Global Art Forum 2011

GLOBAL ART FORUM_5 Changing Audiences 2011

14 March: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art 16-18 March: Art Dubai

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Global Art Forum_5 is presented by the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) in partnership with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage (ADACH); and the Ministry of Culture, Kingdom of Bahrain.

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5 Changing Audiences 2011

14 March: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art 16-18 March: Art Dubai

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONTENTS

GLOBAL ART FORUM_5 CURATORIAL COMMITTEE:

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

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CURATORIAL STATEMENT

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ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

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FORUM FELLOWS

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Shumon Basar (Chair) Antonia Carver Claudia Cellini Tirdad Zolghadr Coordinator: Natasha Carella The committee would like to thank the following for their invaluable contribution to the programming of the Forum:

PARTICIPANTS

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CHANGING AUDIENCES: DOHA

GLOBAL ART FORUM_5 TIMETABLE

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Michelle Dezember Malak Helmy Wassan Al-Khudhairi

PARTICIPANTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

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FASCINATION: WHEN ART MET FASHION

FORUM FELLOWS 2011

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OTHER TALKS AT ART DUBAI

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GLOBAL ART FORUM PARTNERS

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Hans Ulrich Obrist (Forum Hurricane)

Victoria Camblin Masoud Golsorkhi Joerg Koch Rémi Paringaux Ben Perdue Brian Phillips Cher Potter

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

Established alongside the first Art Dubai (then DIFC Gulf Art Fair), the Global Art Forum began as the grandest of talk shops, and still to date, it is perhaps the only one with global pretentions. Over the years, it has gradually been honed, become more lithe and peripatetic, yet has maintained a fervent belief in the art world as truly international, as relevant viewed from Beijing, Bangalore or Bahrain, as New York, London or Paris – which despite its clunking blatancy still appears novel.

You’ve just received your 98th email of the day. And it’s only 3pm. You’ve surfed 72 websites.

Downloaded three podcasts. Ignored about 200 adverts. Read the sports section of the newspaper, finished the horoscopes and are checking your Twitter feed. No one could accuse you of information deprivation. You’re information affluent. So, do you need more? Or less?

The Forum has also become a site of collaboration – something to be cherished in the Gulf and wider region today. Global Art Forum_5 is for the first time a partnership between four cities in the Gulf: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai and Doha. We are grateful to our partners for their support: Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture); Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art; Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture & Heritage (ADACH); and the Ministry of Culture, Kingdom of Bahrain.

In 2011, the Global Art Forum, curated by a committee chaired by Shumon Basar, takes on the widest of themes, exploring how audiences have changed in the art world and how our expectations of both mass and niche encounters have affected artists and their work. We open with a day of discussions co-curated by Mathaf ’s Director Wassan Al-Khudhairi, with Michelle Dezember and Malak Helmy.

We then move on to the Global Art Forum’s home at Art Dubai and focus on two narratives – Fascination: How Art Met Fashion and Disappointment Management: Artists and Audiences. Over forty speakers debate these timely, urgent themes through keynotes, conversations and panels. In a sidebar, we’ve programmed a series of practical workshops on aspects of arts administration and art law, as well as writing and curating.

Natascha Sadr Haghighian is this year’s artist-in-residence; her project involves developing a trail of bibliographic references through the four days of talks.

2011 marks the launch of the Forum Fellows, a programme that brings together a group of exceptional young curators and artists from across Asia and the Middle East, awarding these practitioners the opportunity to gather in the Gulf each March to engage with all aspects of the programme, and to exchange ideas and pool resources.

Each year, potential Fellows are nominated and invited to apply from five cities (in 2011, Antakya, Karachi, Tehran, Jerusalem and Dhaka), as well as the UAE, with one person from each city selected by the Forum committee. Over the years, we hope that this growing group of alumni will form something of a think tank for the region.

When information is almost ubiquitous and instant, what we need is the ability to decipher what matters. We need occasions that allow us to reflect and concentrate and challenge the flattened landscape of pretty platitudes. We have to talk. Agree. Disagree. Then talk more. You can be accused of talking too much but never of learning too much.

In 2011, the Global Art Forum_5 looks at how a changed world has changed audiences for contemporary art. Does this in turn ask artists to think again about who they are addressing – as well as where they are addressing them? What is an audience anyway? Is it strictly measured in visitor figures? Or through politically engaged subjectivities? As blockbuster art has gotten bigger, what about specific, small audiences? What role do critics play anymore in creating audiences? Especially in much of the Gulf, where the establishment of new cultural institutions often take place in contexts where no pre-existing audience might already exist?

From institutional patronage to individual super-collectors to innovative collaborations, over the last few decades, art is fascinated by fashion, and fashion is fascinated by art. Is this built on a true understanding or misunderstanding of one another? As the saying goes, there’s always a party better than the one you’re at (unless it’s a fashion party; that’s as good as it gets).

The Global Art Forum does its job best when it brings together familiar and unfamiliar intelligences from the art world and beyond in familiar and unfamiliar configurations.

Epiphanies don’t come easy, and they’re not easy to illicit either, but you can create the conditions where they’re statistically more likely to occur. You hope that in searching for the crucial moments in history you might end up creating one for future history to look back on.

The Global Art Forum committee would like to thank its many partners, particularly Hans Ulrich Obrist for his tremendous and urgent assistance.

