{"id":46058,"date":"2023-03-08T20:32:43","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T16:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/?p=46058"},"modified":"2023-03-08T21:29:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T17:29:05","slug":"what-does-arabic-art-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magpie.ae\/staging4\/what-does-arabic-art-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"What does ‘Arabic art’ mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the functions of art, and particularly of art exhibitions, and most especially of not-for-profit exhibitions that carry an explicit theme, is to encourage reflection. Yes, there should be a visceral, personal reaction: at its best, the art will speak to you \u2013 one or more pieces will make you feel, or think, or both. But it\u2019s a sign of a notable exhibition that you start looking for a bigger (as it were) picture. Just what is it that links or divides the artworks? How did this art get here from there? Where are those places anyway? Where\u2019s it going next?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s by way of introduction to some personal thoughts about what \u2018Arabic\u2019 or \u2018Middle Eastern art\u2019 actually means. The catalyst was the recently-ended Khaleej Modern<\/a> <\/em>show, another of the NYUAD Art Gallery\u2019s significant contributions to the regional history of modern art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thesis of the show was the development in the 1960s and 70s of local groups of artists who shared views about the function and value of contemporary art. But it probably wasn\u2019t a show of Arabic art, not at least in the conventional Western idea of a range of artistic traditions and styles that have developed within the cultural and geographical context of the Arabic world (which for current purposes includes Farsi as well as Arabic speakers). That\u2019s the traditional art-market view: intricate geometric patterns, floral motifs, calligraphy, religious or cultural symbolism, an emphasis on abstract forms and decorative motifs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a certain Western smugness in this catch-all description, the same kind of attitude that produced Orientalism; Arabic art could be seen as exotic, exclusive, unrelated to Western styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That changed in the 20th century. Artists started to learn skills and use materials that hadn\u2019t hitherto been part of their traditions, like easel painting and readymade oil paints. This may have been the product of modern educational systems introduced in the 1950s (meaning students were exposed to a broader range of inputs) plus government scholarships for students to study art abroad (especially in France). But following Western tradition, even Western styles, doesn\u2019t mean that those artists were practising Western art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In part that\u2019s because the idea of \u2018modern\u2019 art in the West implies a break from \u2018traditional\u2019 forms. But in the Gulf there is a different history of artistic practice, understood outside the world of art museums and galleries, with none of the Western high-low distinction of fine art versus craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Maya Allison, Executive Director of The NYUAD Art Gallery and Chief Curator at the university, put it to us, \u201cthe emergence of modern art [in the Arab world] is not modernism in the sense of rebelling against representational painting; it\u2019s a totally different moment. You could call painting on canvas a \u2018new media\u2019 practice in the mid-century Gulf\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Khaleej Modern<\/em> at The NYUAD Art Gallery. Photo John Varghese<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More important is the role of political and social realities in the region. There\u2019s so much to say about conflict, colonialism, migration; the Middle East has so often been a kind of laboratory for societal change. Art has always been a way of reflecting socio-political change, and that\u2019s especially true here; \u201cthe emergence of modern art in the gulf is also the history of the emergence of nations that we know today\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sultan Sooud al Qasimi is particularly good on politics and art in the Middle East; indeed, that\u2019s frequently the subject of the courses he delivers. He\u2019s noted the role of fine art societies in the 1950s and 60s. This was a time when much of the region was replacing foreign occupation, as protectorates or colonies, with independent or populist governments that sometimes meant little change to individual freedoms. In this environment, a flush of fine art societies provided the space for social activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art was regarded by the hard-men rulers as a safe, soft option; in practice they provided a space for artists but also poets, singers, journalists, professors, lawyers, to exchange ideas. Such societies emerged in Khartoum, Kuwait, Cairo, Alexandria, Rabat, Beirut, Amman, Tehran, Sharjah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new identity emerged from this exchange of ideas, and in presentations and talks al Qasimi has pointed to the \u201cseismic shift\u201d between art in Arabia in the first half of the 20th century when compared to the second half: \u201cthe work no longer looks like European art. By the ’50s and ’60s, you see the emergence of an identity that is very different, that is unique to the region \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political commentary and allegory provided much of the change. For instance, Kadhim Haidar\u2019s seminal 1965 work Fatigued Ten Horses Converse with Nothing<\/em> (top) is notionally about the eighth century battle of Karbala, which resulted in the death of Imam Hussein Ibn Ali; but it also references the 1963 Ba’athist coup in Iraq, in which many suspected dissidents and political opponents were killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of contemporary art from the region similarly reflects social and political turmoil, especially the occupation of Palestine but also (for instance) gender issues, the environment, hypercommercialisation, the emphasis on oil wealth and its consequences. These themes are reflected in work from artists right across the region in a way that is not seen elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, Maya Allison cautions against succumbing to stereotypes in this kind of conversation. \u201cI think that curating by region always has to be in dialogue with preconceptions of what it means to be Arab or from an Arab country. In some exhibitions of art from the Arab world that I have seen, you\u2019d think the only thing that ever happens there is displacement, terrorism and war. A lot of nuance can get lost in popular representations of the Arab