The second solo exhibition of Iranian artist Ramtin Zad, titled Resurrection, opened at Gallery Etemad in Dubai on April 30th.
Armed with an artistic style very typical of Iranian art – in the use of bold color and his thick brush-stroked detailing – Zad is now an established 28-year-old painter and sculptor. Preferring to call himself a figurative artist, he has been actively exhibiting his work since 2006 in Tehran, Dubai, Basel, Kuwait, London and New York.
His recent exhibition is a collection of selected new paintings and sculptures, revolving around the focal theme of resurrection. The artist adapted the religious reference to the natural cycle of events in nature, demonstrating the ever-repetitive process of constant decay and revival.
While the subject matter of creation and destruction remains a defining and inseparable law of the very nature of resurrection, they remain a recurrent premise for the artist’s inspiration during the production of the artworks. The resulting mood of the collection further accentuates the truth of nature’s beauty in its constant flux of death and rebirth.
Zad works on small and large-scale paintings and also creates monumental decorative vases that take their inspiration from Persian literature and folklore.
Incorporating a surreal sense of fantasy, and both historical and contemporary symbolism in his work through nature, animals and humans, he renders the subjects he paints a quality of timelessness.
His sculpture titled Kabuki is a cultural narrative inspired from the Kabuki dance-theatrical movement of Japan that largely drew upon the social fabric of the Japanese and now re-told from an Iranian perspective.
“There are a number of symbols within a genre that refer to the routine of human life. From battle scenes, dances, creatures to myths. They are all associated with and speak of our social issues,” Zad said.
Jungle, another one of his exhibited acrylic paintings is a crying explosion of flowers, trees, foliage and skies – a stressful attempt at capturing the essence of the wild.
Zad claims to find nature his closest muse. He believes the element of wilderness is a deeply ingrained feature of natural beauty that he finds both formalistic and erotic, further intending to produce a quality of hallucination in his work.
“Through my paintings, I give my observers the opportunity to enter the labyrinth of my mind. Although the subjects and colors I apply are visually pleasant and eye-catching, they are wild and figuratively tough. I want my observers to relate with my concerns,” he added.
Zad said that just as his artistic process is not a journey of landing at a destination but rather that of revelation, rightly so his plans for future works are unsettled, although he remains intent on becoming the most influential artist in the region.
The exhibition will run until May 24, 2012 at Etemed Gallery, Serkal Avenue, Al Quoz — Dubai.
For more information, visit: http://galleryetemad.com/
Ramtin Zad: Art naturally
Ramtin Zad: Art naturally
Balad Al-Fann brings Saudi art to life
- Exhibition blends art and memories through archival materials, selected artworks, personal possessions and rare voice recordings
JEDDAH: The second edition of the Balad Al-Fann art program has opened in Jeddah Historic District and runs until June 15.
The initiative this time presents a captivating series of art exhibitions, held under the theme “Our Storied Walls,” which celebrate memory, culture and place.
It boasts a renewed focus on local narratives with each exhibition looking at the tangible and human heritage of the city.
Held at Nassif Boutique, the exhibition is a tribute to the late artist Hisham Binjabi, a foundational figure in Saudi Arabia’s modern art movement.
Curated by Ayman Yossri Daydban, a former student of Binjabi, the exhibition blends art and memories through archival materials, selected artworks, personal possessions and rare voice recordings.
Arab News spoke to Daydban, who is one of the most prominent contemporary artists in Saudi Arabia, with his works featuring in major museums and biennials.
He said: “This is a personal exhibition. My journey with Hisham Binjabi began over 35 years ago when he discovered my work, admired it, and encouraged me.
“For a whole year his name echoed in my mind, until I held my first solo exhibition in 1991. It was his encouragement and appreciation of my boldness — he said I thought outside the box — that pushed me forward. I found myself naturally drawn to contemporary art.”
Daydban’s art is conceptual, and rooted in ideas and meaning. Binjabi, on the other hand, remained faithful to classical and realist styles.
Daydban said: “For years we observed each other’s work from afar, and every time we met I felt like a student reuniting with his mentor.
“But Hisham was more than an artist — he was a social figure, a cultural activist who managed and promoted art within the community, bringing art into social and human contexts.
“His greatest influence was not just in his paintings, but in his presence, personality, and wisdom.”
The exhibition does not merely display Binjabi’s artworks — it narrates his life story through them.
His wife played a part by telling their story through her lens and, for the first time, her works are featured in a dedicated section alongside audio recordings of her and their daughters, reflecting on their lives together as a creative family.
An audio room on the upper floor features testimonials from contemporary artists who were his students or peers, and more recordings are added daily.
The exhibition unfolds across three levels: a deeply emotional audiovisual experience, a debut showcase of his wife’s personal works, and a collective sonic space for shared memory and reflection.
Daydban added: “Hisham was, above all, a socially engaged artist, and this exhibit is aimed primarily at the community of Al-Balad, where he lived and left his mark.”
The program also honors the late Safeya Binzagr, one of the first female visual artists in the Kingdom.
Curated by Effat Fadag, the exhibition weaves together the visual and literary in a journey filled with nostalgia, history and cultural memory.
