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Image Not Available for Dubai Hot Tub
Dubai Hot Tub
Image Not Available for Dubai Hot Tub

Dubai Hot Tub

Artist (American, 1946–2009)
Date2005; printed 2021
Mediumarchival pigment print on Dibond
Dimensions76.2 × 101.6 cm (30 × 40 in.)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Markingson verso: estate stamp
Credit LineSarah C. Garver Fund
Object number2022.4
Label TextDubai Hot Tub is one of Sultan’s most complex examples of relational confusion. Here, as in many of his best-known photographs, viewers struggle to understand how his models connect to each other, the camera, and themselves. Staged in a strange desert hotel room, the photograph incorporates several figures representing incongruent identities in terms of class, religion, race, and gender. The subjects appear to look in different directions; however, the mirror at right confirms that the wealthy seated woman stares directly at an equally forceful woman in a black khimar head covering. Together, they represent two contrasting examples of women in the United Arab Emirates, one of unapologetic extravagance and the other of religious piety.
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