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The National
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Wael Shawky shares his vision for Art Basel Qatar to help shape Middle East scene
When Art Basel announced this summer that it would make its Middle East debut with a Doha edition, the region's art scene was abuzz with excitement. Developed in partnership with Qatar Sports Investments and the cultural agency QC Plus, the inaugural Gulf fair is set to run from February 5 to 7. It will take place at the cultural hub M7 and around the Doha Design District in Msheireb, near landmarks including the National Museum of Qatar. Internationally-acclaimed Egyptian artist Wael Shawky was recently appointed as artistic director of the event. Alongside Art Basel 's global director of fairs, Vincenzo de Bellis, Shawky will head the fair's curatorial vision and help shape the gallery selection process. Shawky, who represented Egypt at the 2024 Venice Architecture Biennale, has been exhibited worldwide. His often satirical artworks blend history from non-western perspectives, ancient myths and contemporary critique. He believes the modern and contemporary art fair making a home in Doha is an opportunity to grow and shape the region's entire art scene, adding more than just commercial value. 'What I love about Qatar is there is always this idea of doing things on a bigger scale, creating something for the whole region, and this is what I like a lot,' Shawky tells The National. 'There is a need for a professional art market that we don't really have, and a need for professional galleries … in Egypt or Qatar, there are very few.' As the artistic director of Qatar Museums ' Fire Station, a residency programme for young creatives, Shawky says education and commercial goals must go hand in hand to build a healthy creative ecosystem. 'I'm honoured to take part in this first launch of Art Basel Qatar because it gives the responsibility to shape the art scene in the region,' he says. 'As an artist I know that as much as we have to have proper art institutions, we must also have proper art education, in order to have a proper professional market. 'I cannot convince the young generation to make art if they cannot live from it. This is something that must complete the cycle,' he continues. 'Part of the Art Basel Qatar programming will include Fire Station becoming a platform for educational programmes.' There will be a few differences between Art Basel Qatar and its international sister editions in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Miami. This inaugural event will be slightly smaller than the others and have a different format. Instead of the traditional booth model, galleries will create solo presentations responding to the fair's overarching theme, with a focus on fostering greater engagement with the artwork on show. While the selection process is still under way, about 80 to 100 international galleries will participate, spread across M7 and the Doha Design District, as well as public spaces in Msheireb, where they hope to offer additional programming, artistic performances and installations. 'What I'm trying to push a lot in this art fair is to have more Arab artists, which is a bit of a problem, because in the Arab world, we don't have a large amount of professional galleries that can apply to Art Basel,' Shawky explains. 'I also know many really great artists that don't have galleries. So that's a lot of the conversations we are having now, but we can think of it as a long-term project. 'Because each gallery is just presenting one artist, it will hopefully encourage them to bring the best, rather than just a mix of everything that can be sold,' he adds. 'Many artists I speak with are tired of art fairs. Sometimes galleries exhibit the work in a bad way. I don't want to blame galleries, but we want the artists to be more involved with the presentations again, for the sake of elevating the works.' The theme for 2026 will be Becoming, intended as a meditation on humanity's continuing transformation and the evolving systems that shape how we live, believe and create meaning. With the region's rapid development, and the new fair contributing to the art changing scene, it seems a fitting theme. The theme will capture how heritage and tradition intersect with modernity and technology, how once insular societies adapt to globalism, and how the seemingly endless growth of urban life is shaping our lives. 'For me, these types of developments are often connected to landscape both literally and figuratively,' Shawky says. 'They just develop from one system to another. I'm trying to look at this idea across the whole region – the idea of moving from Bedouin to tribal society to urbanism, for example. 'All the ways societies dream of moving from one system to a higher system – it's endless – so we've been looking for artists that explore this in some way.'
