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Quicktime version The Aishmans' review movies on a flight to Korea.

It’s a 13-hour flight to Dubai. Not the kind of travel to be taken lightly but worth it for the experience of Art Dubai. For visitors like me, Art Dubai represents more than the other fairs like the Armory Show or Miami Basel because the fair was the best excuse I could come up with to visit the Middle East. Like all art fairs, Art Dubai was primarily focused on sales, however, there was a consolidated effort by the fair to extend beyond the walls of the fair itself in order to become an entire art world event representing the region as a whole. Proof of this was in the number of the auxiliary programs, the many parallel events in the city that were directly supported by the fair, and the “Global Art Forum” lecture series that made the fair feel less like a sales driven event and more like an all encompassing cultural event. Art Dubai fully supported the Al Bastakiya Art Fair, the one official fringe art fair, by running a bus between the fairs and encouraging all visitors to spend time at both fairs. Art Dubai even ran programs in other cities like tours of the Sharjah Museum, or programs in Doha. The fair fully supported the START program, a Middle East based program that helps orphans, refugees and street children in the MENASA (Middle East North Africa South Asia) region, through creative development. While at the fair, I participated in one of START’s programs and helped introduce local autistic children to art-making and the fair itself. While the fair is not in charge of what any individual gallery chooses to show, there were some excellent pieces on display. Some of the highlights included El Anatsui’s “In the World But Don't Know the World” piece at London’s October Gallery booth. El Anatsui’s metal sculpture made from tens of thousands of bottle-tops that evoked sublime awe at its sheer enormity while also provoking a dialog about the cultural, social and economic histories of West Africa. By far, the most provoking and stimulating piece at Art Dubai was created by the winner of the Abraaj Capital Art Prize, Kader Attia and his curator Laurie Farrell. The Abraaj Capital Art Prize provides $1 million dollars in funding to three curator/artist pairs from MENASA to produce unique pieces for Art Dubai. Algerian born artist Kader Attia and curator Laurie Farrell produced “History of a Myth: Le Petit Dome du Rocher” which is an installation based in deep understanding of history and philosophy. In the piece, the viewer enters a darkened room to see a live camera feed projecting a sculpture of a bolt and nuts enlarged many times its size. The projection of the sculpture evokes the architecture of the Dome of the Rock and in so doing refers to Arab-Muslim history and all of the complexity of issues that surround representations of that history. The most amazing part of the installation is that it is an installation that cannot be accurately described in words, but a viewer must be in the room itself to feel the piece. Throughout the installation, there is a gentle breeze and sounds of nature that are subtly vibrating the sculpture and thus the projection as well. Kader Attia’s piece provides a peaceful space of contemplation where the viewer can mediate on the myriad of issues surrounding historical, architectural, political or aesthetic interpretations. The piece is simultaneously peaceful and provocative, troubling and soothing, pensive and visceral. Creating a piece that refuses to fit into any preconceived binary is definitely a piece that should not be missed. Next year’s Art Dubai fair should be even bigger and more comprehensive than this years and is definitely worth 13 hour flight. Kader Attia History of a Myth: The Small Dome of the Rock, 2010 Video installation © Photo: Alexzandra Chandler Courtesy of Abraaj Capital Art Prize El Anatsui "In the World, But Don’t Know the World?”, 2009. Aluminium and copper wire, 5.6 x 10 metres Video of Steve Aishman at the VIP Patron's Preview of Art Dubai