The exhibition presents rare paintings, handwritten letters, and personal belongings that reflect Binzagr’s unique lens on Hejazi life. Her deeply human portrayals of women, homes, attire and rituals offer not only artistic beauty but also historic insight.
Titled “Revealing What Was Hidden,” the exhibition shows how Binzagr used her art to bring the past to life. Her work helps keep Saudi culture and history alive.
The event honors her role as an artist and historian, and Fadag said: “I asked myself: What can I say that hasn’t already been said? I wanted to highlight aspects of her journey that aren’t widely known.”
Binzagr was the first woman to publicly showcase her family and community life, giving a voice to the private lives of Saudi women — a society that was largely hidden at the time.
Fadag said: “I tried to reflect this (voice) through the layout of the exhibition, using the historic Nassif House, starting from the main building to the external annex, with three symbolic doors that narrate her story.”
This journey begins with Binzagr’s birth and upbringing, moves through her education, the exhibitions she held, and finally her artistic projects on Saudi traditional attire, which are featured on the second floor.
Fadag said: “In the clothing room you see very personal images — she even modeled for her work so she could better understand and express the exact details she wanted to paint. She knew exactly how to translate her vision.”
The final section focuses on giving back to the community, and how Binzagr impacted learning, the broader culture and society at large.
The initiative also puts the spotlight on a curated selection of winning works from a national photography competition, while Balad Al-Fann also hosts a competition showcasing traditional calligraphy, ceramics, ornamentation, and engraving.
Huda Beauty named world’s most popular beauty brand
DUBAI: Huda Beauty has been ranked the world’s most popular beauty brand in the latest Cosmetify Q1 2025 Beauty Index.
The Cosmetify Index ranks beauty brands each quarter based on factors such as search volume, social engagement and brand visibility.
Founded in Dubai by entrepreneur and makeup artist Huda Kattan, the brand topped the global list ahead of industry names such as Dior, Fenty Beauty, Rhode and Rare Beauty.
Kattan founded her cosmetics line Huda Beauty in 2013. In 2018, the company was valued at more than $1 billion by Forbes.
The brand also topped Cosmetify’s list in 2019 and 2020.
Qatar’s ‘Beyti Beytak’ exhibition in Venice explores architecture’s roots in hospitality
- Show examines how traditional MENASA design ‘fosters belonging, dignity, and collective life’
DUBAI: Qatar’s first participation in the Venice Biennale of Architecture is a major exhibition spanning two sites in the Italian city — the ACP-Palazzo Franchetti, and the site of what will be the permanent Qatar Pavilion in the Giardini della Biennale. (That pavilion will be the first permanent addition to the historic gardens in more than 30 years.)
The exhibition, “Beyti Beytak. My Home is Your Home. La Mia Casa è la Tua Casa,” is presented by Qatar Museums and curated by the Art Mill Museum — Qatar’s yet-to-be-built museum of modern and contemporary art — and, according to a press release “explores meanings of hospitality within the architecture, urbanism and landscape designs of the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa region.” It features examples from 30 architects, dating from the mid-20th century to the present day.
Aurélien Lemonier, architect and curator at the Art Mill Museum, and the exhibition’s co-curator, tells Arab News: “The exhibition reflects on the essence of hospitality, not just as tradition but as a spatial and social practice. It explores how architecture from the MENASA region fosters belonging, dignity, and collective life.”
On the permanent pavilion’s future site stands a newly commissioned structure by Yasmeen Lari, Pakistan’s first female architect and a pioneer of humanitarian design. Her bamboo-and-palm-frond “Community Center,” created using zero-carbon, low-cost techniques, was developed through the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which Lari co-founded. The structure exemplifies what she calls Barefoot Social Architecture — a methodology that mobilizes local resources, community labor, and heritage crafts to produce flood- and earthquake-resistant structures, addressing, she has said, “climate and social justice.”
“When I spoke with Yasmeen,” recalls Lemonier, “I realized her work is a direct legacy of (Egyptian architect) Hassan Fathy. Like him, she empowers the poor to build their own futures.”
The exhibition draws a clear line of continuity from Fathy’s radical use of earthen materials and community-led design to Lari’s ‘barefoot architecture’ in Pakistan. “Fathy taught communities to build with mud brick and vernacular layouts; not only to survive but to thrive,” he says. “Lari continues that legacy by using architecture as a tool of empowerment.”
Lemonier’s co-curator Sean Anderson, an associate professor at New York’s Cornell University, says: “For centuries, cities in the MENASA region have been shaped not by individual buildings, but by how people gather, interact, and live together. Today, that wisdom is more relevant than ever, as we witness the planet’s transformations, mirrored by technology’s drive toward a more collective, yet divided, future.”
This spirit is echoed in the main exhibition at Palazzo Franchetti where “Beyti Beytak” becomes an immersive and archival deep dive into MENASA’s architectural richness. Some of the architects featured are being exhibiting in Venice for the first time. The curators’ ambition is to capture the continuity across generations — from pioneers such as India’s Raj Rewal, Abdel-Wahed El-Wakil of Egypt, Pakistan’s Nayyar Ali Dada, and Sri Lanka’s Minnette de Silva to contemporary leaders including Palestinian-Jordanian architect Abeer Seikaly, Bangladesh’s Marina Tabassum, Sumaya Dabbagh of Saudi Arabia, and Palestine’s Dima Srouji.
