Selections || The Design Issue

          The Design Issue marks a new look for Selections as the magazine is re-launched with a new focus on arts & culture. With two exclusive covers designed especially by Studio Putman, in Paris, and Rana Salam, in Beirut, the issue presents the leading lights from architecture, product design, fashion, and design innovation across the region, with guests from Europe also. Zaha Hadid is in conversation with architectural critic Hilary French; design guru Justin McGuirk reviews this year's Salone del Mobile; Rabih Kayrouz is photographed in his Paris atelier; Sheyma Bu Ali considers Thomas Heatherwick's scheme for Abu Dhabi; and we review Richard Serra's new desert installation. We look to street culture with Rana Salam and peek in to the world of Olivia Putman in our Curated By section.

Chanel Cruise 2014/5 on The Island, Dubai

Our commitment to the world of fashion is so great that on Tuesday, we journeyed by car, plane and boat, and all the way to a desert island to see the Chanel Cruise collection for 2014/5 – although, admittedly, the experience was less wild, beardy Tom Hanks in Castaway, more chic island-luxe. On Tuesday, Selections’ Rima Nasser arrived in Dubai and travelled to Karl Lagerfeld’s Arabian retreat on The Island, where against the grandiose backdrop of a blaze of sunset and the futuristic skyline, shisha tents and candles dotted the landscape.

1000 guests sat within the custom-built, mashrabiya-silhouetted structure and enjoyed a show daubed in the classic Chanel colour palette of white, black and beige, interrupted by moments of fuschia, midnight blue and red and floral prints. Oriental art was reinterpreted into contemporary lines and forms across the likes of three-piece suits, long and mini tunics, short overalls, and boleros.

Following the show, fashion editors and models – as well as celebrities including Tilda Swinton, Freida Pinto, and Dakota Fanning – traded hasty between-shows Marlboro Lights for a relaxed puff on an arghila, gathered around lantern-lit tables and to the soundtrack of Moroccan musicians. If this is island living, then we’re ready to get shipwrecked. 

CITY NEWS PUBLISHING AT ART DUBAI

Anish Kapoor, Untitled, 2012, 138.4 x 138.4 x 31.1 cm,

Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York

Editor-in-chief of Selections and founder of City News Publishing Rima Nasser was in the Emirates last week for Art Dubai. This cultural and commercial highlight in the Gulf welcomed 70 galleries and 70 museum groups through its doors this year and spent a remarkable $45 million putting together the show. We were pleased to find that out of the 500 artists exhibiting, 50% were women; as Abellah Karroum, director of Mathaf, writes in his accompanying letter to the pages he curated for us in the latest issue of Selections, "After making the selection, I realised that just half of the artworks I included were created by men, underscoring the extent to which gender equality is crucial to the progress of art and society".

Huguette Caland, Rossinante Under Cover XI, 2011,132 x 104 cm, 

Courtesy of the artist and Lombard 

During the press tour of the fair, director Antonia Carver settled upon Anish Kapoor and Mona Hatoum as the artists exhibiting the most important works there, while Rima herself most appreciated Huguette Caland's pieces, being exhibited by Galerie Janine Rubeiz, as well as Anup Mathew Thomas's photographic portrait series of women from Kerala, India, working as nurses around the world. 

Reza Hezare, Drawing Collection - In Exile, 2008, 86 x 62 cm,

Courtesy of YAY Gallery

Rajaa Khalid, 1951-64, The Big Picture, 

Global Art Forum 8 Commission, Art Dubai 2014

Artist collective Slavs and Tatars did an excellent job of curating the Marker section (read our interview with them in the current issue of the Art Paper) - with the drawings of Reza Hezare at YAY Gallery standing out in particular here - and the Global Art Forum brought some of the brightest voices together to debate and discuss art in our region (look out for coverage in the next Art Paper).

MONA HATOUM AT MATHAF IN DOHA

Sculptural works with names like Bourj and Bunker represent the damaged buildings of Beirut.

Set in the entrance hall of Mathaf for Mona Hatoum: Turbulence.

We are often in Doha working closely with our partners there, but our most recent visit to the capital of Qatar was a little different. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art invited us to join them for the opening of their latest exhibition, a solo show called Turbulence by the Palestinian-British artist Mona Hatoum.

Suspended by Mona Hatoum at Mathaf 

(Turbulence, the installation from which the exhibition 

takes its name, is also visible on the floor in the background)

The exhibition was curated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, founders of Art Reoriented, who brought a new eye to the extensive body of work being shown from throughout the artist's 30-year career. Arranged as a series of tensions and counterpoints, the main concept behind this retrospective was the idea of turbulence and how it is created by shifting between different types of feeling in the gallery.

