Don't miss this!

"Muhawwil" is a four-channel video installation based on Islamic figurative murals painted on electric power stations in Kuwait. These murals mark a transformation in religious discourse within Gulf societies: where once only calligraphic depictions of this nature were allowed, today’s pop-culture and mass-production of images have forced conservative entities to reconsider this tradition and take up a mutated technique to convey moral advice - wall paintings. This project reconstructs these paintings into animation, so as to highlight the dilemma of representation that exists between the ancient and the modern.

This project was produced with the support of The Arab Fund for Arts & Culture (AFAC).

About the artist:

Monira Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti artist born in Senegal and educated in Japan. In 2010, she received a Ph.D. in inter-media art from Tokyo University of the Arts. Her research is focused on the aesthetics of sadness in the Middle-East, and her works explore the dysfunctional gender roles in Arab societies, as well as the displacement of cultural and religious identities. She has held solo exhibitions in Japan & Kuwait, and participated in collective exhibitions and screenings in Dubai, Beirut, New York, London, Berlin, Paris & Shanghai among others. She is also a member of the artist collective GCC.

For more information please go to:

 www.moniraalqadiri.com 

Gallery opening hours:

Opening 21st January 7-9pm

22nd until 28th January 6-9pm

(closed on Friday & Saturday)

behind the scenes of our post-nuclear apocalypse film set in Korea...

We started shooting our post-nuclear apocalypse film, YEOK, on Monday night, August 6 (the same day that in 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan - we did not plan this, just a weird coincidence). As a thunderstorm rolled in, we began shooting. Here are a few of my photos of behind the scenes footage (for more photos and a video click HERE). Enjoy!

On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima...

On Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, that instantly killed an estimated 66,000 people in the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare.

“I write to you from a far-off country” ~R.I.P. Chris Marker

29 July 1921 – 30 July 2012

Chris Marker, Enigmatic Multimedia Artist, Dies at 91 - NYTimes.com 

Mr. Marker, who pioneered the flexible hybrid form known as the essay film, resisted categorization throughout his career...

Korean film updates

Not sure if you have seen all of these updates on the film we are shooting in Korea so below are links to each of them.  Most updates are by Jonah Whipp but I wrote a few, contributed video and photos, and am in a number of the videos.  ENJOY!

 

Yang Dong Market ( the station)

Ryu will play the role of Mr. Song

Mr. Lee will play the role of "Man who goes insane"

Buai Mingon Oh will play the role of a scientist in Yeok

Introducing "The Man" Seungki Cho

Thank YOU!!!!!

The studio is ready! (almost)

Special thanks update!

Back in Korea with a new visa. Time to get to work.

Kyoto, Japan

Nara, Japan

Osaka!!!!!!!

Overnight in Seoul, headed to Osaka

Seungki welcomes artist William Andersen to Mite-Ugro

Traveling to Gwangju, South Korea

WHAT IS MITE UGRO ZAZA? 

역 Yeok ( The Station)

 

 

 

New video update from the Ryoanji Temple, Kyoto, Japan

Kinkaku (The Golden Temple), Kyoto, Japan

Yesterday was an unbelievably hot and humid day in Kyoto. In the morning we dropped off our bags at a zen temple in the northwestern part of the city. We quickly hopped on bikes and rode over to a local sushi restaurant and ate fabulous sushi for only a 100 yen per dish. After lunch we checked out the Kinkaku ( The Golden Pavilion ) and the Ryoanji temple. Watch the new video of me at the Ryoanji Temple, got a little confused in all the heat and humidity and thought we found Yoda's hut! Watch video here: 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1697300103/yeok-the-station/posts/267874

World’s biggest buyer of contemporary art?

A leading art paper has called the tiny peninsula the world’s biggest buyer of contemporary art, spending around a billion dollars since 2005.

Takashi Murakami’s exhibition “Ego” opens at the Qatar Museum.

Qatar's arty investments

youtube

From the $250mn purchase of Cezanne's The Card Players to investment in Takashi Murakami's Ego exhibit - first in Versailles and now Doha - Qatar's elite are spending hundreds of millions of in making the country a world-class destination.

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE EVERYONE!

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE EVERYONE!

Japanese Sun goddess Amaterasu emerging from a cave.

Kim Jong-il is dead: pretty weird and scary guy...

Just for fun- it is also important to note that the N. Korean media also reports that Kim Jong-il bowled a perfect game-300, on his first time out bowling!

Kim Jong-il: Best Golfer in the World

www.oobgolf.com

This is from a couple years ago- but it's too good not to post. North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il is the best golfer in the world, hands down. On his first ever trip to the golf course, he shot 38-under par, including 5 hole-in-ones! This is reported by the government controlled media. He routine...

Kim Jong-il's regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought.

www.slate.com

Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan...

Summer solstice commemorated with Google doodle by Takashi Murakami

Summer solstice commemorated with Google doodle by Takashi Murakami | Technology | guardian.co.uk

www.guardian.co.uk

Japanese artist's cartoon The First Day of Summer celebrates the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere

Controversial Exhibit Opening April 12th at the Sultan Gallery

Monira Al Qadiri "The Tragedy of Self" exhibition
12th to 14th April 2011 at Sultan Gallery

Exhibition Concept:

When defining the temperament of recent times, the concept of the 'Self' is an important one. The Self is taught to be glorified and worshiped; creating a system that can render one indifferent to others. During this process, one can become more and more isolated from the world, coming to experience certain emptiness: an emptiness that arises from the futile attempt of attaining an idealized version of self.

In this series of works, this tragic cycle of narcissism is expressed through the use of photographic self-portraits; many of them being saint-like and androgynous, with melancholic expressions, fragmented into many parts. By actively participating in the conceptual structure of her work, the artist wishes to convey that she too is not outside the cycle, reinforcing the sense of vulnerability by posing herself as the tragic subject.


About the Artist: 

Monira Al Qadiri is a Kuwaiti artist born in Senegal in 1983. For the past ten years she has been living in Japan where she studied fine arts and completed her PhD at Tokyo University of Arts. This exhibition will be her first solo show in Kuwait since she left for Japan, and is a culmination of her work from the past two years.

war, destruction, birth, rebirth...

Welcome the Persian New Year, Spring Equinox, and Super-Moon!  Click on links below for more info:

Spring Equinox Signals Persian New Year : NPR

 

super moon : NPR

and goodbye to so much!  Click on links below for more info:

U.S. Launches Missile Strikes On Libya : NPR

In Bahrain, Iconic Pearl Monument Destroyed : NPR

 

Japan Races To Reconnect Power To Nuclear Plant : NPR

NPR Funding Targeted: House Votes To Defund National Public Radio

www.huffingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday voted to end federal funding to National Public Radio. Republican supporters said it made good fiscal sense, and Democratic opponents called it an ideological attack that would deprive local stations of access to programs such as "Car Talk" and "All Things Consider

 

Who benefits from not letting people have access to info?

 

Japan’s Far Right Blocks Screenings of ‘The Cove’

 

Hong Kong publisher halts Tiananmen memoirs 

 

BP and Govt. Prevent Photos of Gulf Oil Spill // Current