What
You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter
Special Investigation:
Have Journalist Been Deliberately Murdered in Iraq by the US
Military?
Our new
CounterPunch newsletter, just out, Christopher Reed examines
the growing body count of journalists in Iraq and documents numerous
incidents where US troops have deliberately targeted reporters.
Charles Glass offers a
stark comparison of the uprooting of Palestians in the Galilee
during the 1948 war to the lush compensation of Israeli's living
on the same land who were displaced by the war on Lebanon. Remember, we are funded
solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this
website by buying a
subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you
won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation towards the
cost of this online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now
Christie's and the Rush to "Discover"
the Arab World
Depoliticizing
Arab Art
By MAYMANAH FARHAT
The May 2006 opening of Christie's Dubai
marked a new era for modern and contemporary Arab art. Establishing
record prices for several pioneering artists, the inaugural auction
affirmed the growing popularity of art from the region. With
sales reaching well over $8.4 million, many observers of the
field predict the auction could generate a greater place for
Arab art in the international market. Some have even gone as
far to claim that the record prices will serve to further legitimize
Arab artists in the global art scene. Since market values do
often dictate the momentum of the international art world, there
may be some truth in these remarks. Given the social history
of art however, the introduction of the major international auction
house to the Arab world should be measured with caution.
The expansion of the Christie's
conglomerate to include the Middle East is a prime example of
globalization, a logical step in the latest campaign to assert
American and European political and economic dominance. This
attempt to corner the Middle Eastern art market is part of a
larger trend, one distinguished by a sort of rush to "discover"
art and cultural production of the region. Many view the field
as uncharted territory and are dashing to partake in its "emergence."
The notion that exhibitions of contemporary Arab art are a newly
introduced phenomenon to the international art world is erroneous.
Many seminal Arab artists have been exhibiting their work in
Western venues since the mid-twentieth century.
Evident in the abundance of
exhibitions of contemporary Middle Eastern and "Islamic"
art held in the United States and Europe in recent years, Arab
art has emerged as a fashionable commodity among Western scholars,
art institutions and the art market. An increase in institutional
fellowships for academics researching Arab art and culture also
appear to be on the rise, with more opportunities being presented
at top universities annually. This comes as no surprise at a
time when parts of the Arab world have expressed significant
resistance to Western hegemony. Provided the geopolitical context
in which this new found interest has materialized the profusion
of academic, institutional and market interest in Arab art must
be examined.
Although such exhibitions as
the Station Museum's Made in Palestine (2003), Noorderlicht's
Nazar: Photographs from the Arab World (2004) and the
British Museum's Word into Art (2006) presented the proper
sociopolitical and art historical contexts needed for viewers
to gain a clear understanding of Arab art, these examples are
few among recent exhibitions.
Reflected in the politically
and culturally biased ways in which Arab art has been represented
in several other major exhibitions over the past five years,
it has become evident that there is an underlying need to co-opt
contemporary Arab visual culture in order to censor and further
suppress the Arab voice. Notwithstanding the space Arab art has
been given in major American and European museums and institutions,
an examination of curatorial statements and exhibition catalog
essays provides clues into some of the ideological frameworks
from which this rush to "discover" Arab art originates.
With statements such as:
We [Europeans] do not understand
that you can go directly from a tent to a skyscraper, from a
camel to a six-cylinder. And yet for artists of the Arab world
this process is a matter of course, and this concept is important
in the way the cultural side effects illuminate it.
the Arab world is reduced to
an "archaic" (a term used to describe the region earlier
in the catalog by a different curator) land that is just emerging
into modern times. These blatantly racist projections of Arabs
not only maintain notions of Western superiority and Middle Eastern
inferiority, they work to reduce the importance of the art exhibited
and silence the creative voices of those represented. In the
end the presenting of Arab art only serves to reinforce the exact
stereotypes that have been used to justify the exploitation of
the region for political and economic gains by several Western
governments.
This is not the first instance
in modern history that the political sphere has been entangled
in cultural activity. Since the art market has been used to define
art as a luxury good, mainstream art exists as a direct reflection
of a particular cultural and sociopolitical reality, one defined
by dominating economic interests and the political agendas of
those in power. Capable of transforming political culture, revolutionary
art movements throughout the twentieth century were constantly
struggling to remain autonomous.
Frances Stonor Saunders's The
Cultural Cold War revealed the heavy handed involvement of
the American government (more specifically that of the CIA) in
financially supporting and promoting the work of certain cultural
and artistic practitioners during the Cold War. Besides the funding
of publications and academic research, one of the most famous
examples presented by Saunders is the manipulation of the art
world to serve US foreign policy (mainly anti-communist political
campaigns) through the co-opting of Abstract Expressionist artists
and the promotion of their work. The American movement bore
resemblance to the Russian Constructivist School of the early
twentieth century, but was devoid of its revolutionary political
content. Decades later, we find similar formulas being used to
combat any evidence of political dissent from the Arab world
and its diaspora.
