SICA (The Service Centre for International Cultural Activities) invited me to write an 1800-word article for their Magazine about the state of contemporary art in the Middle East and Arab world. Of course this is entirely impossible because an undertaking like that would require at least 18.000 words. In addition, I could only write about the places I had spent time in, and had undertaken research in, which left North Africa, Syria, and large parts of the Gulf out. Can you imagine doing a similar exercise about the state of contemporary art in Europe? It’s an impossible task to start out with, yet I will not deny that there are similarities…just as much as we can find similarities between Germany and The Netherlands, if we look hard enough. Nevertheless, the SICA seemed quite pleased with my effort, and since my attempt at poetic prose and nuance got abbreviated and rather butchered in Dutch translation, I think it’s fair to offer you the original text here. :-)

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DEFYING DEFINITION: CONTEMPORARY ART AND CULTURAL PRACTICE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

I like to start essays with an opening quote, which indicate the mood or direction of the piece the reader has before her. A few poetic lines of someone far more articulate than myself, to tease the reader subtly into a frame of reference. Yet, I have found it difficult with this article. Perhaps because often when reading about “non-Western” art or viewing regional exhibitions, the tone is celebratory, in the sense that “otherness” is celebrated. This I will not do. Nor will I regurgitate tried and tired debates about intercultural dialogue. To be honest, there is no quote I can think of that does justice to the complexity and heterogeneity of artistic production in the Middle East/Arab world. . In addition, it is unfortunate that at the time of writing any contemplation on arts and culture in the Middle East is marred bitterly by the recent clashes in Lebanon, and the 60th year commemoration of the Palestinian nakba . Yet it also is a marker that any form of cultural praxis within the region is inextricably bound to its socio- and geo-politics.

The past 10 years have seen a growing interest in contemporary art from the Middle East/Arab world. This is not least due to the founding of a few seminal arts and culture initiatives, such as The Townhouse Gallery in Cairo (1998), Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese association for Plastic Arts in Beirut (1994), Al-Ma’mal in East-Jerusalem (1998), The Khalil Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah (1996), Qattan Foundation in Ramallah (1994), Darat al Funun in Amman (1993) being primary examples. The past 5 years a younger generation of artists and culture workers have founded independent collectives, galleries and art spaces with a programming that struts between keeping global art developments in check, and catering to local audiences. Here ACAF – Alexandria Contemporary Art Forum in Alexandria (2005), CIC – Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo (2004), Makan in Amman (2003), and PACA - The Palestinian Association of Contemporary Art in Ramallah, now part of the International Academy of Art - Palestine (2006/7), are a case in point. Independent music labels have mushroomed, many of them into experimental electronics or improvisation, such as Lebanese cartoonist and trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj’s Al Maslakh, Beiruti punk rocker and electronic musician Charbel Haber’s Those Kids Must Choke, Egyptian Mahmoud Refat’s 100 copies, and a slew of Palestinian rappers and hip hoppers from the refugee camps in Lebanon to the mixed towns within the Israeli Green Line. Contemporary art festivals have blossomed in the past few years. Beirut, a city of a mere 1,5 million, boasts more film and music festivals than the whole of The Netherlands together. The cherry on the contemporary art pie is the Home Works Forum, organised by Ashkal Alwan, an interdisciplinary event featuring lectures, panels, exhibitions, film and video screenings, and publications, organized ideally every 18 months, when political conditions permit. Cairo boasts an international Film Festival and Photo Cairo, a festival with an emphasis on photography and visual culture, now entering its 4th edition in December 2008. The precarious political situation in Palestine has made it difficult to organise large scale projects, yet initiatives as the aforementioned Academy of Art and the Riwaq Biennial for Art and Design have been seminal in offering a platform for artistic discourse, practice and exchange. The Gulf also has its rub with contemporary art, much reviled as a complete sell-out of artistic heritage (in the case of Abu Dhabi’s plan of setting up a Louvre and Guggenheim), art as tourism (in the case of the Art Dubai Art Fair, established in 2007 and held in the luxury beach resort of Jumeira), or as a revamping of conservative Sharjah, in the case of the 20-year old Sharjah Biennial, which has been saved the past few years from oblivion by its visionary new president Sheikha Hoor Al Kasmi and its artistic director, East-Jerusalem’s Al-Ma’mal founder Jack Persekian. The list goes on and on…