Shumon Basar Chair, Global Art Forum Curatorial Committee

Antonia Carver Fair Director, Art Dubai 6

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ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

FORUM FELLOWS

MIRRORAUDIENCE

In 2011, alongside Global Art Forum_5, Art Dubai launches a fellowship programme that aims to bring together a group of exceptional young curators, artists and arts administrators from the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia (MENASA) region. Each year five cities (plus the UAE) from the region are selected – in 2011, Antakya, Dhaka, Karachi, Jerusalem and Tehran – and Art Dubai’s Curatorial Advisory Board and other leading curators, artists and gallerists are asked to nominate potential participants. The final selection is made by the Global Art Forum curatorial committee, based on the applications received.

In 2010, an artist-in-residence programme was launched alongside the Global Art Forum. That year, Haig Aivazian and Shumon Basar were commissioned to take the discussions at the forum as source material for a series of performance-lectures.

Natascha Sadr Haghighian is the 2011 Global Art Forum artist-in-residence.

Working with the programme as it evolved prior to the fair, Sadr Haghighian’s project involved developing a trail of bibliographic references through the four days of talks; the completed project is hosted by www.artdubai.ae.

Sadr Haghighian’s compilation of recommended reading and viewing matter for each themed discussion at the Forum embraces the idiosyncratic nature of the journeys that we typically take while researching online, and plays with the idea of bibliographical reference – and, more generally, also what it means to ‘provide’ knowledge or information.

Natascha Sadr Haghighian is represented by Johann König, Berlin

The intense programme offers the Fellows the opportunity to engage with all aspects of the Forum, the fair and other events in the Gulf. Long-term, we aim to develop something of a “think tank” for the arts in the region – a collection of dynamic individuals who can pool and exchange ideas and experience, and promote best practice.

FORUM FELLOWS 2011: Emrah Gökdemir, Antakya Salauddin Ahmed, Dhaka Sumbul Khan, Karachi Mirna Bamieh, Jerusalem Sohrab M. Kashani, Tehran Noor Al Suwaidi, Abu Dhabi Art Dubai and the Global Art Forum would like to thank all those who nominated candidates for and assisted with the fellowship programme: Riffat Alvi, Negar Azimi, Umer Butt, Dessislava Dimova, Niilofur Farrukh, Nazli Gürlek, Khaled Hourani, Azadeh Issari, Ramzi Jaber, Durriya Kazi, Hamid Keshmirshekan, Sohrab Mahdavi, Samar Martha, Salwa Mikdadi, Nighat Mir, Naeem Mohaiemen, Sohrab Mohebbi, Hammad Nasar, Elaine Ng, Jack Persekian, Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, Tina Sherwell, Adeela Suleman, Inass Yassin, Arzu Yayintas, Tirdad Zolghadr

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PARTICIPANTS Brahim Alaoui Jack Bankowsky Shumon Basar Wafaa Bilal Pierre Bal Blanc Germano Celant Stuart Comer Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy Chris Dercon Liu Ding Omar Saif Ghobash Masoud Golsorkhi Isabelle Graw Nav Haq Malak Helmy Wassan Al-Khudhairi Joerg Koch Vasif Kortun Sylvia Kouvali Jo Backer Laird Helmut Lang Carol Yinghua Lu Shaina Anand & Sebastian Lütgert Suhail Malik Penny Martin Chus Martínez Salwa Mikdadi Hans Ulrich Obrist Rémi Paringaux Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi Grazia Quaroni Natascha Sadr Haghighian Hito Steyerl Slavs and Tatars His Excellency Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani Philip Tinari Francesco Vezzoli Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5

TIMETABLE

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: TIMETABLE

MONDAY 14 MARCH Day 1 *Atrium, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha

- beginning to embrace their ‘stakeholders.’ But do we really care?

11.15 - 12.30

CHANGING AUDIENCES This year’s Forum turns its attention towards audiences. Has the incredible over-production of art and new art institutions all over the world been matched with an equal growth in audiences to consume that art? Has the time audiences spend on a work of art diminished in the competitive attention economy? Is art truly a smooth extension to mainstream tourism now? Should it be marketed the same way? Or should it argue for a definition of audience beyond the sizes of visitor numbers? What would that definition be?

Chair: WASSAN AL-KHUDHAIRI, Director, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha BRAHIM ALAOUI, Director of the Cultural Program, 2010 Marrakech Art Fair, Marrakech SOFÍA HERNÁNDEZ CHONG CUY, Curator of Contemporary Art, Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York PIERRE BAL BLANC, Director, CAC Brétigny, Centre d’Art Contemporain de Brétigny, Paris 13.30 - 15.30

10.30 – 10.45

Welcome address by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art HIS EXCELLENCY SHEIKH HASSAN BIN MOHAMMED BIN ALI AL THANI, Vice-Chairperson, Qatar Museums Authority, Founder of Mathaf

10.45 – 11.15

Presentation: Audiences: How much do we really care?

In the past, art institutions tended to see audiences as a burden, a hindrance to the genial calm of exhibitions. In the recent past, even the word ‘audiences’ could be seen as a threat, as populist politics and commercial sponsors alike demanded that institutions attract evergreater number of visitors. Now, there is something of an equilibrium, with art institutions -- small, medium and large, all over the world

CHRIS DERCON, Director, Tate Modern, London Discussion: Producing Audiences Given the intense globalisation of the art world, complete with itinerant audiences, artists and forum speakers, what is the importance of a site-specific, localised audience for a collection, institution or work? Does an institution have a responsibility to create its audience by catering to its community’s needs? Or does it create a community by caring for its own? What are the alternatives?