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PSG vs. Chelsea: The Club World Cup final will be a playground for the uber-rich — and make them richer
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — On the doorstep of history here at the Club World Cup, Luis Enrique was explaining how Paris Saint-Germain got so good. They had just pummeled Real Madrid, 4-0. Spanish reporters wondered if the Parisians were 'imbatable,' unbeatable. Perhaps not quite, but they have conquered France and Europe, and advanced to Sunday's Club World Cup final; why? Because 'we all work together,' as Enrique said. His players spoke about their 'connection' and 'collective effort,' and a shared 'philosophy' instilled over the past two seasons, with 'the team before everyone.' Enrique, though, in an aside, mentioned the other reason. Advertisement PSG, he said through an interpreter, is 'a club where budget isn't that much of an issue. We can hire the players that we need, so that they can play the way that we like.' That, above all, is the story of PSG's surge to the top of the soccer world. And it's the story of Sunday's final. For all the talk of the club's shift away from megastars, which began when Enrique arrived in 2023 as Neymar and Lionel Messi departed, the club spent over $500 million that season on 11 new players. Since the summer of 2022, it has spent almost $1 billion on transfer fees alone. The only club that has spent more? PSG's opponent on Sunday, Chelsea. The Club World Cup, in other words, has arrived at a final stage that looks an awful lot like a playground for the uber-rich. PSG is owned by Qatar Sports Investments, an arm of the Qatari government's sovereign wealth fund. Chelsea is owned by a consortium of billionaires and an American private equity firm, Clearlake Capital. They rank No. 2 and No. 1 globally in transfer spend over the past three seasons — or two seasons, or four seasons, whichever time horizon you choose. Advertisement The wealth is why they're here. The money has purchased 20 of the 22 players expected to start Sunday's final, plus several others who'll come off the bench, plus several more who won't be involved at all. And no matter the result, more money will be the reward. Each club has already earned over $75 million in Club World Cup prize money, and likely over $100 million when including their appearance fees — what FIFA calls the 'participation pillar.' The Club World Cup, therefore, will follow and reinforce a pattern that defines modern soccer. The rich clubs buy and pay the best players; so they win; so they get richer, and buy more players, and everyone else gets left behind. Fueled by nearly a billion dollars in transfer fees, PSG powered its way to the Club World Cup final. (Photo by Heuler Andrey/Eurasia) (Eurasia Sport Images via Getty Images) The billions behind PSG and Chelsea's rise Neither Chelsea nor PSG had had much success in Europe before the money arrived from overseas. When Qatar bought PSG in 2011, it had appeared in the Champions League only five times; when Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003, it had appeared in Europe's premier club competition once. Advertisement Money soon changed that. Both clubs became fixtures in the Champions League and forces domestically. In 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine forced Abramovich to sell Chelsea, but the new owners, led by American businessman Todd Boehly, simply took lucrative spending to a new level. They splashed around $350 million on transfers in less than three months. As their rivals wondered how the heck they could spend so much, five months later, they paid another $140 million for Enzo Fernandez, and $80 million for Mykhaylo Mudryk, and around $385 million in total that January. They didn't spend the money particularly well — which is part of why they kept on spending. They missed on, or at least overpaid for, Mudryk, Raheem Sterling, Wesley Fofana and others. On the field, their missteps showed. Results — and, by extension, prize money and revenue — suffered. But they just kept going. They broke rules, and didn't stop. Last week, UEFA, soccer's European governing body, fined Chelsea around $36 million for the breaches, and imposed some restrictions on how much the Blues can spend going forward. Nonetheless, despite knowing they were under scrutiny throughout the 2024-25 season, they kicked off the 2025 summer by paying over $100 million for new players. Then, just last week, they paid some $150 million more for striker João Pedro and winger Jamie Gittens. Pedro, six days after signing, propelled them into the final with two goals against Fluminense — whose 2024 revenue, in total, was less than Pedro's transfer fee. Advertisement PSG, on the other hand, has been less reckless. Its hit rate in the transfer market has been much higher. It has identified dynamic young players, such as João Neves, Désiré Doué and Willian Pacho, who jibed with Enrique's system, grew within it, and helped fuel it to greatness. Some pre-Enrique signings — Fabián Ruiz for $26 million, Nuno Mendes for $47 million, Vitinha for $48 million — now look like bargains. But money was still the prerequisite. And with so much at their disposal, both PSG and Chelsea have been able to buy their way out of mistakes or injuries. Of the $2.9 billion they've spent on players since the summer of 2022, around half — some $1.4 billion — bought players who didn't appear in the Club World Cup semis or quarters or, in some cases, haven't yet appeared for the club. The FIFA Club World Cup trophy: more than $100 million in prize and participation money will flow to Sunday's two finalists, PSG and Chelsea. (Photo by Ira L. Black - FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images) (Ira L. Black - FIFA via Getty Images) The rich get richer They have spent in a different stratosphere than most other participants in this Club World Cup. Each has spent more on a single player than the entire Transfermarkt value of 16 of the 30 other squads. Many of those 16 have spent less than $100 million on transfers in their entire histories. Advertisement Their spending did not equate to automatic wins. In fact, both Chelsea and PSG lost to Brazilian teams in the group stage. Several circumstantial factors, combined with the general randomness of soccer, closed the gap between the rich and the rest last month. But by the end of the Club World Cup, money talked. And now, it will grow. After prolonged negotiations with clubs and other stakeholders, FIFA, soccer's global governing body and the organizer of this novel tournament, promised the European participants disproportionately large chunks of a $1 billion prize money pot. Less than half of that pot will be disbursed based on results over the past four weeks; the majority ($525 million) was apportioned by continent, and based in part on 'commercial criteria.' In other words, the European clubs with the most prestige and commercial pull would bank more than twice as much as any non-European club based on those factors alone. This was supposedly necessary to A) get the European giants onboard, and B) limit the impact on financial inequality within non-European domestic leagues, where even $9.55 million — the guaranteed payout to clubs from Africa, Asia and North America — is a scale-tipping fortune. Advertisement But it will only worsen inequality in soccer globally. The 12 European teams will claim a combined $623 million of the $1 billion; the other 20 teams will get the remaining $377 million. The gap, over time, will continue to grow. It is hardly a coincidence that two of the richest, Chelsea and PSG, will play for the inaugural title of this expanded tournament on Sunday. And will not be a coincidence if they contend for the next one, presumably in 2029.
