POZNAN: After taking an overnight bus to Poznan in Poland for an exhibition on Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two Portuguese sisters are now standing in front of a curious blue suggestion box.
“Who can tell us what happened to the missing painting or where we can find it?” reads a sign next to a photo of Kahlo’s largest work, “The Wounded Table,” a mysterious surrealist masterpiece that vanished without a trace in Warsaw more than half a century ago.
“I wrote that the painting was probably destroyed. Or it could have been stolen and sold on the black market,” says 21-year-old Ines Cavaco, currently studying in the Polish city of Krakow.
“For sure. It’s sitting in someone’s living room,” adds her sister Joana, a 23-year-old megafan who did her hair up with flowers in homage to Kahlo’s trademark look.
A black-and-white replica of the horizontal oil painting, a double self-portrait with Kahlo represented both as herself and a wounded table dripping with blood, can be seen until January 21 at “Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: Polish Context.”
The exhibition at the ZAMEK Culture Center — a castle built for Kaiser Wilhelm II and later meant to be a residence for Adolf Hitler — spotlights the famed married couple’s little-known links to Poland.
Several dozen of their works shine against a vibrant yellow wall that recalls Kahlo’s bright palette and love of life, despite loneliness and pain brought on by lifelong health issues and Rivera’s many affairs, including with her sister.
The exhibition also features work by two Polish-born Jewish artists close to the couple: photographer Bernice Kolko, who captured Kahlo on her deathbed, and muralist Fanny Rabel, one of Kahlo’s most devoted students.
Finally, a blue room focuses on the 1955 Warsaw exhibition of Mexican art where “The Wounded Table” was last shown.
“It must be somewhere. It cannot have just disappeared. Such a big painting. Unless they burnt it in an oven in the 1950s,” curator Helga Prignitz-Poda told AFP.
“That is one of the reasons why I made the exhibition. Because somebody in Poland might remember that he had seen this painting once somewhere.”
At 2.4 meters long by 1.2 meters high (eight by four feet), larger than a standard door, the painting was unusual for Kahlo, who preferred to work small, unlike her muralist husband Rivera.
The artist known for her unibrow, long skirts and heavy jewelry created the painting for the 1940 International Exhibition of Surrealism in Mexico City. For a long time it hung in her dining room, before she donated it to the Soviet Union out of love for communism.
The Last Supper-like work was then sent to Warsaw for the exhibition that would travel around several socialist countries, but the painting never made it past the first stop.
Prignitz-Poda points out that while the painting is considered great today and would be worth around $20 million (17 million euros), back then its “surreal absolutely cruel depiction of the double Frida” went against the preferred socialist realist style.
“There were official statements saying that this painting is not exhibitable, that it is so terrible that they really didn’t find it worth the money to pay for transport. It is possible that the (Russian) landlords didn’t want it back,” she said.
For Prignitz-Poda, who just published the book “Hidden Frida Kahlo: Lost, Destroyed, or Little-Known Works,” the disappearance is frustrating because only half of Kahlo’s 300 works are available to see. The rest are missing, burnt or in collections that never lend.
“I’m happy that I got to see even a bit of this legend in the original. Mexico’s far,” said 56-year-old actor Krzysztof Najbor, who took the train up from his southern mountain town of Zakopane for the exhibition.
“After leaving a gallery, my family and I always ask ourselves what we’d walk off with. What we’d like to have at home. Well, there was this small Frida self-portrait that I really liked,” he told AFP with a laugh.
The self-portrait is still there. And “The Wounded Table” is still missing, despite many contributions to the suggestion box.
“People write all kinds of funny things. That because the table’s wounded, the painting must be at the hospital. Or it’s at Putin’s place. Or under their rug at home,” ZAMEK director Anna Hryniewiecka told AFP.
“Drawings too. Children make little maps of how to find the painting. There are reviews of the exhibition. But no information that would actually point us toward some kind of clue.”
But there is hope for a happy ending: a Rivera mural, “Glorious Victory,” that also disappeared in the mid-1950s was discovered in the storerooms of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum in 2000.
Museum desperately seeks Frida Kahlo painting last seen in Poland
Museum desperately seeks Frida Kahlo painting last seen in Poland
Authors, screenwriters sign letter calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
DUBAI: Members of the literary community including Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Russell T Davies, Hanif Kureishi, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and George Monbiot are among 380 writers and organizations who have signed an open letter condemning Israel’s war on Gaza, describing it as genocidal and calling for an immediate ceasefire.
The letter, also signed by William Dalrymple, Jeanette Winterson, Brian Eno, Kate Mosse, Irvine Welsh and Elif Shafak, states: “The use of the words ‘genocide’ or ‘acts of genocide’ to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations.”