Discussion: Soft Institutions The second half of the day introduces a series of presentations that loosely explore the term ‘soft institution.’ The theme takes inspiration from the context of the new cities of the Gulf, which build, efface and build again at record speed. Referencing the metamorphic urban planning of the city, the proliferation of museums, or a legal system in flux, this is a territory where institutions and ideas are under construction, occasionally excessive, often provisional. This panel looks at this state of softness – impermanent parts, partial views and temporary relationships – as a model for working and its relationship with the open software or open editing programmes that have come to define the internet as a democratic tool.

Moderator and introductory remarks: CHUS MARTÍNEZ, Agent, Member of Core Group; Head of Department, Curatorial Office of the Artistic Director, Kassel

*Unless otherwise noted, all talks are open to the public.

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: TIMETABLE

ARTISTS’ PRESENTATIONS:

14.00 – 14.45

Pad.ma - short for Public Access Digital Media Archive - is an online archive of densely text-annotated video material, primarily footage and not finished films. The initiators of Pad.ma conceptualised this archive as a way of opening up a set of images, intentions and effects present in video footage, resources that conventions of videomaking, editing and spectatorship have tended to suppress, or leave behind.

SEBASTIAN LÜTGERT, Artist, Programmer, Writer, Co-Founder of Pad.ma, Berlin/Mumbai SHAINA ANAND, Artist, Co-Initiator of CAMP and Pad.ma, Mumbai In The 3rdi, presented in the exhibition Told/Untold/Retold, taking place in Mathaf ’s off-site exhibition hall Riwaq, Bilal implicates the position of the audience in his work. Through this work as well as many others within Bilal’s practice, the politic of spectatorship is brought to fore, impregnating the space of the museum, with the home with the virtual space with the everyday.

HANS ULRICH OBRIST, Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes, and Director of International Projects, Serpentine Gallery, London FRANCESCO VEZZOLI, Artist, Milan 14.45 – 15.30

WAFAA BILAL, Artist, New York Hito Steyerl expands on a text published in 2009 by the title of Is the Museum a Factory, published in e-flux journal 6 (June 2009), in which she had proposed that the conventions of cinematic display in museums produce distracted subjects with political potential as a multitude.

Presentation: High Price. Art Between the Market and Celebrity Culture The art world is no longer dominated by a small group of insiders, in part due to the art economy’s transformation from a retail business into a global industry that produces visuality and meaning. This talk questions the assumption of a dichotomy between art and the market. But it also raises objections against the wrong equation between market value and artistic value that tends to occur during so called art booms. While examining the intrinsic connection between artistic production and its market conditions, Graw insists upon art being a commodity not like any other.

ISABELLE GRAW, Art Critic, Professor of Art Theory and Art History, Staatliche Schule für bildende Künste (Städelschule) Frankfurt am Main; Co-Founder of Texte zur Kunst; Author of High Price. Art Between the Market and Celebrity Culture (2010), Berlin / Frankfurt

HITO STEYERL, Filmmaker and Writer, Berlin 15.30 – 16.30

WEDNESDAY 16 MARCH Day 2 *Art Dubai, Fort Island

Conversation: Ever Art, Ever Fashion!

Francesco Vezzoli’s work has incorporated elements from popular culture, celebrity scandal and Prada. Hans Ulrich Obrist has interviewed many of today’s best known fashion designers - from Nicolas Ghesquiere to Helmut Lang. Vezzoli and Obrist discuss elements of style, the mechanics of performance and the art of sequins.

Conversation: Fashion Houses Art Patrons Not only have familiar fashion labels become some of the most prominent sponsors of contemporary art, they often own their own galleries, foundations and museums too. What is the ethos behind these patrons of the 21st century?

Chair: PHILIP TINARI, Editor-in-Chief, LEAP, Beijing GERMANO CELANT, Director, Fondazione Prada, Milan GRAZIA QUARONI, Curator, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris

16.30 – 17.00

Presentation: Global Art Forum _5 Artist-in-Residence NATASCHA SADR HAGHIGHIAN, Artist, Frankfurt / Bayqongyr

FASCINATION: WHEN ART MET FASHION A look into the mutual and often problematic relationships forged between contemporary art and fashion over the last few decades with key protagonists from both fields.

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: TIMETABLE

THURSDAY 17 MARCH

14.00 – 15.00

Day 3 *Art Dubai, Fort Island

11.00 – 12.00

Chair: SHUMON BASAR, Writer and Editor, London JACK BANKOWSKY, Editor-at-Large, Artforum, New York MASOUD GOLSORKHI, Editor-in-Chief, Tank, London ISABELLE GRAW, Art Critic, Professor of Art Theory and Art History, Staatliche Schule für bildende Künste (Städelschule) Frankfurt am Main; Co-Founder of Texte zur Kunst; Author of High Price. Art Between the Market and Celebrity Culture (2010), Berlin/Frankfurt JOERG KOCH, Founder and Editor-In-Chief, 032c, Berlin

Workshop: The Artist/Dealer Relationship Limited capacity; please sign up at the Art Dubai Information Desk, Arena Foyer What sorts of things should an artist expect from a dealer, and what responsibilities does an artist have to a gallery? In choosing a dealer, what can an artist do in advance to assure that he does not wind up with someone who may not have the artist’s best interests at heart? Should the artist and the dealer enter into a written agreement and are there consequences to relying on a handshake?

What terms should be included in a written agreement?

15.00 – 15.45

JO BACKER LAIRD, Of Counsel, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, New York

DISAPPOINTMENT MANAGEMENT: ARTISTS & AUDIENCES The standard response when asking a writer “Who do you write for?” is a smug, self-contained, “Myself.” Here are a series of quick-fire reflections on whether artists, critics and institutions codify the idea of audiences, and into how - and why - they operate the way they do.

