Articles

Objectum-Love At First Sight

As Rilke noted, “Relations of men and things have created confusion in the latter.”

Alexander Provan

The Anatomy of Melancholy: Cairo’s Lost Agriculture Museum

An immense, opalescent camel’s stomach hangs inflated behind greasy glass: the strange beauty of an indisputably anachronistic science, proudly presented.

Clare Davies

At The New Lebanon Hotel, You See Old Lebanon And Smile Quietly

Forty-four stone steps lead one from the sidewalk to the door of the hotel.

Sahar Mandour

Abbas Akhavan’s Correspondences

A clean white rag drapes the bottle’s neck like a cockscomb.

Kristina Lee Podesva

Raphaël Zarka’s Riding Modern Art

Zarka’s images refer us to a more democratic potential within form, encapsulated in the approach of the skateboarders, for whom every surface and every curve is a potential ride.

Suzanne Cotter

The Cleaver Sleeve

In 1975, Eldridge Cleaver, having tried his hand at petty crime, insurrectionary sexual assault (so-called), essay writing, public relations, civil rights activism, US presidential politics, and paramilitary training, decided to become a fashion designer.

Gary Dauphin

Metatron’s Breastplate

The new being was more powerful than any other angel and as tall as the earth is broad. And he was called… Metatron. The parallels with superhero origin stories are striking; no wonder that the Japanese adopted him as a super-robot.

Peter Trachtenberg

General Dostum’s Clocks

On the wall hung a row of clocks, some round and some square. Each one told a different time.

Serge Michel, Paolo Woods

Hamid Batma’s Tabla Drum

Like most Gnawas, Hamid enters a kind of trance when he plays. Unlike most, he never seems to fully exit from it.

Jace Clayton

Peace Descending on the Chariot of War: Hyde Park Corner, London

At the foot of a monument, we are asked to remember something we do not, cannot, know.

Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts

Battles of Troy

the greatest battle ever fought between the people of Bulgaria and Mexico.

Krassimir Terziev

Blessed Nimbus Churning

The Cairene spring arrived in mid-May, in the form of perfect days — breezy yet warm, the kind of weather that makes you want to run around the city on foot.

Malak Helmy

Ornament & Argument

It was a prestigious undertaking for the young Iranian firm, a landmark project that excited the interest of the Shah himself.

Michael C. Vazquez, Pamela Karimi

Our Lady of Hizbullah

It is this dynamic of jarring transgression between a booby Western-style pop star and the austere leader of an Islamic militant group that undergirds, in a more subtle fashion, the visual language of Julia Boutros’s famous music video.

Elias Muhanna

This Necrophilic Strategy Entails Some Risk: Bruce Hainley in conversation wiith filmmaker William E Jones

Artist William E Jones has made films about a pornstar (Finished), the Southern Californian Latino fans of Morrissey (Is It Really So Strange?) and the unlikely documentary and/ or narrative moments within sex films (v. o.), among other hypnotic and subtle works.

Bruce Hainley

No Food, No Drink, Just Muslims on TV

I doubt, globally speaking, that Muslims are especially known for their senses of humor.

Shumon Basar

HADETU

Egyptian novelist Mahmoud El Wardany’s latest adventure is a risky one.

Sayed Mahmoud

Hollow Land

In 1692, the brilliant and eccentric English astronomer Edmund Halley formally presented his fantastical theory that the world was hollow to the Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society of London.

Sreemati Mitter

I'Jaam

I’jaam is the story of Furat, a prisoner in an Iraq reminiscent of the Ba’athi era.

Haig Aivazian

I Will Draw A Star on Vienna’s Forehead

Born in an unnamed country, into an unnamed family, Vienna narrates her triumphs (a first kiss stolen while tutoring a boy) and tribulations (he turns out to be gay) as she careens through life, trying and discarding personas like outfits.

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