Saturday 26 July 2008
Tuesday 8 July 2008
New Ends, Old Beginnings
July 11th - September 3rd, 2008
Bluecoat and Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
Can Altay, Ziad Antar, Lara Baladi, Cevdet Erek, Tarek Al Ghoussein, Chourouk Hriech, Randa Mirza, Michael Rakowitz, Hrair Sarkissian, Sharif Waked and Tarek Zaki.
July 11th - September 3rd, 2008
Bluecoat and Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
Can Altay, Ziad Antar, Lara Baladi, Cevdet Erek, Tarek Al Ghoussein, Chourouk Hriech, Randa Mirza, Michael Rakowitz, Hrair Sarkissian, Sharif Waked and Tarek Zaki.
Curated by November Paynter
>Can Altay, Mirrorworld, c-print, 2008
>Can Altay, Mirrorworld, c-print, 2008
The cities of the Arab region are incredibly diverse in their form and character, including sites of ancient civilisation, as well as some of the most youthful urban establishments in the world. Similarly, their heritage and contemporary culture are varied and complex. While cities such as Baghdad struggle in the midst of war to protect their museums and architectural heritage, others like Cairo attempt to balance tensions between ancient history and 21st century culture. In some urban centres, including Damascus and Beirut, the structural skeletons of tomorrow’s heritage have been overtaken by rapid and incomplete development, or the devastation of war. Then there are cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi that are in the early stages of promoting a new urban cultural legacy by creating a space for the arts from scratch and housing selections of international art from collections such as the Guggenheim and the Louvre.
New Ends, Old Beginnings investigates a very particular geographical sphere through artists’ responses to the many layers of local and everyday culture, a perspective that the world’s media often overlooks or avoids making visible, preferring instead to present images that shock and manipulate. Questions the artists engage with include: what aspects of a city's culture can and should be saved and shared? How can hundreds of years of history co-exist with current and future cultural practices? Can a newly created cultural hub ever be considered as authentic? An examination of heritage in its many forms - as physical, symbolic and traditional elements of urban reality - also informs how these cities are perceived by those from outside. What does tourism mean for cities of the Arab region and how abstracted is the virtual tourism fed to us by the media?
Considering the questions above, the works included in New Ends, Old Beginnings reveal features of, and help describe current responses to, the situation of cultural heritage in the Arab region through a contemporary lens. Works included in the exhibition have been carefully selected and commissioned to reference the specific themes of heritage, cultural industry and tourism, and to take into consideration the practices involved in protecting, maintaining, re-evaluating and perceiving heritage via art.
This exhibition has been supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, Liverpool City Council, Zenith Foundation, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool Culture Company, Esmee Fairbairn.
Galleries at the Bluecoat:
Open daily, 10.00am – 6.00pm
0151 702 5324
info@thebluecoat.org.uk
www.thebluecoat.org.uk
the Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BX
Open Eye Gallery
Open Tue – Sat, 10.30am – 5.30pm
Closed Sun – Mon
0151 709 9460
info@openeye.org.uk
www.openeye.org.uk
Open Eye Gallery, 28 – 32 wood Street, Liverpool L1 4AQ
New Ends, Old Beginnings investigates a very particular geographical sphere through artists’ responses to the many layers of local and everyday culture, a perspective that the world’s media often overlooks or avoids making visible, preferring instead to present images that shock and manipulate. Questions the artists engage with include: what aspects of a city's culture can and should be saved and shared? How can hundreds of years of history co-exist with current and future cultural practices? Can a newly created cultural hub ever be considered as authentic? An examination of heritage in its many forms - as physical, symbolic and traditional elements of urban reality - also informs how these cities are perceived by those from outside. What does tourism mean for cities of the Arab region and how abstracted is the virtual tourism fed to us by the media?
Considering the questions above, the works included in New Ends, Old Beginnings reveal features of, and help describe current responses to, the situation of cultural heritage in the Arab region through a contemporary lens. Works included in the exhibition have been carefully selected and commissioned to reference the specific themes of heritage, cultural industry and tourism, and to take into consideration the practices involved in protecting, maintaining, re-evaluating and perceiving heritage via art.
This exhibition has been supported by The Henry Moore Foundation, Liverpool City Council, Zenith Foundation, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool Culture Company, Esmee Fairbairn.
Galleries at the Bluecoat:
Open daily, 10.00am – 6.00pm
0151 702 5324
info@thebluecoat.org.uk
www.thebluecoat.org.uk
the Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool L1 3BX
Open Eye Gallery
Open Tue – Sat, 10.30am – 5.30pm
Closed Sun – Mon
0151 709 9460
info@openeye.org.uk
www.openeye.org.uk
Open Eye Gallery, 28 – 32 wood Street, Liverpool L1 4AQ
Saturday 5 July 2008
Isabel Schmiga
Polis
Schmiga is fascinated by an object or idea’s potential to change state, whether literally or figuratively. In many of her works existing objects such as ties, leaves, marbles and forks, or printed images and diagrams are transformed into new, more conceptually complex versions of themselves. But in her work Polis, her starting point is an extremely specific emblem – it is the Turkish Police badge, a designed composition of imagery that is already a socially and politically charged effigy.
Schmiga's version of this badge in her work Polis presents an extremely uncanny proposal. Through a layering of a carved relief atop the original design, Schmiga draws attention to the badge’s eerie skull-like shape: the outline of the skull is already marked out by the symmetrical, aerial view of a police cap that creates the shape of the badge; the double eagle insignia forms a mouth; the crescent moon and star motif an ominous third eye. As in Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors, 1533, the layered representation is rendered as if in anamorphic perspective and only becomes clear when viewed from an angle. As the cut outs appear and their depth gives a slight shadow, a perfect skull exudes. In this camouflaged state, the badge, like the police it adorns, amalgamates an aura of protection with an implication of fear.