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Conversation: Transfer - Film and Fashion Imagery Gucci with David Lynch and Chris Cunningham. Missoni with Kevin Anger. Miu Miu with Zoe Casavettes. Fashion is turning towards filmmakers to forge moving imagery. Does the advent of the iPad and its ilk promise to do to video what the printed magazine once did to photography?

Chair: STUART COMER, Curator: Film, Tate Modern, London PENNY MARTIN, Editor-in-Chief, The Gentlewoman; Professor of Fashion Imagery, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, London RÉMI PARINGAUX, Creative Director and Founder, POST, London FRANCESCO VEZZOLI, Artist, Milan

FASCINATION: WHEN ART MET FASHION (continued) A look into the mutual and often problematic relationships forged between contemporary art and fashion over the last few decades with key protagonists from both fields.

Discussion: Magazines: A Short History of Collusion The idea that you’d pick up a magazine today and it would have equal coverage of art, fashion, culture and politics is no big thing.

But how did this cross-pollination emerge? When did art become good looking enough to be in a fashion magazine and when did fashion become arty enough to advertise in art magazines?

15.45 – 16.30

Conversation: Art is Business Andy Warhol once said – “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” To what extent are artists today required to be culture entrepreneurs? When can this be interesting art, or act as a mirror of our socio-economic reality?

Chair: NAV HAQ, 2011 Curator, MARKER, Art Dubai; Exhibitions Curator, Arnolfini, Bristol LIU DING, Artist, Curator, Beijing SYLVIA KOUVALI, Director, Rodeo, Istanbul CAROL YINGHUA LU, Art Critic, Curator; Contributing Editor, frieze; Co-Editor, Contemporary Art & Investment, Beijing

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: TIMETABLE

16.30 – 17.00

DISAPPOINTMENT MANAGEMENT: ARTISTS & AUDIENCES (continued)

Conversation: Artistic Olympiads and the pressures of national representation Through the international whirl of fairs, biennials, expos and exhibitions, artists often find themselves representative of a country / region / continent / religion / a.n.other, before their work or artistic practice. What are the pitfalls in this? As countries of the Gulf join the international circus, is it possible for artists to navigate the waters of national representation while maintaining individuality and foregrounding their work?

The standard response when asking a writer “Who do you write for?” is a smug, self-contained, “Myself.” Here are a series of quick-fire reflections on whether artists, critics and institutions codify the idea of audiences, and into how - and why - they operate the way they do.

14.00 – 14.45

Talk: Blah Blah: On the currency of talking SHUMON BASAR, Writer and Editor, London

14.45 – 15.30

Talk: Engineers, analysers, and profiteers: in place of the public VASIF KORTUN, Director of Research and Programs, SALT, Istanbul; Curator, UAE Pavilion for the Venice Biennale 2011

15.30 – 16.15

FRIDAY 18 MARCH

Talk: Why art? The primacy of audience SUHAIL MALIK, Reader in Critical Studies, Department of Art, Goldsmiths, London

16.15 – 17.00

Day 4 *Art Dubai, Fort Island

Talk: Hacks, sycophants, pedants and fools: In defense of the press as public KAELEN WILSON-GOLDIE, Writer and Critic, Beirut.

17.00 – 17.45

Presentation: Molla Nasreddin: the magazine that would’ve, could’ve, should’ve A look at the legendary Azeri political satire, described by Slavs & Tatars as “perhaps the most important Muslim publication of the 20th century,” Molla Nasreddin was read from Morocco to Iran, addressing issues–gender equality, Islam’s integration of Modernity, education, etc. - as relevant and urgent today for a global audience, as when first published, in the Caucasus, a century ago.

SLAVS AND TATARS, Artists, New York / Kolumna / Moscow

Chair: SALWA MIKDADI, Head of Arts and Culture, Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy, Abu Dhabi HIS EXCELLENCY OMAR SAIF GHOBASH, UAE Ambassador to Russia, Dubai / Moscow SULTAN SOOUD AL QASSEMI, Founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation; Chairman of Meem Gallery, Sharjah

12.00 – 13.00

Workshop: How to protect your rights in your work: Copyright and moral rights in the age of the internet Limited capacity; please sign up at the Art Dubai Information Desk, Arena Foyer Once you create a work of art, how do you prevent others from wrongfully exploiting it? What rights do copyright laws around the world give you, and how do you assert those rights? What additional protections are provided by moral rights regimes? What are the legal and practical limitations on your ability to prevent others from using images of your work? What alternatives are being proposed as a way to allow limited sharing of images on the Internet?

Molla Nasreddin: the magazine that would’ve, could’ve, should’ve is displayed in the Bidoun Library, Johara Ballroom Foyer

JO BACKER LAIRD, Of Counsel, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, New York 18

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SATURDAY 19 MARCH Day 5 *Art Dubai, Art Park

12.00 – 13.00

Workshop: Commissions of Art: Dealing with Museums, Corporations and Governments Limited capacity; please sign up at the Art Dubai Information Desk, Arena Foyer When a museum, a corporation or a government agency commissions you to create a work of art, what can you expect when you negotiate the contract? How do you protect your artistic vision in the face of institutional policies and politics? How do you protect your intellectual property and moral rights in the work? Will the owner of the work be entitled to create marketing or merchandising materials based on the commissioned work? How will the costs and responsibilities of creation, fabrication, and installation and maintenance be allocated? Will you be liable down the line for any damages or injury your work may cause?

