My new article for the Financia Times is about a new breed of Korean collectors, the so-called Generation MZ, a terms tha stands for millennials and Gen-Z.
They are focused on works under $50,000, either buying with family money or their own entrepreneurial cash, including at the upcoming Frieze and Kiaf fairs.
Read More![Malaysian-Palestinian artist Mandy El-Sayegh .[Photo Abtin Eshraghi. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Portrait-of-Mandy-El-Sayegh-in-her-studio.-Photo-Abtin-Eshraghi.-Courtesy-of-the-artist-and-Lawrie-Shabibi-1536x1025-1.jpg?fit=1199%2C800&ssl=1)
Middle East Monitor has just published my latest interview with Malaysian-Palestinian artist Mandy El-Sayegh.
Based on assemblage and cultural hybridity, the artist’s work uses artifacts from contemporary culture to speak of the current political climate.
Here is the link to the interview
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The Italian Magazine Arabpop has just published my interview with Libyan artist Marwa Benhalim in Italian, with the title “The history of the world in a fist of couscous.”
This issue magazine themed “feast” is now out in the press.
![Works by Zeinab Saab as part of A thought is a memory, curated by Noel Maghathe. Presented by CUE Art Foundation, 2023 [Photo by Filip Wolak]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/My-project-1-5.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1)
My latest piece for Middle East Monitor is about a collective show at CUE Art Foundation in New York reflecting on the hybrid identities of Arab Americans.
Called “A thought is a memory”, the show is curated by Noel Maghathe and runs until 13 May.
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A collection can represent many different things; it can be a statement, contribution, research, even a love story. In the case of retired German doctor, Christoph Bendick, who has worked in Phnom Penh for 25 years, it’s the story of an encounter with a country whose painful recent history is interlaced with the resilience and strength of its people.
I have interviewed the collector for the Singapore-based magazine Plural.
Here is the link to the interview
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My second article for the collector’s webmagazine Larry’s List is an interview to Italian fashion mogul and collector Luciano Benetton.
Dubbed “Imago Mundi”, his collection and world-wide project spans from New Zealand to Burkina Faso, covering 80 countries for a total of over 10,000 artworks.
Here is the link to the interview
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The Singapore-based webmagazine Plural Art Mag has just published an interview with artist Justin Lee and Teng Jee Hum, one half of the Teng Collection, together with June Ong.
It was beautiful to learn how their synergies came together to create a one-of-a-kind show at The Private Museum in Singapore.
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I reviewed for Cobo Teng Jee Hum’s second book on collecting, focused on history of Singapore. The book offers insight into the history of contemporary art in the city-state.
Here is the link to the review
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Robberto is a young artist based in Rome, native of Sardinia. I met him at the Pastificio Cerere, in Rome, and I soon find out that he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti as well. He gave me this painting of Nietzsche – charcoal and chalk on wood – as gift. The back of the wood is slate, so the artwork is super-heavy. I needed some help to carry the artwork home.
Nietzsche is my favourite philosopher, his writing is incredibly powerful. He said “I’m dynamite” long before the AC/DC.
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I found this big collage on canvas hidden behind a bookcase in Joseph Meo’s studio in Massa Lubrense.
It’s an artwork of Joseph Meo’s early production, the date it’s 1986.
With stubborn, laborious persuasion I conviced the artist to give it to me. Now it’s one of the favourite pieces of my personal collection.
Let aside the impressing collage technique, the subject itself is very charming. That rebelious woman in leather jacket has something berlinesque and
reminds me to the Marianne Faithfull of the Broken English period.
In one of his poems Baudelaire said that there is no beauty without a little bit of sadness.
This artwork, from my personal collection of contemporary art, is both beautiful and painful to me.
Lucas Leo Catalano realized it for the first exhibition of the art/poetry collective Poetry Experience in which I partecipate as well.
This work has been exhibited in The Room Gallery in Rome and at Museo del Viaggio in Positano.
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