The writers are urging the UN to ensure the free and immediate delivery of food and medical supplies to Gaza, alongside a ceasefire “which guarantees safety and justice for all Palestinians, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily held in Israeli jails.”
They add that if the Israeli government fails to comply with the demand for a ceasefire, sanctions should be enforced.
The letter, organized by writers Horatio Clare, Kapka Kassabova and Monique Roffey also says that Palestinians “are not the abstract victims of an abstract war. Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. Too often, too, the right words – the ones that mattered – have been eradicated, along with those who might have written them.”
The term “genocide” “is not a slogan,” it adds. “It carries legal, political and moral responsibilities.”
Saudi Pavilion at Osaka Expo wins New York Architectural Design Awards
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka-Kansai was awarded the Gold Prize in the Cultural Architecture in the Interactive and Experiential Spaces category by the New York Architectural Design Awards.
The prize recognizes the pavilion’s design and architecture, which offers visitors an immersive experience and insight into Saudi Arabia’s heritage.
According to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the pavilion was spearheaded by the Saudi Architecture and Design Commission and was led by CEO Dr. Sumayah Al-Solaiman and Project Manager Fatima Al-Doukhi. It was also designed by the renowned global firm Foster + Partners.
The design highlights the cultural similarities between the kingdom and Japan, while focusing on sustainability, employing passive cooling strategies enhanced by the strategic placement of structural blocks to facilitate wind movement.
The pavilion features low-carbon materials, energy-efficient lighting and solar energy technologies, SPA reported. It also features Braille signage and pathways for visitors with disabilities, making the building accessible and inclusive.
Saudi Arabia’s pavilion has already attracted over half a million visitors since its launch on April 13.
It has also hosted over 175 events, including cultural performances, business events, media and over 400 VIP delegations.
A vibrant exploration of identity, mind and meaning — Kojo Marfo’s ‘HOME’ comes to Dubai
DUBAI: Ghanaian British artist Kojo Marfo’s first solo exhibition in the UAE — “HOME: Heart of My Existence” — is being held at the JD Malat Gallery in Dubai until May 31.
The exhibition features 13 bold, large-scale works that invite viewers to a deeply personal and philosophical conversation about what it truly means to belong, and where that sense of belonging originates.
Best known for a vibrant style he calls “AfroGenesis,” Marfo blends influences from his Ghanaian heritage including Akan artifacts and carvings with Western techniques like Cubism and Old Master. The results are unique, with vivid, monumental figures that both conceal and reveal complex emotional narratives.
While his early inspirations include Spanish pioneer Picasso, Marfo has moved beyond mimicry to forge his own aesthetic.
“As time went on, I developed my own style and ideas — I call it ‘AfroGenesis.’ It sounds like a movement, but I want to say I am original. I am not trying to start a movement — I am just here to say, I’m authentic.”
A dialogue in color and form
While the dazzling colors and stylized forms initially captivate, it is the underlying message that lingers.
“This is about starting conversations,” Marfo explained. “We think we know everything, but we do not. We live in our minds 24/7 — it tells us what to do, how to feel. The physical space does not mean anything when the mind is in turmoil.”
“HOME” is not about a building or place. For Marfo, home is psychological, internal, shaped by emotion, experience and memory.
“We think home is four walls, a roof, and a lock — but it’s not,” he said. “This exhibition is an invitation for people to look deep into themselves. You need to know yourself, accept and learn from it.”
One of the standouts in the exhibition, “Freedom,” is a visual representation of this inner chaos.
“You can see how chaotic everything is,” said Marfo. “There is a shield — it is what society calls wearing a mask. It protects you from unnecessary aggression. It is our way of life.”
For him, the mask symbolizes humanity’s shifting identities, its emotional defenses and the delicate balance between self-expression and self-preservation.
An artistic evolution
Though Marfo’s work has been shown in global art hubs from Paris to Tokyo, this exhibition marks a significant turning point.
“When the gallery reached out to me, I said, ‘I’m going to introduce something different to this place.’ Most of these pieces have not been shown anywhere. I did it to spark a conversation in Dubai,” he said.
The exhibition is not just a geographical expansion — it is a deepening of his practice. Drawing inspiration from people and the intricacies of human behavior, Marfo paints with storytelling in mind: “Sometimes I paint and then think about the story, but it becomes more difficult. I prefer building on interactions — making it my own and then painting.”
The Saudi artist giving traditional crafts a new voice
- Fatimah Al-Nemer honors generational knowledge through collaborations with Saudi craftswomen
RIYADH: What if traditional crafts were not relics of the past but blueprints for the future? Saudi artist Fatimah Al-Nemer, whose work is on show at Riyadh’s Naila Art Gallery, transforms ancestral materials into contemporary narratives, blending palm fronds, clay, and wool with concept and meaning.
