabia.
Here is the link to the interview
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For Palestinian artist Rana Samara, intimacy is not just about love and sex, but is rather a mixture of connection, comfort and feeling at home, as her latest exhibition at Zawyeh Gallery in Dubai in 2022, Inner Sanctuary, aptly demonstrated. I spoke with her for The Markaz Review.
Here is the link to the interview
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In my interview with curator Nadine Khalil for The Markaz Review, we discover the artists on display in Dubai in the exhibition, I Can No Longer Produce the Limits of My Own Body, on view at the Nika Gallery through the 24th of February, 2024.
Here is the link to the article
Read More![Faisal Saleh, founder of Palestinian Museum, speaks during the inauguration of the facility in Woodbridge, Connecticut, April 22, 2018. [HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/GettyImages-950084052.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1)
“A few months ago, the director of the Palestine Museum US, Faisal Saleh, was in a room in Venice with members of the commission for the 2024 Venice Art Biennale. They tried to explain to him why his proposal for a collateral exhibition of Palestinian artists was rejected.
Saleh is not only Palestinian, but also very American in his ethos. So, he told me, when the Biennale spokesperson tried to convince him that art and politics have to be kept separate, he didn’t hesitate to tell them, ‘Well, I may not be as much of an expert on art as you are, but I do know that politics and art are intertwined. You can’t really separate one from the other.’ “
Faisal Saleh, director of the Palestine Museum US has started a petition to have a Palestinian-only collateral show at the Venice Biennale 2024. I spoke with him for Middle East Monitor.
Here is the link to the interview
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Naima Morelli is an arts writer and journalist specialized in contemporary art from Asia-Pacific and the MENA region.
She has written for the Financial Times, Al-Jazeera, The Art Newspaper, ArtAsiaPacific, Internazionale and Il Manifesto, among others, and she is a regular contributor to Plural Art Mag, Middle East Monitor and Middle East Eye as well as writing curatorial texts for galleries.
She is the author of three books on Southeast Asian contemporary art.
Reach out: contact [at] naimamorelli.com
