Category: Art

The Al Seif strip had cool colorful stairs covered with graffiti on both sides and it had a lot of character. It was a bit gritty but it was real and people used to go and take photos in front of the walls and it was one of those “instagrammable” spots. Then one day someone decided that the stairs needed renovating and they ended up painting over all the graffiti and turning it into normal boring stairs again with white walls covered with black splatters. It looked terrible.

But, the colors are now coming back because the walls are currently being repainted again by the artist @oat.here. They’re still not finished but it already looks 100x better as you can see in the photo above.

Last year I posted about how I lost out on an auction for an Andy Warhol signed catalog from his Kuwait exhibit. I had put my max bid at €1005 but someone else ended up winning it for €1200. Yesterday I found out that the person who won the auction is now trying to sell the catalog for KD1,500 (around €4150).

I’m really disappointed since I thought whoever bid against me wanted the catalog a lot more than I did, and that was ok. But to lose against someone who just wanted to get it to resell it at a higher price, that kinda sucks. Oh well.

This is such a heartbreaking thing to wake up to, the colorful and beautiful wall mural by the artist Jad El Khoury has been destroyed. The artwork titled “Single Man” was commissioned back in 2016 on the side of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. Jad left Lebanon and came to work in Kuwait and the artwork represented a single person trying to fit into a new chaotic environment. The project was sponsored by Jedareyat, a local volunteer group that scours the city and crowdsources for dead walls and artists who can transform them into picture-worthy landmarks.

I think I’m finding this extremely sad because of what the idea of destroying an artwork like this means. If the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters doesn’t appreciate art, then who does? Actions like this and the destruction of important landmarks like the Ice Skating Rink make me feel like we’re moving backward and not forward which is really worrying me. I want to express more of my feelings but I also don’t want to get deported so I will just keep it all bottled up inside instead.

LOYAC’s Art and Performance Academy (LAPA) yesterday launched a virtual art fundraising exhibition with the proceeds of the exhibition going to renovate the homes of those that were affected by the tragedy in Beirut earlier this month.

The exhibition includes all types of artwork from artists in Kuwait as well as the region and will continue until September 5th. There are some great pieces so check them out on Instagram @riseupbeirut_art