Schmiga became obsessed by this authoritarian ornament after spending several months living opposite a police guard in Istanbul, Turkey. For her, the feature of the skull was always present in the shape and detailing of the badge and her double-relief print was made as a response to the image she believed she was seeing all around her. This badge is omnipresent in Turkey, seen on the police uniform, as well as the forces' cars, buses and stations, so its appearance in Schmiga's work is in part due to its being an everyday encounter, just like any other repeated image she was currently experiencing for the first time in the context of this location. For her this badge, as with any other object, was available to be taken and morphed by her personal reflection. So while Schmiga's work Polis of course refers to a media acknowledged concern about Turkey's police presence, attitude and occasional use of disproportionate force, as well as to a general atmosphere of contradiction and awkwardness that is caused by tensions of group mentality and nationalism, it is also a simple response to a visual slippage created by the shape and design of the badge.
This slippage is then pushed by Schmiga, so that other signs and symbols become more obviously integrated into her interpretation of this emblem. By placing the mouth of the skull in line with the double-eagle motif, she visually replicates a different statement of nationalism, the preference for males to don a moustache. The third-eye is formed by Turkey's flag, suggesting the overriding presence of National authority, but at the same time it is a reference to Islam and the rule of the former Ottoman empire; a combination of associations that can be read as the eye of knowledge, a control of will, or a system of belief, all issues that are very pertinent to the political situation in Turkey today.
When exhibited Polis consists of a repetitive series of Schmiga's photographic reliefs snugly butted up against one another filling the length of an entire wall. There are never less than five of the framed images presented at one time, a reference to the group presence of the police in Istanbul especially in the central entertainment zone of Istiklal Caddesi. Here police are nearly always present in groups of at least three, and often usually five or more. During public demonstrations or pre-publicised events when the police anticipate their necessity, they often outnumber those they are supposedly protecting, but are in fact waiting to control. In Basel for Schmiga's exhibition in von Bartha Garage, 60 of the badges were positioned in a slightly uneven line hinting at the meagre allowance of individuality given to each member of the formation, as well as the tension felt in numbers and in the expectancy of friction. The skull seen in such prevalence and force also replicates the gas masks often worn prematurely by the police before the potential, or actual release of tear gas, a practice that is not uncommon in the current climate of the city.
Hence for a variety of reasons and on many levels Schmiga's work creates a sense of deja vu for those who live in the vicinity of this badge. As the skull was always there for Schmiga, it is now also always there for those who have experienced her work. Through a simple visual act she has marked a new relationship between the public and their encounter with this particular sign of the police. More importantly her work encourages a more general moment of reflection for us all on society's level of acceptance of forms of power and control in our every day environment.
Lamya Gargash
The found rooms of Presence, along with their furniture, ornaments and décor, project a sincere, vulnerably human dimension. Each space exudes a feeling of loneliness and sorrow at their owner's abandonment. It is sometimes the state of deterioration that marks their lack of occupation, but in others, which were vacated perhaps just a day or two earlier, Gargash's steady, concentrated perspective captures the heavy atmosphere of desolation. While it is normal for the inhabitants of a home to become affectionately attached to its material elements and to experience sentimental feelings toward bricks and mortar, Gargash's photographs suggest that here in Dubai this condition works in reverse and that it is the apartments and buildings that are left prematurely in distress, while the previous occupants are happy to move on and let them go.
Things become 'old' or at least 'outdated' extremely quickly in a city that lacks an identifiable history of more than 50 years. Alone in its old age the Fahidi Fort is believed to be the earliest standing construction in the city and dates back to around 1799. The courtyard houses of Bastakiya where Gargash ironically exhibited her work earlier this year were built in the 19th Century, but even these buildings have been renovated with a mask of perfectly smooth wall-cladding that confuses their authenticity and brings them in line with the rebounding, replicative tone of the city.
Dubai's sudden and continuing acceleration of development, where new hotels, malls and homes appear every day, has infected its population with the constant desire for renewal. Gargash can remember the first shopping mall opening when she was seven or eight years old. In its wake and that of many other malls to follow, a style of 'conformative consumerism' exploded in the city. Family's began to trade their suddenly unfashionable homes for new modern alternatives. They would not even bother to take many of the house fittings and their possessions with them to their new abode, because these too were also already out-of-date. With no clear sense of an aesthetic, historic lineage of culture and identity to adhere to, the city's inhabitants moved on to adopt an homogenous modernist style of interior décor. In this process, a cultural leap was made that all but deleted the potential design and fashion preferences of the 80s and early 90s. While this seems to go unrecognised, or is of no concern to much of the population of Dubai, there are some who like Gargash, reveal a sense of nostalgia for a lost moment in time that can now never be.
The resulting atmosphere of non-stop change and a lack of material attachment with the past is clearly conveyed in Gargash's photographs. Fairly recent tastes in interior decoration that were formed by the post-oil-culture generation – grandiose chandeliers, co-ordinated wallpaper and upholstery, decorative tiles and early-model air conditioning units - together chart the beginning and end of a very short period in local domestic history. It is these key stylistic themes that provide the composition of many of Gargash's photographs and where her use of natural light eerily taunts the interiors, dulling the soft furnishings and gently tracing the ornamental details, rather than instilling in them a breath of fresh air, or life.
A variety of rooms are included in the Presence series, all found by Gargash in homes abandoned or about to be vacated. Certain of these have already become generic spaces with few references to their former lives, while others cling on a while longer to a scattering, or occasionally all their furnishings. A perfectly symmetrical and very decadent Majili (an Arabic sitting room) prematurely takes on the mood of a constructed museum set as Gargash's photograph predicts its coming demise. A series of lounge rooms, all complete with matching curtains, cushions and carpets, are already a dying breed. In one of these rooms the television set is turned on, the still it hosts stamping the date and location on the photograph, in expectation of a future generation's curiosity.
