CRUDE

espite the centrality of oil to the creation and current realities of the modern Middle East, the region’s history of hydrocarbon extraction, petroimperialism and the proliferation of unsustainable petro-based cultures has never been explored in a contemporary art exhibition. With his proposition that oil is both “magical and insidious,” Murtaza Vali, curator of “Crude,” the inaugural group exhibition at Dubai’s Jameel Arts Centre, suggested there are