Art
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Book review: Ibrahim al-Koniʹs "The Fetishists"
Intricate patterns of the mind
Imagine a book of more than 500 pages where plot and character donʹt matter, a giant multi-room museum piece that asks to be read in stages and puzzled over. Ibrahim al-Koniʹs epic novel "Al-Majus" – newly available in English translation as "The Fetishists" – is just such a read. By Marcia Lynx Qualey
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Interview with Turkish-French artist Nil Yalter
"Female immigrants are doubly imprisoned"
"Exile Is a Hard Job" is a spot-on title for the retrospective of Turkish artist Nil Yalter's oeuvre at Museum Ludwig in Cologne. For over 40 years, she has been exploring the situation of migrant workers. By Sabine Oelze
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Portrait of the Israeli performance artist Adi Liraz
Provocation as a search for identity
Berlin-based Israeli artist Adi Liraz works the history and stories of the women in her family into her fabric artworks, re-telling them for posterity. In the process, she challenges existing narratives about home, femininity and identity. By Ceyda Nurtsch
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Inauguration of the AUC Tahrir Cultural Center
Manifesting the unseen
New work by Huda Lufti and Sherin Guirguis explores the poetics of revolution and repression at a pair of exhibitions marking the inauguration of the Tahrir Cultural Center at the downtown campus of the American University in Cairo. By Mahmoud Saber and Jacob Wirtschafter
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Portrait of the Egyptian artist Soad Abdelrasoul
Creating her own universe
With her "Virtual Garden" exhibition at the trend-setting Mashrabiya Gallery in downtown Cairo, the 45-year-old painter Soad Abdelrasoul has confirmed her place as one of Egyptʹs leading contemporary artists. By Mahmoud Saber
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Portrait of the Lebanese-American artist Helen Zughaib
"We are more similar than dissimilar"
Since 9/11, Beirut-born Lebanese-American artist Helen Zughaib has used her art to project positive images of Arabs and the Middle East to a mostly American audience. Based in politically charged Washington D.C., her goal is not to take sides, but highlight the consequences of life-changing situations. By Yasmine Salam
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Festival of feminist artists
Loud, louder, tashweesh!
At the Goethe-Institutʹs Tashweesh Festival, artists and intellectuals from North Africa, Europe and the Middle East meet to discuss stereotypical gender images. By Caren Miesenberger
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"Human Cargo" art project
Plumbing the depths of refugee pain
Can art help individuals process the experience of fleeing across the Mediterranean? Sponsored by Malteser International, the art project "Human Cargo" in Ahaus, Germany, is helping refugees come to terms with the horrors they experienced on their odyssey. By Wolfgang Dick
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Obituary: Turkish photographer Ara Guler
Chronicler of a bygone age
Turkey's most famous photographer, Ara Guler, has died in Istanbul at the age of 90. With his images of both the people and places of the Turkish capital, Guler has done more than any other to keep the memory of the city as it used to look alive. By Marian Brehmer
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Interview with graphic novel illustrator Reinhard Kleist
Arab comics – protest, love and the everyday
Reinhard Kleist is regarded as one of Germany’s finest graphic-novel illustrators and has travelled the Arab world extensively, discovering a fascinating local comics scene
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Yassin Mohammedʹs cellblock chronicle
Egyptian activist and artist Yassin Mohammed, who walked free last month from a Cairo prison after serving a two-year sentence for taking part in a protest, chronicled daily life in his cellblock. By Hamza Hemdawi
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4th Qalandiya International art exhibition
Showing for Palestinian solidarity
The fourth Qalandiya International exhibition opens with shows in the West Bank and Gaza, but also in Lebanon and Germany, crossing borders the Palestinians themselves can't pass. By Sarah Judith Hofmann