These 'about to be left' interiors are juxtaposed by images of neighbouring sites that were perhaps photographed only weeks or months later into their abandonment, but are already empty and run down. These scenes seem to condense time, but in fact show how quickly a space can fall into decay. In an image that focuses on what would have been a grand spiralling stairwell and in others of the same apartment building this acceleration of physical change is strikingly clear. On several floors that were functioning as a lobby and living quarters only a month or so earlier, Gargash found stacks of old loaves of bread. In the short time between being abandoned and its inevitable annihilation and redevelopment, this inner-city apartment space was being temporarily used to dry a local baker's unsold and excess bread to later feed his farm animals. In another photograph a chair sits alone, sadly looking out to sea. Its back is torn of fabric and a broken down air conditioning unit shares the same room. The subject of the work is not the unkempt objects or the empty chair, but the broken spirit and soul of a space and most specifically the absence of a person who should still be enjoying this view of the sea, sand and palm trees.
Gargash's series of photographs both depict and are conditioned by the perpetual velocity of the surrounding built environment. While she struggles to shoot certain spaces before they become obsolete, in only a year or two there may well be none left for her to discover. In the meantime her photographs are already acting as an archive of this unprecedented speed of change and in time they will be one of the few existing traces of a style and period of living that for now many are more than happy to leave behind.
Things become 'old' or at least 'outdated' extremely quickly in a city that lacks an identifiable history of more than 50 years. Alone in its old age the Fahidi Fort is believed to be the earliest standing construction in the city and dates back to around 1799. The courtyard houses of Bastakiya where Gargash ironically exhibited her work earlier this year were built in the 19th Century, but even these buildings have been renovated with a mask of perfectly smooth wall-cladding that confuses their authenticity and brings them in line with the rebounding, replicative tone of the city.
Dubai's sudden and continuing acceleration of development, where new hotels, malls and homes appear every day, has infected its population with the constant desire for renewal. Gargash can remember the first shopping mall opening when she was seven or eight years old. In its wake and that of many other malls to follow, a style of 'conformative consumerism' exploded in the city. Family's began to trade their suddenly unfashionable homes for new modern alternatives. They would not even bother to take many of the house fittings and their possessions with them to their new abode, because these too were also already out-of-date. With no clear sense of an aesthetic, historic lineage of culture and identity to adhere to, the city's inhabitants moved on to adopt an homogenous modernist style of interior décor. In this process, a cultural leap was made that all but deleted the potential design and fashion preferences of the 80s and early 90s. While this seems to go unrecognised, or is of no concern to much of the population of Dubai, there are some who like Gargash, reveal a sense of nostalgia for a lost moment in time that can now never be.
The resulting atmosphere of non-stop change and a lack of material attachment with the past is clearly conveyed in Gargash's photographs. Fairly recent tastes in interior decoration that were formed by the post-oil-culture generation – grandiose chandeliers, co-ordinated wallpaper and upholstery, decorative tiles and early-model air conditioning units - together chart the beginning and end of a very short period in local domestic history. It is these key stylistic themes that provide the composition of many of Gargash's photographs and where her use of natural light eerily taunts the interiors, dulling the soft furnishings and gently tracing the ornamental details, rather than instilling in them a breath of fresh air, or life.
A variety of rooms are included in the Presence series, all found by Gargash in homes abandoned or about to be vacated. Certain of these have already become generic spaces with few references to their former lives, while others cling on a while longer to a scattering, or occasionally all their furnishings. A perfectly symmetrical and very decadent Majili (an Arabic sitting room) prematurely takes on the mood of a constructed museum set as Gargash's photograph predicts its coming demise. A series of lounge rooms, all complete with matching curtains, cushions and carpets, are already a dying breed. In one of these rooms the television set is turned on, the still it hosts stamping the date and location on the photograph, in expectation of a future generation's curiosity.
These 'about to be left' interiors are juxtaposed by images of neighbouring sites that were perhaps photographed only weeks or months later into their abandonment, but are already empty and run down. These scenes seem to condense time, but in fact show how quickly a space can fall into decay. In an image that focuses on what would have been a grand spiralling stairwell and in others of the same apartment building this acceleration of physical change is strikingly clear. On several floors that were functioning as a lobby and living quarters only a month or so earlier, Gargash found stacks of old loaves of bread. In the short time between being abandoned and its inevitable annihilation and redevelopment, this inner-city apartment space was being temporarily used to dry a local baker's unsold and excess bread to later feed his farm animals. In another photograph a chair sits alone, sadly looking out to sea. Its back is torn of fabric and a broken down air conditioning unit shares the same room. The subject of the work is not the unkempt objects or the empty chair, but the broken spirit and soul of a space and most specifically the absence of a person who should still be enjoying this view of the sea, sand and palm trees.
Gargash's series of photographs both depict and are conditioned by the perpetual velocity of the surrounding built environment. While she struggles to shoot certain spaces before they become obsolete, in only a year or two there may well be none left for her to discover. In the meantime her photographs are already acting as an archive of this unprecedented speed of change and in time they will be one of the few existing traces of a style and period of living that for now many are more than happy to leave behind.
OÙ ? Scènes du Sud – Volet 2, 2008
The Stamp of a new Rhythm
As this exhibition takes a step east from its predecessor, from surveying artistic production in the European countries of the Mediterranean, it encounters that of a less easily defined geography positioned around the East Mediterranean, which is more often referred to in geopolitical terms as the Balkans and Middle East. This complex collection of countries share a common colonial history, as part of the substantial land area marked by the conquests of the Ottoman Empire, a fact that is the source of many contemporary problems and prejudices. The Balkans and the Middle East are now related by an analogous process of political reconstruction and their continued perception as an 'other' and a peripheral (despite the EU accession of a number of the Balkan countries) entity to the West and Europe Central. This is what continues to unify the region as a whole and what simultaneously makes independence from its past context implausible.
