In a popular TV commercial for Nokia, actor Gary Oldman proclaims with a blazing casualness that “all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” Indeed. In an ever-expanding world of wireless communication, internet addiction, and online communities, the Shakespearian quote resonates in many more ways than it used to. Could […]

“Avoid suspicious places, and none of you should spend time with your mother in crowded passageways, for all those who see you do not know she is your mother (and this may provoke suspicion).” -From “Dubiousness and Rumor; Two Press Vices,” Maroof Publications It was around 10 pm when I asked my friend to call […]

It is the mid-90s, and I’m sitting in a bar, drinking a cold Stella beer. I am somewhere on the Sinai coast. Next to me, an older man is sitting sipping his whiskey-neat. He looks like someone who works with money, not abstractly, with the arrogance of a banker or a stockbroker, but more directly. […]

Shortly after taking possession of the Golan Heights in June of 1967, Israeli Defense Forces entered the abandoned headquarters of the Syrian Army and in the flush of victory stripped down a Pepsi-Cola marquee-battered but still aloft-and hoisted a gleaming new Coca-Cola sign in its place. Regarded from today’s perspective, this seems like a gesture […]

LETTER

ARTIST PROJECT
I heard a Rumor, 2006
Shumon Basar and Markus Miessen

PREVIEWS

MUSEUM
Kabul Zoo as Museum
Daniel Metcalfe

HOTEL
Afghans in India and One Hotel’s Curious History
Kai Friese

ARTIST PROFILE
Introducing Cassius Al Madhloum
Tirdad Zolghadr

WORK IN PROGRESS
Iranian Pop Phenomenon Javad Yassari Caught on Film
Houman Mortazavi

WORK IN PROGRESS
Mahmoud Khaled’s Alias Logs in to Explore Controversial Terrain
Bassam El-Baroni

WORK IN PROGRESS
In between the Public, the Work, and The Artist: Bojan Sarcevic
David Rych

INFRASTRUCTURE
Institutional Self-Censorship and Religious Sensitivity
Nav Haq

ART MARKET
Frieze, Christie’s, and the Dubai Effect
Antonia Carver

CURATORIAL SPACE
The Case for Independence
Sigismond De Vajay

INTERVIEW
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Anton Vidokle, and Tirdad Zolghadr at the opening of unitednationsplaza

RUMOR

ARTIST PROJECT
A Disclosure: An artist, the editors and a newsroom graphic designer

Fake Memoirs and Truth as Style
George Pendle

Narges and the Case of Iranian Docudrama
Sohrab Mohebbi

London’s Nocturnal Blues
Sukhdev Sandhu

Maurizio Cattelan Meets Roman Ondák

Tall-Tales in Tehran
Anton Karster

ARTIST PROJECT
What Noah Knew
The Yes Men

Archetypal Intellectuals, Devastated Revolutionaries, Kitsch Mythologies, and a Writer Who Dared to Look at Herself
Hassan Khan

Sex and Stereotype on the Sub-Continent
Naeem Mohaiemen

The Phenomenon of Collective Hypnosis
Yasser Abd El Latif

Soda as Politick
Curtis Brown

How the Art World Prospers by Never Explaining Itself
Mary Blair Taylor

Networks of Images, Lives, and Deaths
Chris Csikszentmihályi

FILM
On Tahmineh Milani’s Cease Fire
Vahid F Parsa

A Journey Into Beirut’s Dark Side
Tony Chakar

Film Festival Diary
Saeed Taji Farouky and Jim Quilty

ARCHITECTURE
Debating the Future of Martyrs’ Square
Makram elKadi and Bouki Babalou-Noukaki

MUSIC
Music Pioneer Halim El-Dabh
Sam Shalabi

REVIEWS
Below the Poverty Line: A Novel
Fatin Abbas

PHRASE BOOK
Egyptian Arabic

COOKING
Michael Rakowitz

AFTERTHOUGHT
The Open Secret
Tamer El-Leithy