Nevertheless, ask your average art lover in Europe, or even an art professional, about contemporary art from the region, and your question will be met by a shrug in the worst case, a reference to Islamic art or Shirin Neshat, in the best case. The stereotypical image of “The Orient” is a persistent one, and the rise in xenophobia, and more specifically Islamophobia in European capitals, unfortunately only reinforce the latter. Yet, it is also up to curators, critics, artists and other art practitioners to do away with those engrained presumptions. A much heard one is on the topic of modernism and authenticity. In 2008, with a globalised art market, and artists hopscotching from one biennial to the other, from one art fair to the other, with “purity” and “the authentic” being archaic concepts within a postmodern discourse, one wonders why artists from the Middle East, and not their European peers, should bear the brunt to be authentic, pure and representative? Granted:

"The effects of globalisation of the market are no doubt changing certain parts of the art scene for the better by raising the profiles of certain artists in their own societies as a result of their arrival on the international stage. However, they are also changing the scene for the worse by systematically favoring certain forms of formal expression – “recipes” – that can be immediately assimilated by a global art scene and market, to the detriment of more complicated and idiosyncratic expressions of original cultures and societies, which get “lost in translation” as it were." (Catherine David Interviewed by Jérôme Sans, p.57)

This is an apt remark, made by Catherine David, who with her “Contemporary Arab Representations” Project (1998-2006), showcasing artists from respectively Beirut, Cairo, Iran, Iraq, ironically (and probably unwillingly) had no small part in perpetuating. Laura Srouji, director of Amman’s Darat al Funun, has lamented that the only thing she sees nowadays is video, with little attention to other media. Similarly Palestinian curator Salwa Mikdadi has cautioned that the proliferation of video art on the global art market and international biennials risks a depreciation of other – traditionally rich - disciplines involving the non-visual, such as poetry, theatre and literature. Thorny as these issues are, they do perpetually beg the question of identity and positioning, of audiences and representation.

It is no small wonder then, even if very diverse in medium, execution and production conditions, that artists from the region have, as Beirut-based arts and culture journalist Kaelen Wilson-Goldie points out, been pre-occupied with “engaging history and memory on the one hand, and reactivating the urban and the cosmopolitan on the other.” (p.18) In the case of Lebanon, where there is close to no local funding for the arts, except for private sponsorship and international donors: the first Lebanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennial in 2007 was erected with a $100.000,- budget, all private Lebanese and Italian money; not one ministerial pound went into the venture. Suffering a 18-month long political crisis, and being without a president since November 2007, Lebanon in general lacks (functioning) institutions. This is reflected to a degree throughout the art scene, where its capital Beirut – though an art hub for the region and beyond – still lacks a physical contemporary art platform, and where art projects are habitually tied into festival contexts..

Where the state fails in providing narratives and taking historical responsibility, art can sometimes come in. For example, almost 20 years after the Ta’if Accords, which ended 15 years of civil strife in Lebanon (1975-1990), Lebanon is still without an official history. Lebanese artists such as Akram Zaatari, Tony Chakar, Lamia Joreige, Walid Raad, Khalil Joreige & Joanna Hadjithomas, Nadine Touma, Rabih Mroue and Lina Saneh have been dealing for over a decade with the ghosts of the civil war, exemplifying a wilful stubbornness to excavate personal and collective memory, and tell narratives which have become sedimented in the rubble of destroyed buildings. In their work a cautious and investigative relationship with the medium utilised is expressed. A younger generation of artists such as visual artist Mounira el Solh, photographer Randa Mirza,, performer Ali Cherry, and audio-visual artist Raed Yassin are experimenting with different formal and aesthetic languages to express political and identitarian matters. Graphic design has become one of the most popular study choices for young Lebanese, and especially A.U.B. (American University of Beirut) boasts an excellent Graphic Design Department. In effect, it is Graphic Design A.U.B. Professor Zeina Maasri who in her recent exhibition “Signs of Conflict: Political Posters of Lebanon’s Civil War (1975-1990)”, not only performs a visual archaeology of a gloomy cultural heritage, but also by corollary reconstructs Lebanon’s untold history in an open and critical way.

Whereas the Lebanese suffer from “de-institutionalisation”, it can be said that the Egyptians suffer from “over-institutionalisation”. A nasty remnant of a failed Nasserite nationalist project, stretching well into the soft dictatorship of the current president Hosni Mubarak’s reign (for the past 26 years), Egypt’s institutions are plagued by bureaucracy, inefficiency, cronyism, over-staffing and corruption. So too for the government-sponsored arts institutions like the old-fashioned sculpture and painting-oriented art academies, the dilapidated museums, and contemporary art spaces. In contradistinction to Lebanon, the State does support culture, investing in their Venice Biennial Pavilions, putting up shows in the villas of lore which house the government sponsored venues. Yet here’s the catch: no government dissent or societal critique is tolerated, if one wants to see some cash flow. Moreover, there’s a tendency to herald Egypt’s great pharaonic past and ancient civilisation, while any reference to its crumbling present is taboo. Egypt is wedged between the pressures of a globalising world economy and growing Islamic conservatism, and a consequence of this is that “[l]ocal visual cultural production operates in a climate in which the content of news, literature, and art production is controlled officially through censorship laws and unofficially through conservative forces that direct public opinion and foster self-censorship” This has to effect that none of the state-run art academies provide for photography or video in their curriculum, let alone art criticism.