The need to understand how this shared history and mutual heritage has fed into contemporary culture, and through this, the attempt to analyse and at the same time culturally transcend a myriad of interrelated political tensions, led to a series of national and geographically specific survey shows held in Europe in the 2000s.1 Curated and exposed in the west, many of these exhibitions imported art and artists as tools of national and regional representation. Surprisingly, the Balkans and Middle East were rarely brought together as the combined focus of a major exhibition, preference being to look at the situation of one or the other as an opposition to the notion of 'Europe'. In confrontation of this Western interest in Balkan art and the missing link of its consideration alongside the Middle East art situation encouraged Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center to organise in 2003 the conference and conversation series south…east…mediterranean…europe, with writers, critics, curators and artists invited to participate from Sofia, Skopje, Jerusalem, Cairo, Belgrade, Beirut, Zagreb, Istanbul, Tirana, Pristine, and Sarajevo.2 'The meeting focused upon rethinking artistic production, cultural geography and possible future collaborations in South-East Europe and the South-East Mediterranean, otherwise known as the Balkans and the Middle East'.3
Then in 2004 the 5th Cetinje Biennial titled Love it or Leave it curated by Rene Block and Natasa Ilic also considered this notion of 'opposition'. The biennial press released proposed that the exhibition would 'trace affinities and differences within cultural and political conditions and practices, which - according to the general perception - question the Balkans and the Middle East as two regions of different value systems. Applying its political and economical systems, the Balkans positions itself as part of Europe - but represents, at the same time, a transit area to the Middle East. Sources and origins of the current artistic situation of two different regions will step into dialogue'.4
While the trend of national and regional representation persists, curatorial strategy now tends towards presenting a more analytical response of individual artistic practice rather than merely assuming a geographically defined response. In the meanwhile, the initially accepted condition of export from the Balkans and Middle East, that had been the main structure and hope of support for artists from these regions, began to loose its appeal. Instead this repetition of geographical representation fed a desire for new forms of self promotion and installed the realisation that if an artistic environment was valuable enough to be imported by others, then it should be valued, established and acknowledged with as much commitment on home soil.
This shift to a process of glocalisation from a previous acceptance of globalisation has in the last decade, led to the region's artistic centres recognising their potential as future art hubs that can now import an audience rather than repeatedly exporting art. With the gradual support of new money, private investment and public support from elsewhere, the family art tree began to grow, to incorporate a much wider spectrum of artistic activity and to nurture better communication between key individuals and institutions within the combined region. Most recently the growth of a contemporary art market mediated through a plethora of new commercial galleries, as well as major art fairs such as the fairly established Art Athina and the only two year old Art Dubai, has in part precipitated a formative, but self-orchestrated, regional rhythm of production, exhibition and sale.
As the 'art biennial' continues to proliferate ever more rapidly around the globe, its presence and calibre in a country and region can be taken as one indicator of the development of a community based art situation. The instigation of such large-scale exhibitions suggests that there are individuals keen to broaden their local horizon, to both import talent from elsewhere and to promote their own selected talent and ambition more widely. Regardless of the relationship of these events to economy and tourism, their coming, if delivered with focus and expertise, is generally a sign that artistic abundance and its acceptance is a primary trigger.
A survey of these large-scale initiatives is perhaps the most obvious place to start when looking at the current artistic activity in a given region, especially if looking from outside. These events can also be considered as a basic comparative to their coevals in the international scene. The biennial model, while not a constant form of artistic support, is one that instigates a flurry of activity, exchange and to an extent quality control. These attributes are invaluable in fostering the early stages of an art scene and developing it to international level. As almost all the artists invited to present work in this exhibition have participated in one or more of the region's biennials, let us first look at their development here.
Founded in 1987, one of the oldest and most revered biennials in the world, the International Istanbul Biennial, takes place in a pivotal position internationally. Located in Istanbul, a city that for centuries acted as the centre of the Byzantine Empire as Byzantium and then the Ottoman Empire as Constantinople, this metropolis now sits between numerous geographical, geopolitical and cultural zones. While not the capital, it is the largest city and the cultural centre of Turkey, a country that is strategically important in relation to the Middle East and the Balkans as it both divides and joins the two. In this context, Turkey appears to flirt with its own regional classification, sometimes being grouped as a part of the Balkans and in terms of religious politics to an extent with the Middle East, and of course at the same time it sits between the East and the West, Asia and Europe, the Orient and the Occident. This context of being seen as both a part of and a separate entity of so many different types of physically and politically described regions gives the art initiatives in Istanbul the possibility to encourage composite networks of communication. In turn these relationships present the opportunity for Istanbul to play a pivotal cultural role in the creation of a very particular and inclusive art situation.
Having celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2007, the biennial in Istanbul has played an important role in recognising national artistic development over several generations as well as the need to invite international artists and their work. Those working on the biennial realised early on the importance of bringing together the country's neighbouring artists and arts professionals into a shared discourse that focuses more specifically on the surrounding geography and its evolution. As early as the third biennial in 1992, curator Vasif Kortun's exhibition Production of Cultural Difference included a high number of participants from countries east of Europe notably many from Bulgaria, Poland, Russia and Israel. 'The press conference before the biennial's opening revealed how important this event was to the participants. The Israeli spokesperson noted the opportunity for establishing a Mediterranean dialogue; the Bulgarian, the challenge of dealing with new freedoms and of associating on equal terms with artists from countries with contemporary art traditions....the Russians, the importance of seeing what they have produced out in the world. And so on. There was an obvious sense of optimism that goes with new beginnings'5.
In 1995 Rene Block's curatorial directorship of the Fourth International Istanbul Biennial paid particular attention to the invitation of artists from Balkan countries, with artists coming from Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Serbia and also several from the Middle East including those from Iran, Israel and Egypt. It was Block's desire to create an intercultural meeting ground, to have a real engagement with Istanbul and to 'avoid having the exhibition turn into a kind of international road-show temporarily plunked down in an exotic locale'6.