“‘Beyti Beytak’ is a testament to the architectural heritage and creativity of the Arab world and the Global South,” says Lemonier. “The future Art Mill Museum was conceived as a multidisciplinary institution, one that will embrace this richness not as a regional footnote but as a core narrative.”
The curators have woven together an architectural narrative grounded in civic humanism, tracing three generations of architectural expression through thematic sections that include oases, mosques, museums, housing, and gardens, with a special focus on community centers and urbanism in Doha.
“The selected architects’ work forms a chorus of alternative futures; ones where architecture is not a luxury, but a deeply human practice of care, resilience, and place making,” says Anderson. In fact, one of the pavilion’s central propositions is that, architecturally, traditional knowledge may offer more-resilient solutions to climate change than high-tech design.
“It’s a paradox,” Lemonier admits. “You’d think triple-glazed facades and cutting-edge systems are more advanced — but mud, lime, and bamboo buildings often perform better in extreme climates. What we see with Yasmeen Lari is a reappropriation of vernacular materiality as climate adaptation.”
Throughout the exhibition, the curators draw a sharp line between architectural conceptualism and communal responsibility.
“Architecture is not sculpture,” Lemonier says emphatically. “It is a social and collective act. The architect must think of themselves not as an artist, but as a participant in a living society.”
This ethos is also reflected in the Doha-based segment of the exhibition, where the urbanism of Qatar is framed as humanist and collective. “Doha offers public parks, civic space, and an architecture of sociability,” Lemonier notes. “It’s not only about the buildings, it’s also about the empty spaces that allow a community to gather. It’s not about big gestures. It’s about how architecture allows a community to live, build with care, with humility, and with others in mind. For me, that’s the measure of success in design.”
Anderson adds: “As architects, we hold a responsibility not just to build, but to shape how we gather, connect, and see one another. Architecture isn’t static. It’s one of the most dynamic ways we experience humanity. This exhibition explores how space can be a vessel for empathy — especially in a time when technology often divides us. Yasmeen Lari’s work may be rooted in (Pakistan’s province of) Sindh, but its message transcends borders: it asks us to reflect on what it truly means to design for people.”
By placing Lari’s work in direct dialogue with the legacy of Hassan Fathy and by elevating regional voices too often overlooked, “Beyti Beytak” challenges dominant norms in global architecture. And it offers a compelling argument: Your home is not just yours — it belongs to the community, the climate, and the culture it serves.
For the Arab world and the broader MENASA region, “Beyti Beytak” positions architects as custodians of culture and agents of justice.
“This exhibition is not just about buildings,” says Lemonier. “It is about how we live together, how we welcome one another and how we shape a shared future through design.”
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Marvel’s ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ cast spotted in Bahrain
- Production underway in Bahrain, set for release December 2026
DUBAI: Members of the star-studded “Avengers: Doomsday” cast were recently spotted in Bahrain, where production for the upcoming Marvel film is believed to be underway.
This week, Address Beach Resort held a dinner event attended by several cast members. Among the guests were director Joe Russo and actors Anthony Mackie, Simu Liu, Winston Duke, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta, Hannah John-Kamen, Danny Ramirez, and Alex Livinalli.
“This past weekend, Address Beach Resort Bahrain had the marvellous honour of hosting some of Hollywood’s most iconic stars,” the resort posted on Instagram.
Fans also spotted the cast dining at Sumosan, a Japanese restaurant located within the hotel.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, “Avengers: Doomsday” is set for release on Dec. 18, 2026.
Kneecap dropped from Scotland’s TRNSMT Festival amid police safety concerns
DUBAI: Northern Irish rap group Kneecap has been pulled from the lineup of Scotland’s TRNSMT music festival, with organizers citing police concerns over safety as the reason for the last-minute removal.
The politically outspoken trio, known for fusing Irish republicanism with rap and for their recent pro-Palestinian stance at California’s Coachella, were scheduled to perform on July 11. But festival organizers announced on Wednesday that they would no longer appear, following discussions with Police Scotland.
Police Scotland clarified that while concerns were raised, booking decisions were made independently by the festival: “Any decision in relation to the line-up is a matter for the organisers. Police Scotland was not consulted prior to the acts being booked.”
In a statement on X, Kneecap addressed fans: “To the thousands of people who bought tickets, flights and hotels to see us play, we are sorry … it is out of our hands.” They added, “Glasgow has always been a huge city for us. We’ve played there many, many times, with no issues — ever. Make of that what you will.”
The band will instead perform at Glasgow’s O2 Academy on July 8.
The decision comes as group member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, known as Mo Chara, faces a terrorism charge in the UK for allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag during a London concert in November 2024. He is due to appear in court on June 18. Kneecap has called the charge “political policing,” linking it to efforts to silence dissent.
“This is a carnival of distraction,” the group said. “We are not the story, genocide is.”
