Bidoun is a quarterly print magazine published in New York and subtitled "art and culture from the Middle East." The magazine was founded in 2004 by Editor-in-Chief Lisa Farjam. Bidoun also encompasses Bidoun Projects, a non-profit organization dedicated to curatorial and educational projects around the world.

Bidoun was a finalist for the 2009 National Magazine Award

National Magazine Award

The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...

 for General Excellence (circulation category less than 100k). It has won three Utne

Utne

Utne is a village in Ullensvang municipality in Hardanger, Norway. It is home to the Utne Hotel, Norway's oldest hotel in continuous operation, founded in 1722....

 Independent Press Awards, for Social/Cultural Coverage and Design.

Name

The word "bidoun" means “without” in both Arabic and Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

. It is commonly mispronounced and confused with the word Bedouin

Bedouin

The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...

.

Contributors

Notable contributors to the magazine include: Tirdad Zolghadr

Tirdad Zolghadr

Tirdad Zolghadr , works as a freelance curator, writes for Frieze Magazine and has also contributed to Parkett, Bidoun, Cabinet, Afterall, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Straits Times Singapore and other publications. Zolghadr currently teaches at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College NY...

, Pankaj Mishra

Pankaj Mishra

Pankaj Mishra born 1969 in Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh , is an Indian essayist and novelist. He is particularly notable for his book Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, a sociological study of small-town India, and his writing for the New York Review of Books.He graduated with a bachelor's degree in commerce...

, Binyavanga Wainaina

Binyavanga Wainaina

Binyavanga Wainaina is a Kenyan author, journalist and winner of the Caine Prize.-Early life and education:Binyavanga Wainaina was born in Nakuru in Rift Valley province. He attended Moi Primary School in Nakuru, Mangu High School in Thika, and Lenana School in Nairobi...

, Eyal Weizman

Eyal Weizman

Eyal Weizman is an Israeli intellectual and architect. Involved in political theory through the case of Palestine, Weizman's most known theoretical work describes the acts of the Israeli army as founded upon the post-structuralist French philosophers and a reading of them...

, Tony Shafrazi

Tony Shafrazi

Tony Shafrazi is the owner of the Shafrazi Art Gallery in New York, who deals artwork by artists such as Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, and David LaChapelle....

, The Yes Men

The Yes Men

The Yes Men are a culture jamming activist duo and network of supporters created by Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. Through actions of tactical media, The Yes Men primarily aim to raise awareness about what they consider problematic social issues. To date, the duo has produced two films: The Yes Men...

, Mai Abu ElDahab, Jace Clayton, Thomas Keenan, Naeem Mohaiemen

Naeem Mohaiemen

Naeem Mohaiemen is a historian and visual artist, working in Dhaka and New York. His research looks at the international left and the failure of utopia projects.-Writing:...

, Yto Barrada

Yto Barrada

Yto Barrada is a visual artist living and working in Tangier, Morocco.-Life and work:Yto Barrada is the daughter of French journalist Hamid Barrada...

, Bruce Hainley, Hampton Fancher

Hampton Fancher

Hampton Fancher is a former actor who became a producer and screenwriter in the late 1970s. Fancher was born to a Mexican mother and an American father in East Los Angeles, California, US. At 15, he ran away to Spain to become a flamenco dancer and renamed himself Mario Montejo. He was married...

, Gini Aldaheff, Elizabeth Rubin, Shirana Shahbazi, Hassan Khan, Akram Zaatari, Michael Rakowitz, Natascha Sadr Haghighian

Natascha Sadr Haghighian

Natascha Sadr Haghighian is an artist who lives and works in Berlin, Germany.Her work is "primarily concerned with the socio-political implications of constructions of vision from a central perspective and with abstract events within the structure of industrial society, as well as with the...

, William E Jones, Rokni Haerizadeh, Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...

, Shumon Basar, Farhad Moshiri

Farhad Moshiri

Farhad Moshiri is an Iranian artist.He was born in Shiraz, Iran, and studied fine arts at CalArts in California. In America he first started experimenting with installations, video art and painting before coming back to Tehran in 1991...

, Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...

, Charles Esche

Charles Esche

Charles Esche is a curator and writer. Since 2004, he has been Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands. He is co-founder and co-editor of Afterall Journal and Afterall Books with Mark Lewis. Afterall is a contemporary art publication which was first launched in 1998 and is based at...

 and Mohamed Mrabet

Mohamed Mrabet

Mohammed Mrabet is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of Berber heritage from the Ait Ouriaghel tribe in the Rif region. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams...

, Slavs and Tatars

Slavs and Tatars

Slavs and Tatars is a collective and "a faction of polemics and intimacies devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia"...