The 9th Istanbul Biennial curated by Vasif Kortun and Charles Esche deepened this resolve with almost fifty per cent of the exhibition's artists living in or coming from the Balkans, Middle East and other closely related countries of Central Asia. The biennial proposed 'an exhibition structure that would fold out of and reveal its context – the city of Istanbul' This was achieved by inviting many of the participating artists to spend up to three months living and working in Istanbul, commissioned to respond to the 'urban location and the imaginative charge that this city represents for the world'.7 Now, with the announcement that the curatorial collective What, How & For Whom (WHW) from Zagreb will curate the 11th Istanbul Biennial, the strongest statement yet of a desire to intensify these neighbouring relationships has been made. The appointment of a voice of collectivity and also one of local specificity is a far cry from the tourist-venue hosted biennials of the city's past and the traditional solo Direction of the biennial model. This bold step entirely shifts the potential of the Istanbul Biennial and could anticipate the next opportunity, following the predominance of 'place' in recent curatorial initiatives and the ultimately unsuccessful re-imagination of Manifesta 6 in Cyprus as an experimental art academy, to spark a new genre of biennial making both for this geography and internationally.8
Another more recently acclaimed exhibition force in the region is the Sharjah Biennial. Although active since 1993 it first gained serious recognition in its 6th rendition when it was announced that the aim was to introduce a new era for contemporary art in the Gulf. Since then, Director Jack Persekian has introduced a key motivator for the art scene in the Gulf by establishing a residency programme that runs in parallel to the biennial. This enables artists to 'spend time in Sharjah and to engage with the Emirate and its context and to conduct an ongoing series of workshops and collaborative projects that will broaden the educational opportunities currently available to local students including the College of Fine Arts at the University of Sharjah, and College of Art and Architecture at the American University'.9 This is yet another example of a new mode of production and support that mainly focuses on its neighbouring art scenes for its own success.
In 2007, two major new biennials in Greece were added to the regional map, the first taking place in Thessaloniki and the second in Athens. The physical proximity of Istanbul to Thessaloniki and in turn to Athens marks one of many potential independent art circuits, much like the Asian Biennial calendar, that can now be negotiated outside the established US and European art systems. Such networks are sparking a new era of exchange. They also create opportunities for artists to travel to neighbouring countries, which ironically was previously much more difficult and unlikely in terms of visas and funding than travelling to the more normalised zones of Central and Northern Europe.
Other big periodic exhibitions that have come, gone or remain in the region include the currently suspended Tirana Biennial in Albania; two editions, with the third planned in 2009 of the Riwaq Biennial, Palestine; the less revered state-sponsored Cairo Biennial, which is likely to be superseded in terms of credibility by the proposed Photo Cairo exhibition planned for December 2008; the previously mentioned Cetinje Biennial in Montenegro; and the Periferic Biennial in Iasi, Romania, founded in 1997.
Two other successful initiatives that are working to rethink the traditional biennial model and at the same time involve themselves more intimately with the locally existing institutional base via working with independent organisations are Meeting Points and Home Works. The Meeting Points festival organised by the Young Arab Theatre Fund has gradually expanded its reach to create a circuit of sites of intervention in the Arab World and beyond. In its 5th edition in 2007 events and exhibitions took place in Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Ramallah, Cairo, Alexandria, El Minia, Tunis, Rabat, Brussels and Berlin. Over a seven-week period, theatre and contemporary dance performances, visual art exhibitions and nights of film screenings, established zones of creativity and bridges of exchange, the aim being to support talented young individuals as well as emergent cultural spaces.10
As the title suggests Home Works invites others to enter a site of exchange for contemporary art in the Arab World, in Beirut, Lebanon. Initiated by Ashkal Alwan (Of Colors and Forms) The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, the week long forum takes place every 18 months and is composed of lectures, performance and film screenings. Like many of the festivals in the region Home Works holds the character of a pilgrimage for the many artists and cultural workers that have moved away to live abroad. Their return and also the coming together of natives, immigrants and visitors creates an assembly that is personal and specific. This is due to its location in Beirut, a city, which despite its venerated art scene does not have a permanent museum or art institution to speak of. As its main art centre, Ashkal Alwan has for many years considered itself as functioning 'with no permanent address', but continues to offer art projects and local artists a form of institutional framework.11
While large periodic activities introduce a wave of accelerated cultural interest, due to their local specificity 'they are neither truly indexical, nor, as in the marketplace, formed in reference to each other and they come together only by virtue of being planned to happen at such and such dates every two years.12 In addition, each one in turn, heavily relies on its local, continuous support structure and network, a crutch that is not always so easily relatable or perhaps self-explanatory within the global art labyrinth. Due largely to a lack of public funding, in many of the countries of these regions there is a clear divide between the professionalism of the biennial model, down to the next contour of well considered arts initiatives - the region's main independent arts institutions. There are few fully and well functioning museums and this 'museum void' is only just beginning to be targeted. One reason for this is the repeated mistake of assuming that the replication of western museum examples, such as Istanbul Modern's take on Tate Modern, will work without specific contextualisation elsewhere. Perhaps more controversial is the importation of existing brands as in Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island project, a completely constructed cultural district, which is set to include a version of the Louvre and Guggenheim Foundation. The concern for many of the already existing institutions is their lack of direction and mediocre policies for collecting contemporary art.
