LOS ANGELES: John Mahoney, who as the cranky, blue-collar dad in “Frasier” played counterpoint to pompous sons Frasier and Niles, has died. Mahoney was 77.
The actor died Sunday in Chicago after a brief hospitalization, Paul Martino, his manager for more than 30 years, said Monday. The cause of death was not immediately provided.
In “Frasier,” the hit “Cheers” spinoff that aired from 1993 to 2004, Mahoney played Martin Crane, a disabled ex-policeman who parked himself in a battered old armchair in Frasier’s chic Seattle living room.
Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier and David Hyde Pierce’s Niles, both psychiatrists with lofty views of their own intellect, squabbled constantly with their dad but, when needed, the family closed ranks.
Martin’s beloved dog, Eddie, also took up residence to annoy the fussy Frasier.
Mahoney, a British native who made Chicago his home town, was a two-time Emmy nominee for “Frasier,” won a 1986 Tony Award for “The House of Blue Leaves,” and worked steadily in movies.
John Cusack, who appeared with Mahoney is the 1989 film “Say Anything,” tweeted that he was a great actor and a “lovely kind human — any time you saw him you left feeling better.”
Mahoney’s recent TV credits included a recurring role as Betty White’s love interest on “Hot in Cleveland” and a 2015 guest appearance on “Foyle’s War.” On the big screen, he was in “The American President,” “Eight Men Out” and “Tin Men,” with 2007’s “Dan in Real Life” starring Steve Carell among his last movie credits.
The actor was born in 1940 in Blackpool, England, during World War II. That’s where his pregnant mother had been evacuated for safety from Nazi attacks, but the family soon returned to its home in Manchester.
In a 2015 interview with The Associated Press, Mahoney recounted memories of huddling in an air raid shelter and playing among bombed-out houses. The accounts his four older sisters shared with him, he said, included tucking him into a baby carriage outfitted with a shield against feared gas attacks.
One sister, who moved to the Midwest after marrying a US sailor, was responsible for Mahoney’s decision to make his life in America. He visited Chicago as a college student and fell in love with it.
“The lake, the skyline, the museums, the symphony, the lyric opera,” he said in extolling the city in 2015. Add in reliably friendly Midwesterners, Mahoney said, and it’s “my favorite place in the world.”
“I give up nothing (professionally) by being in Chicago,” said Mahoney, who at the time was preparing to begin rehearsal on a Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of “The Herd.”
The theater canceled Monday’s scheduled performance in honor of Mahoney, according to an outgoing phone message that said he had been an ensemble member since 1979.
“John’s impact on this institution, on Chicago theater and the world of arts and entertainment are great and will endure,” the theater said.
John Mahoney, who played cranky dad on ‘Frasier,’ dies at 77
John Mahoney, who played cranky dad on ‘Frasier,’ dies at 77
Artists push the boundaries of technology in new media arts residency in Riyadh
- Residency displays futuristic artwork inspired by the natural landscape and culture of the Kingdom
- Diriyah Art Futures brings together artists from around the world, combining art, science and technology
RIYADH: Diriyah Art Futures opened a new residency displaying cutting-edge artwork in Riyadh on Wednesday evening.
The Mazra’ah Media Art Residency spring/summer 2025 open studio displays work that combines art, science and technology.
It is a three-month program designed for artists and scholars working across new media and digital art.
The theme, “High-Resolution Dreams of Sand,” explored the evolving relationships between humans, nature and technology in rapidly changing environments, informed by the distinctive contexts of Diriyah and Riyadh.
The evening’s open studio offered a behind-the-scenes look at work in progress from the spring/summer 2025 residents, alongside talks and studio discussions.
In the studios, Arab News met with various artists including Saudi Arwa Al-Neami whose creations explore themes of acceptance, identity and societal transformation.
During the residency, she undertook an artistic investigation of Saudi Arabia’s landscapes, collecting sand samples from various regions across the Kingdom.
Through nano microscopy and advanced imaging techniques, she created an immersive sensory experience that transforms microscopic grains of sand into pieces of art in the form of films, virtual reality and 3D-printed sculptures.