, George Pendle

George Pendle

George Pendle is a British author and journalist. He was educated at Stowe School and St Peter's College, Oxford.After working at The Times from 1997 to 2001, Pendle wrote his first book, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist Jack Parsons .Pendle’s second book – The Remarkable...

, Wayne Koestenbaum

Wayne Koestenbaum

Wayne Koestenbaum is an American poet and cultural critic. He received a B.A. from Harvard University, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, and a Ph.D. from Princeton University...

, Amir Ali Ghassemi

Amir Ali Ghassemi

Amirali Ghasemi , born on 20 August 1980 in Tehran, Iran is an Iranian artist. His focus area is mainly graphic design, photography and digital art...

, Sislej Xhafa

Sislej Xhafa

Sislej Xhafa is an Kosovo Albanian contemporary artist who lives and works in New York.- Life and work:...

.

Books

• WITH/WITHOUT Spatial Products, Practices and Politics in the Middle East, Edited by Shumon Basar, Antonia Carver and Markus Miessen (Bidoun/Moutamarat, 2007) ISBN 978-9948-03-453-7
• Provisions | Sharjah Biennial 9: Book 1, Edited by Antonia Carver, Valerie Grove and Lara Khaldi (Bidoun/Sharjah Art Foundation, 2009) ISBN 978-9948-04-607-2
• Provisions | Sharjah Biennial 9: Book 2, Edited by Antonia Carver and Lara Khaldi (Bidoun/Sharjah Art Foundation, 2010) ISBN 978-9978-04-553-X

BubuWeb

In 2009 Bidoun initiated a collaboration with the web-based archive UbuWeb

UbuWeb

UbuWeb is a large web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.-Philosophy:...

 in order to make available rare video and sound pieces from in and around the Middle East.

Exhibitions

• 'NOISE': A 2009 group show at Sfeir–Semler gallery in Beirut
  Beirut
  Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
  
   featuring Vartan Avakian, Steven Baldi, Walead Beshty
  Walead Beshty
  Walead Beshty is a Los Angeles-based photographer.Beshty earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College in 1999, and a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art in 2002...
  
  , Haris Epaminonda, Media Farzin, Marwan, Yoshua Okon, Babak Radboy, Bassam Ramlawi, Mounira Al Solh, Andree Sfeir, Rayyane Tabet, Lawrence Weiner
  Lawrence Weiner
  Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...
  
   and Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck
• 'Forms of Compensation': A series of 21 reproductions of iconic modern and contemporary artworks produced in Cairo
  Cairo
  Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
  
   by craftspeople and auto mechanics in the neighborhood around the Townhouse Gallery
  The Townhouse Gallery
  The Townhouse Gallery was established in 1998 as an independent, non-profit art space in Egypt with a goal of making contemporary arts accessible to all without compromising creative practice. The Townhouse supports artistic work in a wide range of media through exhibitions, residencies for artists...
  
  , commissioned by Babak Radboy and overseen by Ayman Ramadan
• 'Museum as Hub: The Bidoun Library Project': A highly partial account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about, and around the Middle East hosted by the New Museum in the Summer of 2010

Quotes About Bidoun

"When you talk to me about West and East and Bidoun—I’m a real fan, as you know, of the magazine— but I don’t think it’s going to help." —Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...

"Bidoun emerged at just the right time as the world looked at the Middle East through the singular lens of failure. The magazine is smart and irreverent in all the right ways." —Ahdaf Soueif

Ahdaf Soueif

Ahdaf Soueif is an Anglo-Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator.-Life and career:Soueif was born in Cairo and educated in Egypt and England...

"Bidoun’s editorial voice might be described as a combination of Artforum

Artforum

Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...

 and Harper's, its audience comprising artists, academics, and intellectually curious readers who enjoy a magazine that manages to dissect Edward Said

Edward Said

Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...

 and Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...

 in the same issue." —Print magazine

Print (magazine)

The publication, Print, A Quarterly Journal of the Graphic Arts, was a limited edition quarterly periodical begun in 1940 and continued under different names up to the present day as Print, a bimonthly American magazine about visual culture and design.In its current format, Print documents and...

Issues and Themes

• Issue 00: We Are You
• Issue 01: We Are Spatial
• Issue 02: We Are Old
• Issue 03: Hair
• Issue 04: Emirates Now
• Issue 05: Icons
• Issue 06: Envy
• Issue 07: Tourism
• Issue 08: Interviews
• Issue 09: Rumor
• Issue 10: Technology
• Issue 11: Failure
• Issue 12: Projects
• Issue 13: Glory
• Issue 14: Objects
• Issue 15: Pulp
• Issue 16: Kids
• Issue 17: Flowers
• Issue 18: Interviews
• Issue 19: Noise
• Issue 20: Bazaar
• Issue 21: Bazaar II
• Issue 22: Library
• Issue 23: Squares
• Issue 24: Sports