Massimiliano Gioni quotes:

In some Arab art exhibitions that have happened, there's always this idea that the East is more traditional; they show a lot of works on calligraphy and religion.

Maybe there are some traditional things, but they are more about the way the West packages the East.

Art in the United States is a kind of visual entertainment focusing on expected narratives.

Many of the artists are not pretending to have an objective point of view. They're revealing the subjectivity.

People want to see things that are visually beautiful.

The sad thing is that somehow, it is a type of event that mirrors the artist. You take it into account, and you're reminded in this specific case what the artist's work is about, what his life is like, and how life mirrors art.

You witness the artists acting as witnesses, but they provide a point of view that's less monolithic. It's less official in a certain way. Many artists are speaking in the first person singular, as a reaction to dubbed-over media commentary. The thought is: "Enough with how we're represented by the media. Let me tell the story."

We need to remind ourselves that contemporary art is first of all a form of conceptual gymnastics, in which we learn to coexist with what we don't understand.