GLOBAL ART FORUM_5

PARTICIPANTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

JO BACKER LAIRD, Of Counsel, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, New York

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: PARTICIPANTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

BRAHIM ALAOUI has held positions including Director of the cultural circuit of the 2010 Marrakech Art Fair, Director of the l’Institut du Monde Arabe, and is an art historian, exhibition organiser and independent advisor.

SHAINA ANAND is a filmmaker and artist, and a co-initiator of CAMP and Pad.ma. She has worked independently in film / video since 1997. In 2001, she founded ChitraKarKhana, an independent unit for experimental media. She has worked on interventionist projects such as WICity TV (2005), Khirkeeyaan (2006), Cold Clinic (2008), and Al Jaar Qabla al Daar (2009).

JACK BANKOWSKY is a critic, curator and Editor-at-Large at Artforum. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Artforum from 1992 - 2003 and is the founding editor of Artforum’s sister publication, Bookforum, where he was editor from 1996 to 1998. Bankowsky is currently a member of the faculty in the MFA program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

SHUMON BASAR is currently writing a novel entitled World!World!World! set in Dubai, and making a film for the 2011 Sharjah Biennial with Jane & Louise Wilson and Eyal Weizman. He is Editor-at-Large at Tank magazine, Contributing Editor at Bidoun magazine, and Director of the Cultural Programme at the AA School, London, where he co-curated, with Charles Arsene-Henry, the audio-text exhibition Translated By. WAFAA BILAL is an assistant arts professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and specialises in online performative and interactive works. His current project, The 3rdi, features a camera surgically implanted on the back of his head transmitting images to the web.

Other works include And …Counting (2010) and Domestic Tension (2007). After spending two years in refugee camps, Bilal fled Iraq in 1991 to the US. PIERRE BAL BLANC is the Director of CAC Brétigny Center for Contemporary Art in France, where he has curated exhibitions with David Lamelas, Teresa Margolles, Rainer Oldendorf, Jimmy Robert, Ondak Roman, Clemens von Wedemeyer and Arthur Zmijewski, among others. He recently commissioned the exhibition The Death of the Audience in Secession, Vienna, Austria.

VICTORIA CAMBLIN is Editor at 032c magazine (Berlin). She is also a writer and art historian and has worked in collaboration with art collective Slavs and Tatars.

NATASHA CARELLA is Coordinator of the Global Art Forum and Special Events at Art Dubai.

ANTONIA CARVER became Fair Director of Art Dubai in August 2010. She joined Bidoun Projects as an editor in 2004 and later became director of its projects division; she now serves as a member of the board of Bidoun Projects. Carver has written extensively on Middle Eastern art and film and is a member of the programming committee for the Dubai International Film Festival.

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GERMANO CELANT is the Director of Fondazione Prada. He has authored more than 100 publications and contributes to numerous publications such as Artforum, Interview magazine, L’Espresso, and Interni. Celant has also curated hundreds of exhibitions for prominent international institutions and biennials worldwide, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Biennale di Firenze and La Biennale di Venezia.

CLAUDIA CELLINI co-founded The Third Line gallery in Dubai in 2005. In 2000, she set up an art consultancy in Singapore which focused on Chinese and South Eastern Asian artists. In 2003 in conjunction with client American Express and the Singapore Government, she founded Art Outreach, a non-profit art appreciation education program developed for the Singaporean public school curriculum.

STUART COMER is Curator of Film at Tate Modern and oversees moving image work for the Tate Collection and Displays. Corner is co-curating the forthcoming Tate Modern Oil Tanks opening in 2012, and organizes an extensive programme of screenings, performances and events. He was the editor of Film and Video Art (Tate Publishing, 2009) and has contributed to numerous periodicals and publications.

SOFÍA HERNÁNDEZ CHONG CUY was recently appointed curator of contemporary art for the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. She also works as an agent for Documenta 13 and is a board member of Kunstverein in Amsterdam. Currently, Sofía is currently cocurating the group exhibition El grito, which opens this summer at MUSAC in León. She was previously director of Museo Tamayo in Mexico City (2009-10).

CHRIS DERCON is an art historian, documentary filmmaker and cultural producer, and will join Tate Modern as Director in April 2011. He previously served as Director for several institutions, including the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Witte de Witte, and most recently, Munich’s Haus der Kunst (from 2003 - 2011). In Munich, Dercon oversaw projects by architects Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & Demeuron and initiated exhibitions by Amrita Sher Gil, Garin Nugroho and Ai Weiwei. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including at the Venice Biennale and Centre Georges Pompidou (Face a l’Histoire).

MICHELLE DEZEMBER is the Head of Education at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Prior to joining Mathaf, she has developed resources and programs at the Brooklyn Museum, MoMA, The Center for Architecture, The Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum, and the Museum of the History of Immigration to Catalonia.

LIU DING is a Beijing-based artist and curator. Co-founder of the Office for Art and Theory, Liu launched Liu Ding’s Store since 2008, a platform on which issues around the role of artist, the relationship between the value of artwork and consumption, the ethical limits of art institutions and art systems are investigate.

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: PARTICIPANTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

HIS EXCELLENCY OMAR SAIF GHOBASH is the UAE Ambassador to Russia.

Besides being a co-founder of The Third Line gallery in Dubai, he is a funder of Banipal Prize for Arabic Translation and a member of the Abu Dhabi Louvre / Guggenheim Acquisitions Committees.

MASOUD GOLSORKHI is the Iranian-born editor of Tank, a fashion, arts and ideas magazine.

PROF. DR. ISABELLE GRAW is the Publisher and Editor of Texte zur Kunst. She cofounded the magazine in 1990 with Stefan Germer in Cologne. Isabelle teaches Art Theory and History of Art at the Staatliche Schule für bildende Künste (Städelschule) in Frankfurt am Main. She lives and works in Berlin and Frankfurt.

