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Podcast: Middle East Dossier
Episode: [MEI Salon] Selling Out? Fighting Over Art in Syria (Past and Present)
Description: What are the costs of participation in the global art world? This talk highlights recent debates about the value of art in Syria both before and after the 2011 uprisings, regime reprisals and devastating wars. Professor Anneka Lenssen will be drawing on her fieldwork in Syria between 2008 and 2010 to discuss the acute changes in Syria’s national art scene after Bashar al-Asad’s regime opted to open the controlled arts sector to private galleries and international auction houses.
As dealers grew rich while artists remained penniless (and fakes flooded the market), members of the Syrian art world fought bitt...