The opening of Christie's Dubai
demonstrates current efforts to pacify the revolutionary aspects
of Arab art in several ways. Initially, it is to gain control
of the international market for Arab art so that only a specific
demographic has access to the work of its influential artists.
This maintains the false sense of exclusivity that is the trademark
of Western art but which has been vehemently fought against by
countless pioneering art movements throughout the development
of modern and contemporary Arab art.
The Oil-rich Gulf region is
the perfect candidate for creating this cultural divide between
the wealthy ruling and impoverished classes of the Arab world.
Not only do the governments of most Gulf nations consist of some
of the wealthiest ruling families of the Middle East, they are
also systematically aligned with American political and economic
interests. Since the 1970s the "modernization" of the
region has meant the emulation of American and European models.
The perversion of transforming cities into lavish and excessive
displays of Gulf wealth that rival those of Western nations,
while major political and humanitarian crises rage in neighboring
Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon, is the exact apathetic state needed
to depoliticize Arab art.
The societal frameworks of Gulf nations also provide the ideal
environment for the dissemination of such intentions with nationality
acting as an integral factor in the distribution of wealth and
the establishment of class. A large portion of working class
populations in these nations consist of expatriates from South
Asia and neighboring Arab countries. Ironically it is art by
South Asian artists that sold for the highest prices at Christie's
Dubai in May. Additionally, in the majority of regional art galleries,
the art of well known Egyptian, Iraqi, Lebanese and Palestinian
artists dominate the annual exhibition lineups and are among
the top sellers.
Such work can be marketed by
Christie's with ease towards wealthy Gulf art patrons. There
is an existing interest in art by prominent artists from the
above mentioned countries and a cultural familiarity that comes
from expatriates working in the region that is coupled with a
degree of exoticism of the working class and poor. This places
the future of Arab art in the hands of the financial interests
of Gulf States. The current construction of expansive arts facilities
in cities such as Doha, Dubai, Sharjah and Muscat will lure generations
of young Arab artists into art scenes unlike those that exist
elsewhere in the Arab world today, the greatest emphasis will
be on market value, the potential death of future revolutionary
art movements.
The opening of the hefty auction
house forms separate classifications for Arab art. With the increasing
of prices for work by certain artists, a hierarchy is formed
among all artists, one that will eventually enable the controlling
of the art scene. The archetypical method of manipulating visual
culture today is marketing. In leading international art centers
such as New York, Paris and London, the promotion of an artist's
work is based on a series of market hurdles, the initial and
most important step being the establishment of auction records.
The capability to establish auction records for any Arab artist,
allows for the malleability of content, the promotion of art
to fit a particular market and the further censorship of Arab
art justified by the concept of "what sells." Here
lies the most dangerous aspect of placing Arab art into the international
market: the depoliticizing of its revolutionary nature.
To consider modern and contemporary
Arab art revolutionary is not an overstatement. Over the past
fifty years Arab artists have struggled to preserve artistic
and cultural practice under formidable conditions. As several
Arab nations have experienced the devastating effects of war
and occupation, political unrest and state censorship, artistic
production becomes a form of resistance to the oppression, violence,
destruction and instability inflicted upon local communities.
The sheer existence of Arab art becomes political. Using various
modes of artistic production, all art from the Arab world and
its diaspora reflects a profound sense of defiance and determination.
In the 1930s, with the growing
popularity of the Mexican Muralist school, which fostered the
move towards politically cognizant work in international art,
numerous attempts to subdue the movement were made in the United
States. The commissioning of leading muralist painters to create
large-scale murals with local themes by American business tycoons
was one way of co-opting the politically charged visual language
that was making the movement influential. Murals were painted
by Diego Rivera in such places as the San Francisco Stock Exchange,
Rockefeller Center and the Detroit Institute of Arts. A retrospective
at New York's Museum of Modern Art for the movement's artistic
giant was also a visible testimony of the art world's attempts
to tame the revolutionary momentum. Yet in light of these attempts,
Mexican muralists maintained their political fervor, shaping
the modern consciousness of Mexican culture and countless art
movements, including numerous schools of Arab painting. Similarly,
as the mainstream art world (with the political agendas it espouses)
encroaches upon Arab art, artists will continue to resist by
fashioning their own histories.
Maymanah Farhat is the editor of ArteNews,
www.arteeast.org, an online newsletter that focuses on Middle
Eastern art and culture. She recently curated the exhibition
"Three Arab Painters in New York" at the Bridge Gallery
in Chelsea.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