She told Arab News: “I am currently researching seven different areas in the Kingdom, where I’m exploring the sound of the sun using specialized sensors during sunrise and sunset. The resulting sound waves are translated into frequencies that create audible sounds.
“By analyzing the sound of the sun and the atomic structure of sands, I produce artwork that highlights the differences across various regions of Saudi Arabia.”
For 90 days, artist Dr. Stanza has been creating a whole body of work based on Saudi Arabia using real-time data including weather forecasts, pollution stats and news feeds.
Using an AI prompt, he created the series “Sons of Time” — an interactive Internet installation inspired by cybernetics and the future.
His other work, “Machine Cities,” connects 90 cities and towns across the Kingdom and tracks them in real time, presenting a visualization that the public can engage with.
The London-based artist has exhibited worldwide and earned numerous awards for his use of the Internet as an art medium.
“While I’ve been here, what I’ve really learned about Saudi Arabia is it’s a very warm and inclusive country that’s moving forward toward 2030.
“There’s a whole series of ideas about AI and agency that (are) also incorporated within my artworks. I look forward to presenting some of these works here in the future,” he told Arab News.
Indian artist Harshit Agrawal has taken his time at the residency to contemplate the juxtaposition of Diriyah’s rich heritage with its exponential development in the past few years.
Set against Diriyah’s historic farms and Riyadh’s evolving environment, the participants were encouraged to consider the impact of technology on natural and constructed landscapes.
“While I was here, I was quite fascinated, in my early days by the cultural richness, the different practices of culture, but also Diriyah as a city in transition in this beautiful time where it’s developing into something else with all these constructions and all these new things that are happening,” Agrawal told Arab News.
In “Machinic Meditations,” the artist was particularly fascinated with subhas, or prayer beads, that are commonly used in Saudi Arabia.
This prompted his research, where he also found electronic subhas. “It’s quite fascinating to move from this kind of manual device to an electronic version of it,” he said.
“I started thinking — because I work a lot with machine learning, AI data— what is the extreme scenario of that? So, I created these devices, which are motorized systems that rotate these beads autonomously, and they keep doing that continuously.
“And with each rotation, they pick up new human data to meditate on. It’s kind of the machine’s version of meditating, but on human data and climate data.”
In “Data Excavations: The New Soil,” the artist takes inspiration from construction and excavation machinery, using its mobility as a way to write out words in a choreographed manner using light strips.
“It’s been a really exciting time to be here, because it’s a great intersection between deep cultural practices that are here that I can kind of see in the city, but also really cutting-edge studios and facilities that I’ve had and (been) exposed through the material residency,” he said.
The open studio event welcomed a number of artists and prominent figures in the art scene, aiming to introduce them to the findings and research of this year’s cohort around new media arts in the region.
“Having Saudi Arabia attracting so many different cultures right now is a great thing, for artists to meet and research in the new media and technology is a great thing because they can implement their culture’s ideas in so many different ways and that’s what we see here — it’s a great cultural bridge,” visual artist Lulwah AI-Hamoud, who was attending the event, told Arab News.
DAF Director Haytham Nawar and DAF Director of Education Dr. Tegan Bristow delivered opening remarks, followed by talks from Dr. Anett Holzheid, an ZKM science and art researcher and curator, and Mizuho Yamazaki, an independent writer and scholar.
Attendees then enjoyed an open studio preview with Dr. Stanza, before a break for networking and a tour of the fabrication lab, sound lab and prototypes.
The evening concluded with studio discussions featuring Arwa Alneami, Harshit Agrawal and Reem Alnasser, all media artists.
Exhibition on animal rights in Athens spotlights Arab artists
ATHENS: An art exhibition at EMST, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, ponders a challenging yet crucial question: What are the rights of animals?
The exhibition, “Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives,” curated by EMST’s artistic director Katerina Gregos, is among the most ambitious staged by a public institution on animal ethics at a time when wars rage around the world and basic human rights are in crisis.
The show presents more than 200 works by 60 contemporary artists from four continents and runs until Jan. 7, 2026.
Evocatively curated, with works unfolding in the various rooms of the museum in dialogue with the visitor and each other, the various depictions of animals prompt both philosophical and political questions.