NAV HAQ is Exhibitions Curator at Arnolfini, Bristol, where he has been recently developing their 50th anniversary programme, taking place throughout 2011. From 20052007 he was Curator at Gasworks, London, and also curated the 3rd Contour Biennial for Video Art, Belgium, in 2007. Haq has also contributed to numerous art journals including Bidoun, frieze and Kaleidoscope. He is the 2011 curator for MARKER, a new gallery section at Art Dubai, dedicated to showcasing dynamic independent arts spaces from Asia and the Middle East.

MALAK HELMY is a Cairo-Doha based artist currently working with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. She initiates her practice through writing, video and temporary collectives such as Pericentre Projects – Kharita: On Urban Trajectories in Cairo (http:// pericentreprojects.org). Helmy studied at the CCA in San Francisco, University of Washington in Seattle and the American University in Cairo.

WASSAN AL-KHUDHAIRI is the Director of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. She specialises in modern and contemporary art from the Arab world, with a particular emphasis on Iraq. Al Khudhairi worked at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York. Al Khudhairi received her BA in Art History from Georgia State University and MA with distinction in Islamic Art and Architecture from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

JOERG KOCH has lived in Berlin since 1995 and studied History and North American Studies. After working on the first generation of web media, he left the technology sector, set up the project space ffwd, and in 2001 co-founded 032c magazine, where he remains Editor-in-Chief. He has since established and continues to direct a regular exhibition program at 032c Workshop.

VASIF KORTUN is a writer, curator and teacher in the field of contemporary visual art. He is the Programs and Research Director of SALT, to open in April 2011 in Istanbul. Kortun has organised numerous exhibitions in Turkey and internationally and is the curator of the UAE Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale, 2011.

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SYLVIA KOUVALI was born in Athens and has been living in Istanbul since 2005. She is the owner and Director of Rodeo, contemporary art gallery that represents a mixed group of international as well as artists from the region, like Haris Epaminonda, Christodulos Panayiotou, Emre Hüner, Gülsün Karamustafa among others. She’s also been the Artistic Director of yama, a public art screen in Istanbul since 2006 and has collaborated with many artists in various on site commissions.

JO BACKER LAIRD practices art law at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler in New York City. Prior to joining Patterson Belknap in 2008, Ms. Laird served for more than ten years as General Counsel of Christie’s Inc., where she was responsible for all of the auction house’s legal matters in North and South America.

HELMUT LANG was born 1956 in Vienna, Austria. He established his name-stake trademark in 1978 and has since his retirement from fashion in 2005, continued to work as an artist. Lang had his first institutional solo art exhibition ALLES GLEICH SCHWER in 2008 at the kestnergesellschaft in Hanover, Germany. In December this year, MAK - Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna, will present his solo exhibition MAKE_HARD with new works and installations. Helmut Lang lives and works in New York and Long Island.

CAROL YINGHUA LU is a critic and curator based in Beijing and is the co-founder of the Office for Art and Theory. She was a fellow in the Critical Studies program at the Malmo Art Academy, Sweden (2004-05) and the China researcher for Asia Art Archive (2005-07).

She is the Founder and Co-Editor of Contemporary Art & Investment, and contributes to frieze, e-flux journal and Yishu.

SEBASTIAN LÜTGERT is an artist, programmer, and writer and lives in Berlin. His various works, publications, events and activities deal with the concept of intellectual property. He is the co-founder of Bootlab, Pirate Cinema and Pad.ma, lecturer at the Academy of the Sciences, Berlin. He is currently working on a film about capitalism set in Dubai.

SUHAIL MALIK directs Critical Studies for the MFA Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths College, London. Recent writings include: The Wrong of Contemporary Art, Screw (Down) The Debt: Neoliberalism and the Politics of Austerity, Critique as Alibi: Moral Differentiation in the Art Market, A Boom Without End? Liquidity, Critique and the Art Market.

PROFESSOR PENNY MARTIN is a writer and curator of fashion and photography.

She is Editor in Chief of The Gentlewoman magazine and Professor of Fashion Imagery at London College of Fashion, before which she was Editor in Chief of SHOWstudio.com from 2001 to 2008.

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: PARTICIPANTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

CHUS MARTÍNEZ has been an Agent of Documenta (13) since 2009 and has been a Member of Core Group, Head of Department in the curatorial office of the Artistic Director in Kassel since 2011. She is the chief curator of MACBA in Barcelona and has written numerous catalogue texts and her critical essays have appeared in magazines such as Kaleidoscope and Artforum.

SALWA MIKDADI is a curator and art historian whose work spans over 25 years in the field of Arab art. She was the Curator of the first Palestinian exhibition for 2009 Venice Biennial; Co-Founder and Director of Cultural & Visual Arts Resource/ICWA (19882006); and Co-Founder of Association of Modern & Contemporary Art of the Arab world, Iran and Turkey (AMCA).

GRAZIA QUARONI is an Italian art historian based in Paris, where she is both exhibition curator and in charge of the collection for Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

She is a regular contributor to Italian art magazine CURA and is Associate Professor at Sorbonne University.

HANS ULRICH OBRIST is co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London. He has served as curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and museum in progress, Vienna. Obrist has curated over 250 exhibitions worldwide and is a contributing editor of Abitare, Artforum, Paradis Magazine, and 032c Magazine.