While contemporary 'museum' practice seems to allude governmental cultural departments, perhaps it is the resolve of the independent art centres that will gradually redefine this role and eventually take their place. While it is impossible to mention all of the many arts spaces that have had an impact in these regions, be it temporary or more permanent, there are some that have grown in tandem with their local art situation and are now major players in terms of artistic support, intellectual critique, production and curatorial practice. To name but a few, and to focus on those that grew up together we can include the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo, Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Sofia and WHW in Zagreb. These institutions, variously funded by both private and public money albeit from elsewhere, formed a critical approach and adapted their development according to changes in their site specificity. They have all nurtured a generation of artists, working with them and supporting their practice as well as promoting it internationally. Each one is far more than an exhibition platform, in fact the focus is more often on production, archiving, research and debate. A more recent effort of some of these institutions is to introduce a residency programme, a triangular relationship between themselves that takes place without European involvement. This exchange, in person, of ideas and cultural beliefs, presents the most meaningful circle of art collaboration yet to be formed in the larger region. The effects of this simple act will be long felt, enlightening the younger generation of artists to related histories and current social and urban conditions, as well as providing access to an intimately shared structure of support and knowledge, one that can subsume larger projects, museums and biennials to result in a correlation of artistic evolution.
1. For example Balkania curated by Roder Conover, Eda Cufer and Peter Weibel in 2002 at the Nueue Galerie Graz, Austria; Blood and Honey: Future's in the Balkans curated by Harold Szeemann in 2003 for Essl Collection in Klostrneuburg, Austria; Call Me ISTANBUL ist mein Name in 2004 at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany; Contemporary Arab Representations curated by Catherine David, various venues, 2001 – 2003; In the Gorges of the Balkans curated by René Block in 2003, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany.
2.The project was sited within the context of In The Cities of the Balkans, the second part of The Balkans Trilogy, a project initiated by Kunsthalle Fridericianum.
3.south...east...mediterranean...europe conference press release, December 14 – 16, 2003 http://platformgaranti.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_archive.html
4.Love it or Leave it, 5th Cetinje Biennial press release, by curators René Block and Natasa Ilic.
5. Sarah McFadden, “Report from Istanbul: Bosphorus Dialogues. 3rd International Istanbul Biennial Exhibition Turkey”, Art in America, June 1993
6.Gergory Volk, “Between East and West: The 4th International Istanbul Biennial, Antrepo, Hagia Irene and Yerebatan, Istanbul, Turkey”, Art in America, May 1996.
7.Istanbul Biennial Press Release, (2005): www.iksv.org/bienal/bienal9
8.Manifesta 6 was due to take place in Nicosia, Cyprus in 2005 under the collective curatorial approach of Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle and Florian Waldvogel. Manifesta 6 was cancelled three months before the opening.
9.artist-in-residence. www.sharjahbiennial.org
10.www.meetingpoints.org
11.www.ashkalalwan.org
12. Vasif Kortun, Unpublished text, 2007.
As this exhibition takes a step east from its predecessor, from surveying artistic production in the European countries of the Mediterranean, it encounters that of a less easily defined geography positioned around the East Mediterranean, which is more often referred to in geopolitical terms as the Balkans and Middle East. This complex collection of countries share a common colonial history, as part of the substantial land area marked by the conquests of the Ottoman Empire, a fact that is the source of many contemporary problems and prejudices. The Balkans and the Middle East are now related by an analogous process of political reconstruction and their continued perception as an 'other' and a peripheral (despite the EU accession of a number of the Balkan countries) entity to the West and Europe Central. This is what continues to unify the region as a whole and what simultaneously makes independence from its past context implausible.
The need to understand how this shared history and mutual heritage has fed into contemporary culture, and through this, the attempt to analyse and at the same time culturally transcend a myriad of interrelated political tensions, led to a series of national and geographically specific survey shows held in Europe in the 2000s.1 Curated and exposed in the west, many of these exhibitions imported art and artists as tools of national and regional representation. Surprisingly, the Balkans and Middle East were rarely brought together as the combined focus of a major exhibition, preference being to look at the situation of one or the other as an opposition to the notion of 'Europe'. In confrontation of this Western interest in Balkan art and the missing link of its consideration alongside the Middle East art situation encouraged Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center to organise in 2003 the conference and conversation series south…east…mediterranean…europe, with writers, critics, curators and artists invited to participate from Sofia, Skopje, Jerusalem, Cairo, Belgrade, Beirut, Zagreb, Istanbul, Tirana, Pristine, and Sarajevo.2 'The meeting focused upon rethinking artistic production, cultural geography and possible future collaborations in South-East Europe and the South-East Mediterranean, otherwise known as the Balkans and the Middle East'.3
Then in 2004 the 5th Cetinje Biennial titled Love it or Leave it curated by Rene Block and Natasa Ilic also considered this notion of 'opposition'. The biennial press released proposed that the exhibition would 'trace affinities and differences within cultural and political conditions and practices, which - according to the general perception - question the Balkans and the Middle East as two regions of different value systems. Applying its political and economical systems, the Balkans positions itself as part of Europe - but represents, at the same time, a transit area to the Middle East. Sources and origins of the current artistic situation of two different regions will step into dialogue'.4
While the trend of national and regional representation persists, curatorial strategy now tends towards presenting a more analytical response of individual artistic practice rather than merely assuming a geographically defined response. In the meanwhile, the initially accepted condition of export from the Balkans and Middle East, that had been the main structure and hope of support for artists from these regions, began to loose its appeal. Instead this repetition of geographical representation fed a desire for new forms of self promotion and installed the realisation that if an artistic environment was valuable enough to be imported by others, then it should be valued, established and acknowledged with as much commitment on home soil.
This shift to a process of glocalisation from a previous acceptance of globalisation has in the last decade, led to the region's artistic centres recognising their potential as future art hubs that can now import an audience rather than repeatedly exporting art. With the gradual support of new money, private investment and public support from elsewhere, the family art tree began to grow, to incorporate a much wider spectrum of artistic activity and to nurture better communication between key individuals and institutions within the combined region. Most recently the growth of a contemporary art market mediated through a plethora of new commercial galleries, as well as major art fairs such as the fairly established Art Athina and the only two year old Art Dubai, has in part precipitated a formative, but self-orchestrated, regional rhythm of production, exhibition and sale.