The show evokes questions on the nature of humanity, the emotional intelligence of animals and how to confront systems of political domination, such as colonialism and rampant industrialization, that have restricted humans and animals.
From the Arab world, Egyptian artist Nabil Boutros has created “Celebrities,” a moving series of studio portraits of lambs, ewes and rams. Each image depicts not only their aesthetic beauty but seemingly also their emotional state.
“I wanted to talk about the human condition through these works,” Boutros told Arab News. “These first portraits of (these animals) show they are different. They have different races, different attitudes and different characters, but we never look at them.”
“What is our relationship with animals? Is it just about food, about slaughtering?” he asked. “We are all part of this world and there is a whole organic structure that connects us that has been forgotten.”
Boutros’ touching portraits, exalting the personality and individuality of each animal, similar to traditional human portraiture, show us a rarely encountered world of animals and their emotional depth.
“They’re very expressive,” said Boutros, when discussing the moments he photographed them. “We imagine that they don’t have feelings, but that is not true.”
Algerian artist Oussama Tabti’s “Homo-Carduelis” is an installation that covers an entire wall of empty birdcages, each encompassing a speaker playing a birdsong created by human voices to imitate that of birds.
The work strives to show the connection between animals and humans. “The idea for the work came from the goldfinch, an appreciated bird in Algeria,” Tabti told Arab News.
“Born and raised in Algeria, the goldfinch was always in our daily soundscape.
“My work talks about the relation between the bird and the human because people appreciate (the goldfinch) and have it as a pet. They keep the bird in a cage and sometimes even go for a walk with it.”
Tabti finds the relationship at times “awkward and strange.” He thinks that Algerians at times “identify themselves in the birds.”
He added: “The work goes beyond the state of Algeria to reflect on the state of the human condition. Each one of us is in our own cage; it could be work, the environment or even one’s identity.
“I thought the bird in a cage would be a good metaphor for what we are today as human beings. We human beings are able to accomplish a lot but we live in a society that does not let us be completely autonomous.”
“For this installation,” said Tabti, “it was important for me that we can hear the birds, imitated by human beings, so it is like a human in a cage.”
Imaan Hammam continues to highlight Arab culture
DUBAI: Dutch Moroccan Egyptian model Imaan Hammam touched down in Cairo this week for an undisclosed photoshoot and shared highlights from the trip on social media, set to music by the late Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafiz.
Posting to her 1.7 million Instagram followers, Hammam offered a visual diary of her stay, capturing a mix of street scenes, style moments and local ambiance.
The carousel opened with a mirror selfie in an elevator, where she wears a high-waisted printed maxi skirt paired with a black fitted top. In another shot, she appears in a more laid-back look featuring camouflage trousers, a white tank top, a grey hoodie and yellow sneakers.
She also shared a short video that captures her tuk-tuk ride through a narrow alley, followed by snapshots of Cairo’s street life, including a local bookstore and a rooftop view of a mosque at sunset.
Hammam’s Cairo visit reflects a growing interest in reconnecting with her roots, something that also drives her latest passion project, Ayni.
Launched earlier this year, Ayni is an archival platform dedicated to preserving and celebrating Arab artistic expression through Hammam’s perspective.
In a video she shared on the Ayni’s Instagram account, she said: “For me, its always been so much deeper than just fashion. It is about staying connected to my roots, telling stories that move me and shining a light on the voices that need to be heard.”
She said her hope for Ayni is for it to grow beyond a personal vision and become a “real community.”
Hammam is one of the most in-demand models in the industry. She was scouted in Amsterdam’s Centraal Station before making her catwalk debut in 2013 by walking in Jean Paul Gaultier’s couture show.
Hammam has appeared on the runway for leading fashion houses such as Burberry, Fendi, Prada, Bottega Veneta, Marc Jacobs, Moschino, Balenciaga and Carolina Herrera, to name a few, and starred in international campaigns for DKNY, Celine, Chanel, Versace, Givenchy, Giorgio Armani, Tiffany & Co. and others.