Information has evolved into a new species of garbage. The entire concept of someone who is “informed” has changed and now fragmentary 140 character lines of text pass as communication. It is not that this new breed of information is false that is the issue, but rather it is an illusion of knowledge. We are all watching as knowledge is drowning in a river of irrelevance. There is constant stream of data flowing from one communication device to the other without picking up value along the way. Sci-fi novels of the 20th century did not anticipate this 21st century state of reading. Bradbury and Orwell taught us to fear totalitarian governments that wanted to burn books, but no one warned us about the general public expressing their freedom to write so much that nothing would be worth reading. This century’s dystopia novels will be populated by people who read and write all day long, but somehow they know nothing. People who are continually informed and yet have no information. The heroes of these novels will be underground rebels who insist on writing and reading more than 3 lines of text. They can have clever names like Edmund Spenser or Milton Vyasa and these new logos-heros will insist on things like news outlets that pay for and conduct thorough research. Inevitably the next generation of dystopia novels will conclude with death by communal distraction. This new species of information is worse than being deprived of information because information has become a plague. The more you read, the less you know. Tyranny is no longer required for the ruin of a society; the freedom to pursue an infinite appetite for distractions can do the job more efficiently. Included in this is the distraction of continual creativity without rationality or analysis. A 14 year old girl is reported to have sent 35,463 text messages, or about 1 text message a minute in the month of June 2008. “The Old Man and the Sea” only has 27,315 words. The texter in question has stated she texted that much in one month because she was at cheer camp. It seems safe to say that while she wrote more than a Hemmingway novel in one month, the level of valuable information transmitted was probably significantly lower. The antidote to the venom of cultural distraction is to return to state where reading is considered a serious business. Where the goal of information transfer is no longer quantity, but quality. It is now November; ticket buying season for Miami Basel even in a down economy. All of the fairs can be followed on Facebook or Twitter: Pulse on Twitter Pulse on Facebook Art Miami on Twitter Art Miami on Facebook Miami Basel on Twitter Miami Basel on Facebook Aqua on Facebook Etc. Etc. I take these modes of communication seriously. Why would I follow Miami Basel’s Twitter account? Because I want to see if the fairs will be worth an investment in a trip this year. I expect the information they post to actually be valuable. I expect to see exhibitor lists. I expect to see performance art schedules. But I am already wrong. One of the fair’s tweets already says, “See you out there!” It was not worth reading. It was information evolved into garbage and I was its garbage collector. I have faith in a return to the seriousness of reading, but I expect it will be a while. -Steve Me in Miami Basel 2006 Morgan Pozgar, age 13, is officially the LG National Texting Champion P.S.Follow me on Twitter or Facebook OMG LOL

I'm often reminded of artist George Vlosich's work. You're not familiar with his work? He's one of the most written about artists of our generation. The You Tube video of him making his work has been viewed over 1,600,000 times. His art work has been featured in national press reports on CNN, World News Tonight, BBC, etc. He even got to meet President Clinton and VP Gore while they were in office. George was also featured on Ripley's Believe It Or Not. You see, George Vlosich makes celebrity and sports drawings with an Etch-A-Sketch. The first time I saw his work I was at a party held at a friend-of-a-friend's house when a report on his work came on. Everyone stopped in amazement to watch him make an Etch-A-Sketch drawing of a basketball player. When it was over, someone said, "Now that's real art. You know, something that takes skill and hours of labor. I know I couldn't do that because I don't have the patience." I think I evaluate George Vlosich's work as a balanced between the questions of "how hard was it to make" versus "how much of this is just media sensation"? Here are some other pieces for your judgment: 1. Santiago Sierra's 21 huge blocks of human feces that were shown at Lisson Gallery in 2007. 2. World's largest photo 3. CNN report on a college student who used post-it notes to make a portrait of Ray Charles 4. Micro-sculptor Willard Wigan who made sculpted the Lloyd's Building so it fits on top of a pin. 5. Justin Gignac's New York City Garbage 6. César Saez' Banana Over Texas work. 7. Scott Wade's Dirty Car Art 8.Tim Knowles tree drawings. 9. Steven J. Backman's toothpick art. 10. and finally, George Vlosich's work. Please feel free to post your opinion on any of these artist's works in the comment section:

Click to Play Heidi Aishman views her work at Peabody Essex Museum for the "Trash Menagerie" exhibtion Interview with Jane Winchell