As the 'art biennial' continues to proliferate ever more rapidly around the globe, its presence and calibre in a country and region can be taken as one indicator of the development of a community based art situation. The instigation of such large-scale exhibitions suggests that there are individuals keen to broaden their local horizon, to both import talent from elsewhere and to promote their own selected talent and ambition more widely. Regardless of the relationship of these events to economy and tourism, their coming, if delivered with focus and expertise, is generally a sign that artistic abundance and its acceptance is a primary trigger.
A survey of these large-scale initiatives is perhaps the most obvious place to start when looking at the current artistic activity in a given region, especially if looking from outside. These events can also be considered as a basic comparative to their coevals in the international scene. The biennial model, while not a constant form of artistic support, is one that instigates a flurry of activity, exchange and to an extent quality control. These attributes are invaluable in fostering the early stages of an art scene and developing it to international level. As almost all the artists invited to present work in this exhibition have participated in one or more of the region's biennials, let us first look at their development here.
Founded in 1987, one of the oldest and most revered biennials in the world, the International Istanbul Biennial, takes place in a pivotal position internationally. Located in Istanbul, a city that for centuries acted as the centre of the Byzantine Empire as Byzantium and then the Ottoman Empire as Constantinople, this metropolis now sits between numerous geographical, geopolitical and cultural zones. While not the capital, it is the largest city and the cultural centre of Turkey, a country that is strategically important in relation to the Middle East and the Balkans as it both divides and joins the two. In this context, Turkey appears to flirt with its own regional classification, sometimes being grouped as a part of the Balkans and in terms of religious politics to an extent with the Middle East, and of course at the same time it sits between the East and the West, Asia and Europe, the Orient and the Occident. This context of being seen as both a part of and a separate entity of so many different types of physically and politically described regions gives the art initiatives in Istanbul the possibility to encourage composite networks of communication. In turn these relationships present the opportunity for Istanbul to play a pivotal cultural role in the creation of a very particular and inclusive art situation.
Having celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2007, the biennial in Istanbul has played an important role in recognising national artistic development over several generations as well as the need to invite international artists and their work. Those working on the biennial realised early on the importance of bringing together the country's neighbouring artists and arts professionals into a shared discourse that focuses more specifically on the surrounding geography and its evolution. As early as the third biennial in 1992, curator Vasif Kortun's exhibition Production of Cultural Difference included a high number of participants from countries east of Europe notably many from Bulgaria, Poland, Russia and Israel. 'The press conference before the biennial's opening revealed how important this event was to the participants. The Israeli spokesperson noted the opportunity for establishing a Mediterranean dialogue; the Bulgarian, the challenge of dealing with new freedoms and of associating on equal terms with artists from countries with contemporary art traditions....the Russians, the importance of seeing what they have produced out in the world. And so on. There was an obvious sense of optimism that goes with new beginnings'5.
In 1995 Rene Block's curatorial directorship of the Fourth International Istanbul Biennial paid particular attention to the invitation of artists from Balkan countries, with artists coming from Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Serbia and also several from the Middle East including those from Iran, Israel and Egypt. It was Block's desire to create an intercultural meeting ground, to have a real engagement with Istanbul and to 'avoid having the exhibition turn into a kind of international road-show temporarily plunked down in an exotic locale'6.
The 9th Istanbul Biennial curated by Vasif Kortun and Charles Esche deepened this resolve with almost fifty per cent of the exhibition's artists living in or coming from the Balkans, Middle East and other closely related countries of Central Asia. The biennial proposed 'an exhibition structure that would fold out of and reveal its context – the city of Istanbul' This was achieved by inviting many of the participating artists to spend up to three months living and working in Istanbul, commissioned to respond to the 'urban location and the imaginative charge that this city represents for the world'.7 Now, with the announcement that the curatorial collective What, How & For Whom (WHW) from Zagreb will curate the 11th Istanbul Biennial, the strongest statement yet of a desire to intensify these neighbouring relationships has been made. The appointment of a voice of collectivity and also one of local specificity is a far cry from the tourist-venue hosted biennials of the city's past and the traditional solo Direction of the biennial model. This bold step entirely shifts the potential of the Istanbul Biennial and could anticipate the next opportunity, following the predominance of 'place' in recent curatorial initiatives and the ultimately unsuccessful re-imagination of Manifesta 6 in Cyprus as an experimental art academy, to spark a new genre of biennial making both for this geography and internationally.8
Another more recently acclaimed exhibition force in the region is the Sharjah Biennial. Although active since 1993 it first gained serious recognition in its 6th rendition when it was announced that the aim was to introduce a new era for contemporary art in the Gulf. Since then, Director Jack Persekian has introduced a key motivator for the art scene in the Gulf by establishing a residency programme that runs in parallel to the biennial. This enables artists to 'spend time in Sharjah and to engage with the Emirate and its context and to conduct an ongoing series of workshops and collaborative projects that will broaden the educational opportunities currently available to local students including the College of Fine Arts at the University of Sharjah, and College of Art and Architecture at the American University'.9 This is yet another example of a new mode of production and support that mainly focuses on its neighbouring art scenes for its own success.
In 2007, two major new biennials in Greece were added to the regional map, the first taking place in Thessaloniki and the second in Athens. The physical proximity of Istanbul to Thessaloniki and in turn to Athens marks one of many potential independent art circuits, much like the Asian Biennial calendar, that can now be negotiated outside the established US and European art systems. Such networks are sparking a new era of exchange. They also create opportunities for artists to travel to neighbouring countries, which ironically was previously much more difficult and unlikely in terms of visas and funding than travelling to the more normalised zones of Central and Northern Europe.