Global sculptures at open-air museum in historic Jeddah
- The sculptures form a dynamic dialogue between the past and present, blending the site’s heritage with the language of contemporary art
JEDDAH: As part of a broader effort to revive the region’s visual identity through art, Al-Arbaeen Lake in historic Jeddah has been transformed into an open-air gallery featuring a curated collection of sculptures by international artists.
Led by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with Jeddah Municipality, the initiative features 14 world-class artworks integrated into the city’s visual landscape, Saudi Press Agency reported.
The sculptures form a dynamic dialogue between the past and present, blending the site’s heritage with the language of contemporary art.
Notable works on display include “The Illusion of the Second Cube” by Hungarian-French artist Victor Vasarely; “Rouge” and “Flexibility of Balance” by Alexander Calder; “Circular Mass” by Arnaldo Pomodoro; “The Bird” by Spanish sculptor Joan Miro; and “Giving and Receiving Love” by Lorenzo Quinn — a powerful piece that reflects human values through striking aluminium forms.
FASTFACTS
• Led by the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with Jeddah Municipality, the urban art initiative features 14 world-class artworks integrated into the city’s visual landscape.
• Notable works on display include ‘The Illusion of the Second Cube’ by Hungarian-French artist Victor Vasarely and ‘Giving and Receiving Love’ by Lorenzo Quinn.
The installations are part of a wider artistic movement that reimagines public spaces as platforms for cultural engagement.
By transforming urban environments into art experiences, the project invites both residents and visitors to explore the intersection of architectural heritage and modern creativity.
It underscores the growing role of art in shaping urban identity and fostering public appreciation for visual beauty in shared spaces of the Kingdom.
Em Sherif Art Foundation reimagines global restaurants as cultural hubs
DUBAI: With 24 outposts around the world, the minds behind Lebanese restaurant Em Sherif are keenly aware of their responsibility when it comes to sharing the country’s culinary culture with international audiences.
Now, they are taking things one step further with the launch of the Em Sherif Art Foundation that aims to provide increased visibility for artists through restaurants — in Doha, Monaco, London, Paris and Dubai, among other cities — which are being reimagined as cultural hubs.
Earlier this year, the Em Sherif Cafe in Paris showcased the work of Lebanese photographer Ziad Antar, and part of the initiative sees diners at all Em Sherif locations presented with three menus — a food menu, a drinks menu and an art menu — inviting guests to engage with the evolving story of contemporary Lebanese art.
Em Sherif CEO and co-founder of the art foundation, Dani Chakour, spoke to Arab News about the cultural initiative.
“The art menu is not intended for commercial or financial purposes. Rather, it serves as a curated catalogue that showcases the artworks currently on display,” he said.
The decision to focus exclusively on Lebanese artists was intentional, Chakour added.
“In Lebanon, it is often the private sector that drives meaningful cultural and artistic initiatives, as government support for the arts remains limited. Through this foundation, we aim to be an added value for our artists, helping them gain the visibility and recognition they deserve on a global scale.
“We need active public-sector involvement: We need more art fairs, modern infrastructure, supportive tariffs and dedicated museums. Without this foundational support, our artists will continue to be overlooked, despite their remarkable talent,” he said.
Chakour, who has a personal collection of more than 600 artworks, spotlighted celebrated names in the international art industry who he says benefited from working abroad.
“Huguette Caland, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Etel Adnan, Mona Hatoum, Walid Raad, Yvette Ashkar, Amin Maalouf, they are some of Lebanon’s most celebrated names. But what do they all have in common? They each spent the majority of their careers abroad, in environments that offered the right ecosystems … this is not a reflection of a lack of talent in Lebanon. On the contrary, it’s a reflection of what’s missing structurally; the institutional support, the infrastructure, the public funding, the museums, the cultural policies and the global exposure.
“At Em Sherif Art Foundation, we’re driven by a mission to help bridge that gap — to create opportunities within and beyond Lebanon so that our artists don’t need to leave home in order to rise,” Chakour said, noting that showcases by artists Christine Safa, Willy Aractengi, Ayman Baalbaki, Hussein Madi and Bibi Zogbe will be hosted in the coming months.