SIMONE SEBASTIAN, Global Art Forum Emcee, is a Dubai-based producer, writer and blogger, with a background in TV & Film Production. Since 2007, she has been heavily involved in Dubai’s creative community, producing events with a cultural agenda for boutique agency 9714, as well as the multi-disciplinary art organisation, Traffic. She also runs an independent blog called discoballbreaker.

HITO STEYERL, filmmaker and author, lives in Berlin. He is professor for experimental media creation at Berlin art school and recently participated in Taipeh, Gwanju and 1st Ural biennial (2010), documenta 12 (2007), Shanghai Biennial (2008). He writes extensively about documentarism and digital reality.

RÉMI PARINGAUX is the Director and Founder of Meri Media. Paringaux has art directed and designed titles such as Dazed & Confused and Vogue Hommes Japan, and was a creative consultant for brands including Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Stella McCartney and Christian Dior. He is the Director & Founder of Meri Media, a creative digital agency who specialises in creating branded content with mobile e-commerce integration for the luxury and style industry.

BEN PERDUE is a London-based fashion writer and menswear consultant who co-edits Sang Bleu magazine and regularly contributes to titles including Another Man, GQ Style, 032C, Wonderland, and THEPOP.com.

NATASCHA SADR HAGHIGHIAN was born in Bayqongyr, Kasachstan currently lives in Frankfurt am Main and Bayqongyr. She has shown in European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück; Capitalyst Arts, Catalyst Arts, Belfast; The Artist Feelings, Jakarta; Truth, Center of Contemporary Art Pispala; Mehrwert Kunst, Kunstverein, Frankfurt; Social Arts, ZKM Karlsruhe, Social Arts, Goethe Institute, Riga. Source: bioswop.net

SLAVS AND TATARS is an art collective devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. Their Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz will be presented at the 10th Sharjah Biennial and future solo exhibitions include Secession, Vienna and Kuenstlerhaus Stuttgart in 2012.

BRIAN PHILLIPS is President and CEO of Black Frame, a consulting and management hub for creative talent. After receiving his degree from Columbia University in Urban Studies in 2002, Phillips founded Black Frame as a unique dual platform for art and fashion.

Black Frame has worked closely with globally recognised figures including Hedi Slimane, Kate and Laura Mulleavy and Francesco Vezzoli.

HIS EXCELLENCY SHEIKH HASSAN BIN MOHAMMED ALI al thani is Vice Chairperson of the HIS EXCELLENCY SHEIKH HASSAN BIN MOHAMMED ALI AL THANI is Vice Chairperson of the Qatar Museums Authority Board of Trustees, Advisor of Cultural Affairs at the Qatar Foundation, and founder of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. A Patron of the Arts, Sheikh Hassan remains committed to developing the art movement in the Middle East and increasing awareness of Arab art throughout the world.

CHER POTTER is a London-based expert in Fashion Futures. After working with design luminaries Hussein Chalayan and Giles Deacon, she now runs the Creative Think Tank at the fashion-industry research, analysis and forecasting agency WGSN and is visiting lecturer at the Architectural Association in London.

PHILIP TINARI is founding editor and acting publisher of LEAP, a bilingual, bimonthly magazine of contemporary art and culture based in Beijing and launched by the Modern Media Group in February 2010. A critic and curator, he also teaches at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

SULTAN SOOUD AL QASSEMI is the Chairman and Partner of Meem Gallery, a prominent art gallery operating in Dubai. He is also the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, which features his private collection of contemporary Arab artwork in rotating public exhibitions.

FRANCESCO VEZZOLI lives and works in Milan. His work has been exhibited at many institutions including The New Museum of Contemporary Art; Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin; Fondazione Prada, Milan; Museu Serralves, Porto; Le Consortium, Dijon; Tate Modern, London; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Kunsthalle Wien; and the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow.

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GLOBAL ART FORUM_5: PARTICIPANTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

KAELEN WILSON-GOLDIE is a journalist who lives and works in Beirut. She is a contributing editor for Bidoun, a critic for Artforum and a regular writer for The Review, a cultural supplement published weekly in The National. She also covers the local art scene for The Daily Star in Lebanon.

TIRDAD ZOLGHADR is a writer and curator teaching at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College NY. He recently curated the Taipei Biennial 2010 with Hongjohn Lin. As a writer, Zolghadr is a frequent contributor to frieze magazine. Most recently he was author of Solution 168-185 and editor of Necessities. His novel Softcore was published in 2007.

FORUM FELLOWS 2011 Presentations by the Forum Fellows take place in the Art Park 18.00 – 19.00 |Wednesday 16 March SALAUDDIN AHMED was born in 1967, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. After receiving his Masters Degree in Architecture in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania, and working with architects such as Robert Venturi and Scott Brown, he returned to Bangladesh in 2000. He founded his own practice in Dhaka, Atelier Robin Architects, and has worked independently and in collaboration with other local and international artists and architects.

MIRNA BAMIEH was born in Jerusalem in 1983. She received a degree in Psychology / Sociology from Birzeit University in 2006, and is currently perusing a Masters in Fine Arts from Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design in Jerusalem. Besides her work as an artist, she works as a Visual Arts Program Coordinator / Curator at The Palestinian Art Court- Al Hoash .

EMRAH GÖKDEMIR studied at Mustafa Kemal University Fine Art Faculty / Painting Department. Since 2005, he has engaged his artworks with A77 Art Collective, a rural collective belonging to the Third World. At the same time he is a founding member of AGÜSAD / Antakya Contemporary Art Association.

SOHRAB M. KASHANI is a multidisciplinary artist and an independent curator based in Tehran, Iran. He has held several solo exhibitions and has participated in over 50 group exhibitions and screenings worldwide. Sohrab is the Founder and Director of Sazmanab Project, independent artist-run space in Tehran.

