Welcome to another edition of Inside Indie!
Here’s this week’s highlights:
- Retrospective on artist Mohammed Chabaa part of Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation’s new exhibitions
- Now in Dubai: Apple Music daily playlists that chart most played songs
- Artists come together to raise funds for India as country faces Covid-19 second wave
- Emergeast art gallery partners with MENA artists to raise urgent funds for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund
Titled Mohammed Chabaa: Visual Consciousness, the retrospective is the first to be presented outside of Morocco since the artist’s death in 2013. It encompasses works throughout the artist’s career from 1957 to 2012 – paintings, graphic art, sculpture, interior design models and archival material.
His retrospective at the Cultural Foundation coincides with the group exhibition, Murals of History, which includes works by 15 artists from the UAE as well as the third exhibition, From Cinderella to Sindbad: German and Arab Timeless Tales, focuses on the flow of knowledge and cultural exchange between Germany and the Arab world.
For more information, please visit culturalfoundation.ae
It’s official: Dubai has its very own music chart on Apple Music!
It’s part of City Charts, which are currently streaming in over 100 countries. Apple says this helps to highlight the trending tracks in a particular city, bringing cultures to the world stage and bringing both local and global artists to a top platform for musical discovery.
This is done by combining number of plays and other signs of local popularity to rank the top 25 songs gaining momentum with listeners locally.
Artists and writers around the world have come together to support India as the country battles with a second COVID-19 wave.
One initiative is Artists for India, whose fundraising efforts are being spearheaded by London writer Sonia Faleiro. Over 70 writers – including Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, Ali Smith, Jodi Picoult, Fatima Bhutto, Avni Doshi, Megha Majumdar and William Dalrymple – to sell signed copies of their books, with the proceeds going to Mission Oxygen, a non-profit organisation that purchases oxygen concentrators for hospitals and nursing homes in India. Canadian visual artist Alison Dunlop has also pledged a watercolour work to the highest donor.
Art for India is another initiative, which has raised over £30,000 ($42,000) for Mission Oxygen. Organised by Heta Fell, Vivek Vadoliya and Danielle Pender, the print sale includes works by Ashish Shah, Bharat Sikka, Avani Rai and Kalpesh Lathigra, among others. Their prints are sold for £100 each online, and proceeds after printing and shipping costs will be donated.
Artists in the UAE have also stepped up to join other support efforts. One such artist is Nabla Yahya who sold 50 of her cyanotype Ashen, which depicts a hand carrying a burning heart like a torch. For a $100 donation to any of the four non-profit organisations selected by Yahya, doners also received one of the works.
Dubai gallery Carbon 12 has worked with one of its artists, Amba Sayal-Bennett, to contribute three drawings towards fundraising efforts. Sayal-Bennett, who lives in London, is known for abstract drawings and sculptures that combine architectural, diagrammatic and totem-like structures. Proceeds from the three works on paper, which cost €650 ($783) each, by the artist, will be donated to Give India, an online donation platform.
The gallery has partnered with six artists who have provided six digital prints that can be directly purchased from their website with 100% of proceeds going to Urgent Gaza Relief at the PCRF (Palestine Children’s Relief Fund).
The funds will be used for immediate medical relief, providing hospital equipment and supporting humanitarian urgencies as well as urgent medical supplies for hospitals in Gaza.
Upcoming Events
Film screening: Acasa, My Home – Cinema Akil, June 4. Tickets Required.
For the last two decades, the Enache family lived in the Bucharest’s Delta, an immense green space in which wildlife has become a rare urban ecosystem. Following the rhythm of the seasons, they live a simple life isolated from society. But their peace is soon to be over: no longer able to escape social services and pressured by the municipality, they are forced to move to the city and learn to conform to the rules of society.
‘Abstraction and Calligraphy – Towards a Universal Language’. Louvre Abu Dhabi, until June 12. Tickets required.
This exhibition is showcasing 101 artworks from 16 partner institution collections, including Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Among the works on display are pieces by Dia Azzawi, Mona Hatoum, Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lee Krasner, André Masson, Jackson Pollock, Anwar Jalal Shemza, and Cy Twombly, many for the first time in the region. It also includes two original artworks by contemporary artists eL Seed and Sanki King.
AMER ZAHR LIVE! at the Theatre – Mall of the Emirates, June 17. Tickets Required.
After sold-out shows to diverse audiences around the world; Amer Zahr returns to Dubai, with his brand of ironic, intelligent humour. An author, speaker, and professor, he doesn’t just want to make people laugh, he wants to make them think. Social awareness, Arab-Western society.
CREATIVITY UNDEFINED 