Other big periodic exhibitions that have come, gone or remain in the region include the currently suspended Tirana Biennial in Albania; two editions, with the third planned in 2009 of the Riwaq Biennial, Palestine; the less revered state-sponsored Cairo Biennial, which is likely to be superseded in terms of credibility by the proposed Photo Cairo exhibition planned for December 2008; the previously mentioned Cetinje Biennial in Montenegro; and the Periferic Biennial in Iasi, Romania, founded in 1997.
Two other successful initiatives that are working to rethink the traditional biennial model and at the same time involve themselves more intimately with the locally existing institutional base via working with independent organisations are Meeting Points and Home Works. The Meeting Points festival organised by the Young Arab Theatre Fund has gradually expanded its reach to create a circuit of sites of intervention in the Arab World and beyond. In its 5th edition in 2007 events and exhibitions took place in Amman, Damascus, Beirut, Ramallah, Cairo, Alexandria, El Minia, Tunis, Rabat, Brussels and Berlin. Over a seven-week period, theatre and contemporary dance performances, visual art exhibitions and nights of film screenings, established zones of creativity and bridges of exchange, the aim being to support talented young individuals as well as emergent cultural spaces.10
As the title suggests Home Works invites others to enter a site of exchange for contemporary art in the Arab World, in Beirut, Lebanon. Initiated by Ashkal Alwan (Of Colors and Forms) The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, the week long forum takes place every 18 months and is composed of lectures, performance and film screenings. Like many of the festivals in the region Home Works holds the character of a pilgrimage for the many artists and cultural workers that have moved away to live abroad. Their return and also the coming together of natives, immigrants and visitors creates an assembly that is personal and specific. This is due to its location in Beirut, a city, which despite its venerated art scene does not have a permanent museum or art institution to speak of. As its main art centre, Ashkal Alwan has for many years considered itself as functioning 'with no permanent address', but continues to offer art projects and local artists a form of institutional framework.11
While large periodic activities introduce a wave of accelerated cultural interest, due to their local specificity 'they are neither truly indexical, nor, as in the marketplace, formed in reference to each other and they come together only by virtue of being planned to happen at such and such dates every two years.12 In addition, each one in turn, heavily relies on its local, continuous support structure and network, a crutch that is not always so easily relatable or perhaps self-explanatory within the global art labyrinth. Due largely to a lack of public funding, in many of the countries of these regions there is a clear divide between the professionalism of the biennial model, down to the next contour of well considered arts initiatives - the region's main independent arts institutions. There are few fully and well functioning museums and this 'museum void' is only just beginning to be targeted. One reason for this is the repeated mistake of assuming that the replication of western museum examples, such as Istanbul Modern's take on Tate Modern, will work without specific contextualisation elsewhere. Perhaps more controversial is the importation of existing brands as in Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island project, a completely constructed cultural district, which is set to include a version of the Louvre and Guggenheim Foundation. The concern for many of the already existing institutions is their lack of direction and mediocre policies for collecting contemporary art.
While contemporary 'museum' practice seems to allude governmental cultural departments, perhaps it is the resolve of the independent art centres that will gradually redefine this role and eventually take their place. While it is impossible to mention all of the many arts spaces that have had an impact in these regions, be it temporary or more permanent, there are some that have grown in tandem with their local art situation and are now major players in terms of artistic support, intellectual critique, production and curatorial practice. To name but a few, and to focus on those that grew up together we can include the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art in Cairo, Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul, The Institute of Contemporary Art in Sofia and WHW in Zagreb. These institutions, variously funded by both private and public money albeit from elsewhere, formed a critical approach and adapted their development according to changes in their site specificity. They have all nurtured a generation of artists, working with them and supporting their practice as well as promoting it internationally. Each one is far more than an exhibition platform, in fact the focus is more often on production, archiving, research and debate. A more recent effort of some of these institutions is to introduce a residency programme, a triangular relationship between themselves that takes place without European involvement. This exchange, in person, of ideas and cultural beliefs, presents the most meaningful circle of art collaboration yet to be formed in the larger region. The effects of this simple act will be long felt, enlightening the younger generation of artists to related histories and current social and urban conditions, as well as providing access to an intimately shared structure of support and knowledge, one that can subsume larger projects, museums and biennials to result in a correlation of artistic evolution.
1. For example Balkania curated by Roder Conover, Eda Cufer and Peter Weibel in 2002 at the Nueue Galerie Graz, Austria; Blood and Honey: Future's in the Balkans curated by Harold Szeemann in 2003 for Essl Collection in Klostrneuburg, Austria; Call Me ISTANBUL ist mein Name in 2004 at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany; Contemporary Arab Representations curated by Catherine David, various venues, 2001 – 2003; In the Gorges of the Balkans curated by René Block in 2003, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany.
2.The project was sited within the context of In The Cities of the Balkans, the second part of The Balkans Trilogy, a project initiated by Kunsthalle Fridericianum.
3.south...east...mediterranean...europe conference press release, December 14 – 16, 2003 http://platformgaranti.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_archive.html
4.Love it or Leave it, 5th Cetinje Biennial press release, by curators René Block and Natasa Ilic.
5. Sarah McFadden, “Report from Istanbul: Bosphorus Dialogues. 3rd International Istanbul Biennial Exhibition Turkey”, Art in America, June 1993
6.Gergory Volk, “Between East and West: The 4th International Istanbul Biennial, Antrepo, Hagia Irene and Yerebatan, Istanbul, Turkey”, Art in America, May 1996.
7.Istanbul Biennial Press Release, (2005): www.iksv.org/bienal/bienal9
8.Manifesta 6 was due to take place in Nicosia, Cyprus in 2005 under the collective curatorial approach of Mai Abu ElDahab, Anton Vidokle and Florian Waldvogel. Manifesta 6 was cancelled three months before the opening.
9.artist-in-residence. www.sharjahbiennial.org
10.www.meetingpoints.org
11.www.ashkalalwan.org
12. Vasif Kortun, Unpublished text, 2007.
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