world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Khaleej Modern<\/em> artists were bound together by regional experience. It\u2019s not about Arab art, but maybe it is about a contribution to nation-making in the Arab world. \u201cWhat does it mean to become an artist at a time when there’s no obvious path to becoming an artist? This is what [the artists in Khaleej Modern<\/em>] share \u2013 the Gulf countries were staring to form the infrastructures for art production and art display and art study. I am a fan of question-based exhibition making, and here the question is: what does it look like to develop an art scene, to become an artist in a country that is itself being established? And that was the case for all the artists in Khaleej Modern<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe there\u2019s a pointer in the name. \u2018Modern\u2019 art has a specific meaning in the art market, associated with a particular set of stylistic and aesthetic attributes but normally being defined by period \u2013 art created more or less in the 20th century, sometimes from post WWI but at its broadest covering art from the 1880s up to the 1970s. (\u2018Contemporary\u2019 art describes current works of art, usually meaning art by living artists.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u2018modern\u2019 in a historical sense means something different, the point when society encounters the forces of global change \u2013 industrialisation, infrastructure, education, ideas from elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The modernity in Khaleej Modern<\/em>‘s title signifies that change: in artistic terms, it\u2019s the sudden leap from a local culture of poetry, weaving, architectural ornamentation, all those other attributes perceived by the West as exotic, to paintings on canvas. That’s part of what Arabic art means today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ibrahim Ismail, Building of Ships (1966)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To get the right perspective we need access to the art, of course, and her initiatives like The Dubai Collection<\/a> will help; essentially this is a catalogue of short-term loans from private collectors to a central pool of works that will sometimes be shown publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a very different scale, and destined for permanent public display<\/a>, is the Barjeel Art Foundation collection<\/a> \u2013 more than a thousand works, modern and contemporary, from all over the Middle East. It\u2019s rare in the Arab world that such an extensive private collection is being gifted to the public free of charge, but it will surely become key to explaining the significance of these artists and their place in a global conversation. (In the meantime, more than a hundred works from the Barjeel collection have spent five years on long-term loan at Sharjah Art Museum under the apposite title A Century in Flux.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other key regional centre is Doha\u2019s Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art<\/a>, with a permanent collection of around 9,000 works from the Arab World and a curatorial approach that looks at art histories and major art movements in dialogue with pan-Arab cultural groups and international avant-gardes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019re lucky in the UAE \u2013 for many reasons, of course, but art-wise a couple of points stand out. There\u2019s the geography of a place rooted in Arabia that happens to be on an intersection of trade routes and sociopolitical ties. There\u2019s the social structure, and especially the disposable wealth, that underpins a busy commercial art scene; we have a lot of galleries, and they\u2019re busy. We have collectors, patrons and retailers with money to spend\/invest. We have not one but two commercial art fairs, many interior-decor retailers for affordable art plus a couple of major events (Sikka and World Art Dubai), and a government that recognises the value of the creative economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could probably do with more non-commercial places to see permanent collections of art, but the Jameel<\/a>, the Louvre<\/a>, the Sharjah Art Museum<\/a> and the NYUAD Art Gallery<\/a> isn\u2019t a bad selection \u2013 and maybe the Barjeel Museum for Modern Arab Art<\/a> and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi<\/a> will join them sometime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s more to these institutional venues than hanging space, of course, and one of the impressive aspects of the country\u2019s art scene is the development and\/or arrival of some impressive (mostly young) curators. \u201cCuration is the art of creating something new, coherent and meaningful out of an abundance of related information and ideas\u201d as one commentator put it. The art is in the selection, but also the edit, the arrangement, the making of lists \u2026 We have seen some very good curators here, the likes of Karim Sultan, Laura Metzler, Muneera Al Sayegh, Reem Fadda, Noor Al Suwaidi, and of course Maya Allison herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s an interesting time to be here, and to be thinking about art here. The modern art history of the region is still being written, and the contemporary art scene is bustling. Is \u2018Arabic art\u2019 a useful term? No, if you\u2019re looking for a definition in terms of style or membership of a specific movement. Yes, insofar as it signifies an artist who identifies as Arab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that in itself may be useful; it spotlights a group that has been largely unrepresented historically and internationally. In the international art world, it has been hard for Arab artists to have a presence. The weight of expectation, the sheer number of exhibition outlets and art magazines, the plethora of art schools, all serve to produce large numbers of \u2018Western\u2019 artists \u2013 others can get swamped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s Maya Allison again: \u201cI think many artists that are asked to represent an ethnicity, a nationality, a culture, an identity will push back against that. Or at most they\u2019ll harness it insofar as it’s useful to them or meaningful to them. And it is meaningful to have a voice when there hasn’t been a voice before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut what you do with that voice is going to vary depending on what art means to you. The minute you ask art to be for something, if we\u2019re not careful, it becomes propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m very sensitive to the fact that art is the way that an individual chooses to engage with their cultural context, with who they are and with what’s meaningful to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo I might not say there’s Arab art, but I would say there are Arab contexts for art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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