ILoveQatar.net
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ILoveQatar.net
Art Basel Qatar reveals new format for inaugural fair, international artist Wael Shawky appointed as Artistic Director
Art Basel is proud to reveal first details of its newly launched fair in Qatar, which will unfold in M7 creative hub in the heart of Doha's Design District from 5 to 7 February 2026, with Preview Days on 3 and 4 February 2026. For its inaugural edition, Art Basel Qatar will depart from the traditional booth model to introduce a new fair format grounded in artistic vision and conceptual rigor. Conceived by Art Basel as a platform to foster deeper engagement with leading galleries and artists from the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and further afield, the show will prioritize an engaging experience that maintains strong market relevance. Art Basel Qatar is a joint initiative between Art Basel, MCH Group, Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) and QC+. Additionally, Art Basel Qatar is delighted to announce the appointment of internationally acclaimed, Egyptian-born artist Wael Shawky as Artistic Director for the first edition of the fair. Together with Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel's Chief Artistic Officer and Global Director of Fairs, Shawky will lead the curatorial vision of the 2026 edition and guide the gallery selection process, in consultation with the fair's dedicated Selection Committee. He brings deep regional insight and a multidisciplinary approach that aligns with the fair's ambitions, including plans to transform Qatar Museum's Fire Station into a platform for educational programs. Art Basel Qatar will embrace an open-format exhibition, with solo presentations by galleries responding to a central thematic framework, defined and developed by Art Basel's artistic leadership to serve as both anchor and catalyst for the show. The exhibition will unfold across two key venues – M7 and the Doha Design District – as well as selected public sites in Msheireb, Doha's creative and cultural heart. Vincenzo de Bellis, Chief Artistic Officer and Global Director of Fairs for Art Basel, said: 'With Art Basel Qatar, we are pushing the boundaries of the art fair model – placing artistic intention at its core while responding to today's market. This format allows us to support galleries in presenting artists' work with greater depth and resonance. Doha is an ideal context for this evolution: It is a place where cultural ambition meets a rich and layered history, and where experimentation is both welcomed and supported. For our inaugural edition, we are thrilled to work with Wael Shawky, who brings a rare combination of intellectual precision, visual imagination, and regional knowledge.' In its inaugural edition, Art Basel Qatar will explore the theme 'Becoming' – a meditation on humanity's ongoing transformation and the evolving systems that shape how we live, believe, and create meaning. The Gulf emerges as a living palimpsest – a region where oral traditions intersect with digital networks, and ancient trade routes are reimagined as contemporary flows of culture and capital. Within this layered context, art becomes a vital conduit, translating systemic shifts into form. It acts not only as a witness to history but as an active force in the continual redefinition of human identity. Wael Shawky said: 'It is a privilege to work with Art Basel on this groundbreaking new format. The opportunity to explore artistic practices from across the MENA region and beyond, within a framework that values research, narrative, and experimentation, is extremely meaningful to me. I look forward to collaborating with galleries and artists to help shape a platform that speaks to the complexity and richness of the region while remaining globally relevant.' Based in Doha, Wael Shawky most recently won acclaim for his video work Drama 1882, representing Egypt at the 60th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2024). His work, which ranges widely among film, performance, and storytelling, has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including Tate Modern (2022), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2016), MoMA PS1 (2015), Mathaf (2015), Serpentine Gallery (2013), and The Hammer (2013), among others. Shawky's work is currently on view in the site-specific installation I Am Hymns of the New Temples at LUMA Arles, as well as a solo show at the University of Edinburgh's Talbot Rice Gallery. He has participated in major international exhibitions including the 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015), the 11th Sharjah Biennial (2013), Documenta 13 (2012), the 9th Gwangju Biennial (2012), and SITE Santa Fe (2008). Shawky founded MASS Alexandria, an independent studio program for young artists, in 2010. In October 2024, Shawky was appointed Artistic Director of the Doha Fire Station, where he has launched the Arts Intensive Study Program (AISP) designed to foster critical thinking, hands-on learning, and professional development for a cohort of 20 emerging international and Qatari artists. The fair's dedicated Selection Committee will comprise leading gallery representatives from the region and beyond: Lorenzo Fiaschi, Galleria Continua (San Gimignano, Beijing, Havana, Boissy-le-Châtel, Paris, Rome, Dubai, São Paulo); Shireen Gandhy, Chemould Prescott Road (Mumbai); Daniela Gareh, White Cube (London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Seoul); Mohammed Hafiz, Athr Gallery (Jeddah, Al Ula, Riyadh); Sunny Rahbar, The Third Line (Dubai), and Gordon VeneKlasen, Michael Werner Gallery (New York, Athens, Berlin, Los Angeles, London).