Independent non-profit organisations, such as The Townhouse Gallery and CIC in Cairo, ACAF in Alexandria, attempt to fill this vacuum, and provide workshops, lectures, informal education, and exhibitions including photography and video art. In the independent scene we find a desire to promote an engaged artistic and critical contemporary practice. Of course governmental funding is out of the question here, and these organisations scramble their existence by a total dependency on international funding and private sponsoring. Moreover, the events of the independent scene are de facto structurally boycotted and shunned by university and art academy professors, and their respective students. This is something which seems incredulous from a European perspective, but is an all too regrettable reality here. Nevertheless, the independent scene has spun artists which do well nationally, as on the international circuits, such as photographers Lara Baladi, Rana el Nemr and Maha Mamoun; visual artists Wael Shawky, Tarek Zaki,, Sherif el Azma, Amal Kenawy,, audio-visual artist Hassan Khan, and the now in Amsterdam-residing Hala Elkoussy. What underlines the work of this generation is a firm engagement with their urban surroundings – not difficult with a 20 million (and growing) sprawling metropolis – and a questioning of identity, be it national, religious, or Arab. Humour, incorporation of pop and street culture (as in the work of young artist Ayman Ramadan), and relishing the absurd (as in the work of Basim Magdy), feature strongly.

Inter-regional mobility, or simply the lack thereof, is a problem most cultural workers suffer in the Middle East. Indeed, it is far easier for us Europeans to hop from Cairo, to Beirut, to Dubai, than for our Arab colleagues, who have to put up with lengthy visa procedures, and at times do not get a visa granted at all. This is perhaps one of the reasons that there is little inter-regional collaboration. The obstruction of movement is of course exacerbated in the case of the Palestinians, where closures, travel bans and road blocks make mobility under occupation increasingly difficult and painful. Developing and maintaining a cultural scene, requires a minimum of mobility on the part of audiences and artists, of people coming in and people going out. Without a viable Palestinian state, and NGOs providing most of social infrastructure, it is due to the efforts of local Palestinian curators such as Jack Persekian (Al-Ma’amal), Adila Laidi (former director of Sakakini, now professor at Bir Zeit University), Reem Fadda (International Academy of Art) and Salwa Mikdadi (associated with Al Hoash, Palestinian Art Court), and of prominent Palestinian artists in the diaspora, notably Venice Biennale Golden Lion winner Emily Jacir, Ayreen Anastas, and Larissa Sansour, and local artists like for instance Vera Tamari and Tina Sherwell, that the insistence on a small, but vibrant Palestinian art scene has not curbed under the duress of occupation.

Due to the democratisation of video, in cost and production, and the relative ease of distribution (DVDs can be sent by courier when physical mobility is constrained), video art and short film has gained much popularity amongst the younger generation of artists. Muhannad Al-Yacubi’s Idioms Films, and Rowan al Faqih’s Palestinian Filmmakers' Collective, are a case in point, as is the work of – a predominantly female generation of filmmakers - Enas Muthaffar, Nahed Awwad, and Najwa Najjar. Visual artists Jumana Abboud, Rana Bishara mix the performative in their video or mixed media installations, while in photography Rula Halawani and Ahlam Shibli have earned international acclaim, as has conceptual artist Khalil Rabah. In Palestine there is a strong artistic tradition where the post-nakba generation of artists, such as painters Sliman Mansour, Kamal Boullata and visual artist Vera Tamari have been highly influential. Overriding themes within current Palestinian practice stem from the harsh reality of living under occupation: displacement, exile, memory, violence, identity, loss and home.

What can be said about contemporary artistic production in Palestine – and perhaps for much of the Arab world – is that it is concerned with presenting a counterpoise to Western representations of their respective realities – whether that be the variations on a theme of “oriental exoticism” found in Western literature and history, or the essentialist clichés of chaos, violence and criminality replicated in television news and commercial cinema. It is high time that we, as western audiences, cast our eyes away from the generic image, and open our eyes to these other images and representations.