Over My Dead Body by Mona Hatoum at Mathaf

This idea comes from Mona Hatoum's artworks themselves, each of which generates a sense of instability using a poised balance between medium and message. Reading or hearing about her work can not compare to experiencing it in person because her large installations in particular (although also her video and smaller sculptures) trigger physical sensations of discomfort and anxiety in the body and mind of the viewer through their structure and motion.

Hotspot by Mona Hatoum at Mathaf

(The Impenetrable installation is also visible in the background)

It was a privilege to be able to interview such a prominent and accomplished artist, particularly as she was born in Beirut and has built up her considerable international reputation by continuing to work with integrity, wit and political awareness to produce world-class art.

The exhibition continues until 18th May 2014. Read our full review of the exhibition with comments from the artist and the curators in the March issue of the Art Paper, free with Selections magazine.

MEET MIRIAM LLOYD-EVANS

Miriam with Abdulnasser Gharem and the 

book they worked on together

Miriam Lloyd-Evans writes for Selections and the Art Paper about contemporary Arab art. Her main occupation, however, is curating art from the Middle East. Working between London and the Gulf, she often partners with galleries in the region and has been instrumental in several landmark exhibitions by emerging Middle Eastern artists in Venice, Berlin, Istanbul, Dubai and London. Miriam recently took up the position of Lead Curator: International Engagement Team (Middle East) at the British Museum, having previously worked with innovative platform Edge of Arabia. She has closely collaborated with well-known Saudi artist Abdulnasser Gharem and edited his monograph. When she's not working the museums, art fairs and auction house circuit, Miriam lets off steam by dancing at parties and sailing around the Mediterranean. 

THE ART PAPER GOES INTERNATIONAL

It was because we launched the first issue of the Art Paper - the art supplement that comes with Selections - in partnership with the Beirut Art Fair, that the focus was initially local, and we looked into the art world here in Lebanon. That was issue #00 - a trial run if you like - and we have now put together our first real issue #01 with a wider point of view.

The Small is Beautiful exhibition at Durub Al Tawaya 

& the Design Souq at Abu Dhabi Art 2013

As a result, Selections editor Kasia Maciejowska was in London this Autumn for Frieze Art Fair, and visited Brussels for a preview of BRAFA (Brussels Antiques and Fine Art Fair), while our contributors Jennifer Hattam in Istanbul and Anya Stafford in Abu Dhabi have written reports from art fairs there. 

Selections editor Kasia with couturier Giambattista 

Valli at Dover Street Market's party for Frieze

Our collector profile will be with Turkish textile magnate Öner Kocabeyoğlu, our curator interview is with young British influencer Nicola Lees, and we'll have exhibition reviews of work by Egyptian, Indian, Cuban and Austrian-American artists who have recently shown in various locations.

Egyptian artist Wael Shawky's Cabaret Crusades

at the Serpentine Gallery, London

This inclusive perspective doesn't mean we're ignoring local talent of course. We review the in-depth Paul Guiragossian retrospective at the Beirut Exhibition Centre, and Mark Hachem's display of collages by Syrian painter Rabee Kiwan.

We'll also be printing a neat list of new art spaces around the globe that have opened in the past year. Look out for the Art Paper with the coming Winter issue of Selections.

MEET OUR FASHION WRITERS

As a publication that takes an international perspective, Selections draws its contributors from far and wide. The magazine's two leading fashion writers Avril Groom and Thomas Rees both hail from London. Beyond their location and their passion for fashion, however, these two sartorial sages are quite different - which we like as they each bring their own point of view on the world of dress.

Avril has many years' experience writing about fashion and luxury for excellent publications of global standing, including the Financial Times How To Spend It magazine. Attending the catwalk shows in Paris, Milan, London and New York, she brings a sophisticated knowledge of the fashion industry and its moods to her seasonal catwalk reviews. Jewellery is also her thing, and Avril visits the major fairs to report on all the latest creations by leading jewellers and watchmakers - a favourite topic with Selections readers.

Thom, meanwhile, spends his days working as a Trends Researcher at LS:N Global, the editorial arm of trend forecasting agency The Future Laboratory. With this insider knowledge he puts together trend reports for Selections each season. Thom studied Fashion at the University of Brighton, so he's a dab hand at designing and styling himself. He knows absolutely everything about menswear and almost absolutely everything about womenswear. Based in the East End, at the heart of London's creative fashion scene, Thom is always in touch with up-and-coming labels and new styling details. We love his fresh eye and sense of humour - and his adorable Italian greyhound called Jelly.

OUR FIRST ART PAPER

Alongside the Autumn issue of Selections magazine we published the inaugural issue of our Art Paper to accompany the Beirut Art Fair. We interviewed artists, gallerists and designers for the paper and chatted to key contributors at the fair - these vox pop interviews will be appearing soon on our Selections App. 

One of our favourites was Manuella Guiragossian - always a pleasure to talk to, her illustrations are witty and uplifting, merging her artistic upbringing and her experience in California creating drawings for Disney. Her pictures cheer us up with their charm.