Web Release
01-07-2025
- Business
- Web Release
QATAR SPORTS INVESTMENTS MARKS 14 YEARS OF TRANSFORMATIVE OWNERSHIP OF PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN
Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), on Monday, marked the 14th anniversary of its acquisition of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), celebrating a period of extraordinary transformation, growth, and sporting excellence that reached its greatest milestone yet with the Club's historic UEFA Champions League 2025 triumph just weeks ago. On Saturday, May 31st, PSG claimed the most prestigious title in European club football, defeating Inter Milan 5-0 in a commanding performance in Munich. This landmark victory – the Club's first UEFA Champions League title – ended a historic 2024–2025 season in which PSG won four major trophies: the Trophée des Champions (1-0 vs AS Monaco on January 5th at Stadium 974 in Doha), Ligue 1, which the Club won by a dominant 19-point margin, the Coupe de France (3-0 vs Reims on May 24th at the Stade de France), and finally, the Champions League itself. This season firmly established PSG among the giants of world football and marked one of the most successful campaigns in the Club's history. Since QSI's investment in 2011, PSG has won an unprecedented 37 trophies, become a global force across men's, women's, and youth football, and evolved into a cultural and commercial icon beyond the sport itself. Other key achievements include: Top-3 revenues in world football of €806 million (up from €101 million in 2011). The Club has contributed over €3 billion to French public finances since 2011. State of the art +€350 million training centre in Poissy, focus on developing local Parisian talent. 191 PSG Academies in 21 different countries. 228 million followers on social media (up from 600 thousand in 2011). The Club continues its pursuit of greatness in the US this month, advancing to the quarterfinals of the Club World Cup following their 4-0 defeat of Inter Miami on Sunday 29 June.
Qatar Tribune
30-06-2025
- Business
- Qatar Tribune
Qatar Sports Investments marks 14 years of transformative ownership of Paris Saint-Germain
Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) on Monday marked the 14th anniversary of its acquisition of Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), celebrating a period of extraordinary transformation, growth, and sporting excellence that reached its greatest milestone yet with the Club's historic UEFA Champions League 2025 triumph just weeks ago. On Saturday (May 31), PSG claimed the most prestigious title in European club football, defeating Inter Milan 5-0 in a commanding performance in Munich. This landmark victory - the Club's first UEFA Champions League title - ended a historic 2024–2025 season in which PSG won four major trophies: the Trophée des Champions (1-0 vs AS Monaco on January 5th at Stadium 974 in Doha), Ligue 1, which the Club won by a dominant 19-point margin, the Coupe de France (3-0 vs Reims on May 24th at the Stade de France), and finally, the Champions League itself. This season firmly established PSG among the giants of world football and marked one of the most successful campaigns in the Club's history. Since QSI's investment in 2011, PSG has won an unprecedented 37 trophies, become a global force across men's, women's, and youth football, and evolved into a cultural and commercial icon beyond the sport itself. Other key achievements include: • Top-3 revenues in world football of €806 million (up from €101 million in 2011). • The Club has contributed over €3 billion to French public finances since 2011. • State of the art +€350 million training centre in Poissy, focus on developing local Parisian talent. • 191 PSG Academies in 21 different countries. • 228 million followers on social media (up from 600 thousand in 2011). The Club continues its pursuit of greatness in the US this month, advancing to the quarter-finals of the Club World Cup following their 4-0 defeat of Inter Miami on Sunday.
