Blogs and other new media forms are at the forefront when it comes to keeping art professionals updated in the Middle East.
Middle Eastern art blogger Taymour Grahne is launching a series comprehensive art guides to various cities around West Asia. By providing accurate and up-to-date information on where to go and what to see, Grahne hopes to generate art tourism for the region.

Masthead for Taymour Grahne's Art of the Mid East blog.
The guides will run on Grahne’s blog, Art of the Mid East, which covers emerging artists and events in the region. As reported in the Arab News,
The art guides will suggest a list of museums, galleries and institutions with details about the collections and information about the opening hours, closing days, including how much time is needed to visit each gallery or museum. The guides will also provide the names of people to talk to regarding each city’s art scene as well as a calendar of cultural events, biennales and art fairs, and even details about visiting artists’ studios.
Grahne will start with Beirut, Lebanon where he has lived for six years. He then hopes to expand the guides and cover over a dozen more cities, including Jeddah, Dubai, Casablanca and, when it is safer to travel there, Damascus and Baghdad.
With the rapid expansion of art institutions around the Middle East, from infrastructure projects like Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island project to several regional galleries either opening or expanding their operations, Grahne’s art guides may prove a useful resource for those keen on exploring the contemporary Middle Eastern art scene.
PR/KN
Related Topics: art tourism, art in the Middle East, art media, art and the Internet, resources
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