For Al-Nemer, heritage is not something to simply preserve behind glass. It is something to touch, reshape and retell. And traditional crafts are far more than manual skills; they are living archives.
“In the Arabian Peninsula, people adapted to their environment by turning clay, palm fronds, and wool into tools for survival and then into objects of timeless beauty,” she told Arab News.
These crafts, shaped over generations, carry stories that Al-Nemer reinterprets through contemporary art.
Her project, Al-Kar, exemplifies this approach. Named after the traditional climbing tool used by date harvesters, the piece was created in collaboration with Saudi craftswomen.
Al-Nemer transformed humble palm fibers into a three-meter-long rug, elevating simple material into a conceptual installation.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Through her work, Fatimah Al-Nemer dissolves the boundaries between craft and art, heritage and modernity.
• Those curious about the artist’s work can view some of her pieces at solo exhibition ‘Memory of Clay,’ held at Naila Art Gallery until May 30.
“This is not merely an aesthetic celebration,” she said. “It’s a rewriting of our communal identity. Our heritage is rich — not only in materials, but in stories.”
Her work goes beyond decorative craft; she treats traditional practices as conceptual frameworks, weaving narratives through textiles, clay and palm fiber.
Her collaborations with artisans ensure that generational knowledge is embedded in each piece. “The material is never separate from the experience,” she added. “It becomes witness — marked by the presence of women, place and memory.”
Participation in international exhibitions has expanded Al-Nemer’s artistic outlook, allowing her to view local materials like clay and textiles as globally resonant.
This is not merely an aesthetic celebration. It’s a rewriting of our communal identity. Our heritage is rich — not only in materials, but in stories.
Fatimah Al-Nemer, Saudi artist
“The global art scene recontextualizes challenges like the marginalization of craft, and transforms them into dialogues about identity and memory,” she said.
For Al-Nemer, craftswomen are not merely implementers, but collaborators. “They carry manual intelligence honed across generations,” she added, commending institutions like Saudi Arabia’s Heritage Commission and Herfa Association that are now empowering artisans in alignment with the Kingdom’s cultural transformation.
“Craft is no longer confined to the past — it is a living contemporary practice with global relevance,” she said.
Those curious about the artist’s work can view some of her items at solo exhibition “Memory of Clay,” held at Naila Art Gallery until May 30.
The exhibition offers a contemplative journey into themes of memory, belonging and identity transformation, using clay as a visual and cultural symbol.
Featuring 12 works created through mixed media and a combination of traditional and contemporary techniques, Al-Nemer reimagines ancient Saudi crafts through a modernist lens, presenting clay not simply as raw material, but as a timekeeper and silent witness to human evolution.
“Clay is not just a medium,” she said. “It is a mirror of our collective memory, shaped as we are shaped, cracking to reveal hidden layers of nostalgia and wisdom.”
This philosophy materializes in the tactile depth, earthy hues and intricate details that define her works — each piece echoing the raw pulse of life.
To young Saudi women hoping to innovate through craft, Al-Nemer offers this message: “Believe in the value of what you hold. The world doesn’t just want the product — it wants the story behind it.”
With expanding institutional support and evolving creative spaces, the artist sees an opportunity: “Craft can thrive as both art and enterprise as long as authenticity remains at its core.”
Through her work, Al-Nemer dissolves the boundaries between craft and art, heritage and modernity.
Every thread and every texture becomes a testament to identity — crafted by hand, read by the eye and understood by the heart.
Guns N’ Roses wow Riyadh as part of 2025 global tour
- Iconic band make major stop on Middle East leg of schedule
RIYADH: Iconic American rock band Guns N’ Roses performed in Riyadh on Friday as part of their 2025 global tour, marking a major stop on the band’s Middle East schedule.
The group, which was formed in Los Angeles in 1985, took the stage to a packed crowd, kicking off the night with “Welcome to the Jungle.”
The high-energy set featured classic hits including “November Rain,” “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” with fans singing along throughout.
The concert was organized by MDLBEAST and, ahead of the event, Rayan Al-Rasheed, its director of operations and artist booking, highlighted the significance of hosting such acts in the Kingdom.
He said: “Saudi Arabia has become a key destination for global music acts. By hosting legendary artists like Guns N’ Roses we aim to elevate the Kingdom’s presence in the global music scene.”
The introduction of rock music to the Saudi musical landscape acknowledged a genre that had long had a strong presence in the country, he said, adding: “The popularity of bands like Metallica and Linkin Park shows that rock has deep roots here.”
