Bidoun 28: Interviews
I have always known that I am an animal.
–Giorgio Agamben
In its latest issue, Bidoun returns to form—the interview, to be precise—with its customary eclecticism and frankness. Bidoun 28: Interviews features eleven conversational encounters with actors, activists, architects, artists, archivists, and an anthroposophist porn star, among others.
To be honest with you, I wasn’t really interested in art…There wasn’t a plan to get into the art world; it was really kind of a fluke. I started selling posters because I thought I could make more money that way than I could just parking cars. Simple as that. I saw somebody else selling posters and I basically just copied their business.
–Larry Gagosian
In an open-ended, sometimes testy, mildly informative conversation with Bidoun Senior Editor Negar Azimi, Larry Gagosian relates his entrée to art dealing on the streets of 1970s Los Angeles, his relationship to Arshile Gorky and the Armenian-American experience, and his take on patronage and Middle Eastern art.
Revolution happened. The poor became rich, the rich became poor. The lady that used to have to look in the water to see her face, now she has a mirror…The farmer who used to go to the field with an axe, now he goes with a gun. Three people leave their homes in the morning, two come back in the evening. The first social revolution of Egypt: exactly four thousand and two hundred years ago.
–Zahi Hawass
Zahi Hawass has been, variously, Head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities; host of the History Channel’s popular television series Chasing Mummies; “explorer in residence” at National Geographic; and a lightning rod for criticism, both before and after the revolution. Ursula Lindsey talks to Egypt’s human obelisk about many things, but mostly…himself.
Genuine boredom—bloody hell, I remember boredom. It’s amazing!
–Jeremy Deller
Bidoun 28: Interviews also features Sukhdev Sandhu‘s extremely English conversation with artist Jeremy Deller; Lisa Farjam‘s encounter with Navid Negahban, the actor behind the soulful terrorist Abu Nazir on TV’s Homeland; Giorgio Agamben in dialogue with Leland de la Durantaye on animals, philosophy, and cannibalism; Michael C. Vazquez, Negar Azimi and Artforum Editor in Chief Michelle Kuo on her magazine’s five-decade legacy of criticism; Omar Berrada and Marina Warner on the Arabian Nights, Edward Said, and literary miscellany; ex-Soapkills singer Yasmine Hamdan and filmmaker/memoirist Sophia Al-Maria on the women of Arabic popular music; Mona Eltahawy and Yasmine El Rashidi debating feminism, activism, and the Egyptian revolution; Conner Habib and Anna Della Subin on esoteric sex and spirituality; and Hossein Amanat, the architect behind the Azadi Tower, arguably Tehran’s most iconic building, in conversation with Benjamin Tiven.
Plus: a profile of artist Michael Stevenson by Kate Sutton; Kaelen Wilson-Goldie‘s appreciation of Céline Condorelli‘s Alexandria cycle; a rearward look at dOCUMENTA 13′s Middle Eastern moment; and original photography by Boru O’Brien O’Connell, Melchior Tersen, Stephen Waddell, Michael Schmelling, and Guadalupe Ruiz.
To purchase a copy please visit www.bidoun.org.