SUMBUL KHAN is curator at Poppy Seed. She has an MA in Art History from Tufts University (2005) and has taught undergraduate Art History at Framingham State College, Massachussetts, (2005-2006) and The Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, (2007-2009). She is co-editor of Between Intention and Reception: Art Criticism in Pakistan (published 2009) and has contributed articles on contemporary Pakistani Art for local publications such as Nukta Art and Newsline.

NOOR AL SUWAIDI studied visual communications at the American University of Sharjah before transferring to the American University in Washington DC to complete her BA in Studio Art. Al Suwaidi’s works range from printmaking and sculpture to paintings with a firm focus on acrylic on canvas. She has recently completed her MA in curating contemporary design at Kingston University in partnership with the Design Museum, London.

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OTHER TALKS AT ART DUBAI ART PARK TALKS Note: Art Park Talks take place daily in the Art Park and are open to all. The programme includes film screenings and discussions with curators, artists, designers and architects.

Please see the Projects Booklet and the Fair Guide for details.

ON COLLECTING

ANURAG KHANNA studied Economics and Finance in the United Kingdom and is currently based out of the Western Indian state of Gujarat. Khanna collects various forms of art from around the world and is building a small but solid family collection of both Asian and international art.

LINDA KOMAROFF, LACMA’s curator of Islamic art, is the author or editor of several books, and has written numerous articles on Islamic art. She helped to reshape the museum’s Islamic art collection, which has doubled in size and now includes contemporary art of the Middle East. Her exhibition Gifts of the Sultan: The Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts opens in June 2011.

These conversations on patronage and collecting feature:

VENETIA PORTER specialises in the art and cultures of the Middle East and has a doctorate on the medieval history of Yemen. She curated Word into Art shown Dubai in 2008. She is currently working on the exhibition The Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam which opens at the British Museum in January 2012.

SAVITA APTE is a Director of Art Dubai, Chair of the Selection Committee of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize and an Art Historian specialising in Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art. She is a Director of Asal Partners, on the advisory board of the Sovereign Art Foundation, Bid and Hammer and Art & Business, UK.

NADA RAZA is an independent writer and curator based in London. She has previously curated for London and Dubai based arts organisations that focus on contemporary art from South Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work closely with artists from the MENASA region. Raza is currently working on a book on art from Pakistan.

ZIBA ARDALAN is the Director / Curator of Parasol unit Foundation for contemporary Art in London. A graduate in the History of Art from Columbia University, New York, de Weck worked as Guest Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and became the first Director / Curator of the city’s Swiss Institute, before founding Parasol unit.

ANNA SOMERS COCKS began her career as a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

She founded The Art Newspaper in 1990 and edited it for 13 years, and then joined the board of the parent company, Umberto Allemandi e C, to oversee strategic development.

As chairman of the charity, Venice in Peril, she is organising an exhibition of specially commissioned photographs of Venice by 14 artists, including Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Candida Höfer, as an official part of the 2011 Biennale.

By invitation only; taking place in the Abraaj Capital Lounge; see Fair Guide for details.

STUART COMER is Curator of Film at Tate Modern. He oversees moving image work for the Tate Collection and Displays. He is co-curating the forthcoming Tate Modern Oil Tanks opening in 2012, and organises an extensive programme of screenings, performances and events. He is editor of Film and Video Art (2009) and has contributed to numerous periodicals and publications.

SARAH THORNTON is a writer and sociologist of art. Her educational but entertaining non-fiction book, Seven Days in the Art World, is an international bestseller, available in 14 different language editions. Dr Thornton is the chief writer on contemporary art for The Economist.

DR. I. MICHAEL DANOFF holds a Ph.D in humanities with a concentration in art history. He has served as Director to four art museums and has organised many exhibitions, including the first U.S. solo museum exhibitions of artists such as Georg Baselitz, Jeff Koons and Gerhard Richter. He has extensive experience building contemporary collections in the museum, foundation, corporate and private sectors.

MICHAEL AND SUSAN HORT started collecting in 1986 and are passionate collectors of emerging artists. They have a wide-ranging interest in artists working in all disciplines and styles.

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GLOBAL ART FORUM PARTNERS The DUBAI CULTURE & ARTS AUTHORITY is dedicated to strengthening the Emirate’s heritage, culture and the arts. Fostering global dialogue, facilitating robust platforms for cultural initiatives and nurturing talent, the Authority positions Dubai as vibrant global destination for culture and the arts. www.dubaiculture.ae MATHAF: ARAB MUSEUM OF MODERN ART is a new institution for Arab culture and creativity located in Doha, Qatar. Home to a unique permanent collection of more than 6,000 works that offers a rare comprehensive overview of modern art from the Arab world, Mathaf (which means ‘museum’ in Arabic) also performs an important role as a center for dialogue and scholarship and a resource for fostering creativity. www.mathaf.org.qa The ABU DHABI AUTHORITY FOR CULTURE AND HERITAGE (ADACH) is in charge of conserving and promoting the heritage and culture of Abu Dhabi. It was established in October 2005 as an authority of the Government of Abu Dhabi and has a holistic vision of culture, which embraces both tangible and intangible heritage. ADACH commits its resources to the preservation of architectural and archaeological assets as well as to the development of Emirati and international arts, music, literature and cinema. www.adach.ae The MINISTRY OF CULTURE manages, conserves and promotes culture and heritage in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The focus of its activities is on the development and protection of national heritage as well as multicultural exchange and dialogue. www.moci.gov.bh

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