To say that Sundance 2009 has drawn heavily on films from or about the Middle East would be an overstatement. However, the movies that do fit into these categories are welcome additions to the programme, with perspectives that go far beyond the usual clichés about the region and its people.
Amreeka (America in Arabic), directed by Cherien Dabis, is a look at one Arab-American experience, that of a Palestinian mother who leaves Bethlehem with her teenaged son when the everyday ordeal of crossing checkpoints becomes unendurable.
Muna relocates with her son Fahti to a small town where her brother-in-law works as a doctor. At the local high school, he is subject to ridicule by other kids over his name, and attacked by bullies who blame him, a Christian Palestinian, for the September 11 attacks and the Iraq war. If that weren’t humiliating enough, his mother, who had worked at a bank in the Palestinian Territories, lies to her family about working at a White Castle hamburger stand. Muna is also still struggling to learn English. “Occupation?” one official asks her. “Yes, we are occupied,” she responds. Cherien Dabis, who trained in film at Columbia University, was born in Jordan to a Palestinian mother and a Jordanian father. As in the film, her father was a doctor, a small-town paediatrician in western Ohio.
“All the Arabs there were doctors, like my father. We knew all the Arabs within a 100-mile radius of where we lived. It was pretty lonely, pretty isolated,” she says. “During the first Gulf war, there was a big shift. My dad was a local hero who saved lives, and we suddenly became the ‘Saddam-loving’ enemy overnight. We got death threats on a daily basis.”
Another group of outcasts is the subject of The Glass House, a documentary by Hamid Rahmanian about a refuge for troubled young women and girls in Tehran. Rahmanian, an Iranian living in the US, spent 18 months with the girls, many of whom are drug addicts. All of the girls either fled troubled families or were thrown out on the streets with no means of support. “No one runs away from happiness,” says one counsellor.
The shelter, Omid-e-Mehr, was founded by Marjaneh Halati, an Iranian who studied psychotherapy in London, where she now spends most of her time. The Glass House shows that the rehabilitation is working for at least some of its residents. However, with room for only 35 young women, the centre is just scratching the surface.
Also on view is the American documentary Sergio. Based on the book Chasing the Flame by the Harvard professor Samantha Power, it follows the career of the Brazilian UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, who died in the August 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.
Another film dealing with the Iraq war is The Road to Fallujah: One Man’s Journey into the Heart of War. Made by Mark Manning, a former oil-rig diver turned filmmaker, the American shot his documentary while delivering humanitarian aid by lorry after the 2004 US siege of the city.
The film assesses the impact of this action. The director stresses that he was not embedded with US troops, and sees his film as a critique of the embed process. The Road to Fallujah is playing at the Slamdance Festival, an alternative event during Sundance that is now marking its 15th anniversary.
* David D’Arcy
Showing posts with label exhibition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exhibition. Show all posts
Monday, 19 January 2009
Friday, 16 January 2009
Salaheddin the great builder
"Sultan Al-Nasser Salaheddin Al-Ayyubi... Between Cairo and Damascus" is the first exhibition to embody the German-Egyptian cooperation to display Islamic arts. Nevine El-Aref attended the opening ceremony
Cairo Citadel in 1176; a portrait of Salaheddin; From far left: a bronze coin and the renovation relief of Damascus Citadel from Damascus National Museum; an arch at Prince Taz Palace in Cairo; a ceramic relief from the British Museum;
Last week the atmosphere at the beautiful historic Mameluke Palace of Prince Taz in Saliba Street, usually so quiet and serene, was rather different from normal. Journalists, photographers, archaeologists, German and Egyptian curators assembled in the palace courtyard, which was bedecked with softly lit trees, palms and plants for the occasion. At the core of the courtyard, a violinist, a flautist and an oud (Arabian lute) player wearing formal black ties played soft oriental music. In these enchanting surroundings the German ambassador to Cairo, Bernd Erbel, and secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Zahi Hawass, cut the red ribbon and launched "Sultan Al-Nasser Salaheddin Al-Ayyubi... Between Cairo and Damascus", an exhibition of magnificent Islamic monuments which will run for the next two months.
The exhibition, a co-production of the SCA and the Natural History Museum of Oldenburg in Germany, focuses on the Ayyubid Sultan Al-Nasser Salaheddin (1174-1193), one of the most brilliant and fascinating personalities in history.
Salaheddin fervently pursued his political aim to unite the territories of Islam and reoccupy the areas taken by the Crusaders, including Jerusalem. Yet Salaheddin's fame does not rest on his political perseverance alone, but is also due to his outstanding character. Arab historians described him as honest, courageous and just. He respected the treaties he made, and never refused an honest request. Likewise, European sources described him as a formidable gentleman and perfect knight. Both Arab and European assessment of his historical personality is also touched upon at the exhibition.
More than 80 masterpieces from the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mameluke periods are on display. They include objects from the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin now on view in Egypt for the first time, such as a glazed ceramic table, a large dish with an unusual depiction of a peacock, and a delicate pilgrim flask. The Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo has also contributed some outstanding artworks, among them two carved rock crystal bottles, carved wood, metalwork, a rare enamelled and gilded glass vase, and an exceptional mosque lamp which once hung in the famous Madrasa of Sultan Hassan.
The exhibition is further enriched with models of the citadels in Aleppo and Damascus, and Salaheddin's mausoleum in Damascus. Photographs of various portraits of Salaheddin and several of his monuments in Egypt and Damascus are also on show, among them photographs of the Damascus and Cairo citadels and mosques and the mausoleum in Damascus.
The idea of the exhibition, which is generously funded by the German Foreign Office and Mercedes-Benz Cairo, originated in Oldenburg where the Natural History Museum put on a large show on "Saladin and the Crusaders" in March 2006 on the fringe of a joint conference of ICOM-Arab, ICOM-Germany and ICOM- Europe. When the Egyptian delegation visited the exhibition it was decided to transfer it to Cairo, once the capital and economically vibrant centre of the Ayyubid Kingdom.
"This is the first time that the Islamic museum in Berlin has given Egypt some of its collection on loan," said Claus-Peter Haase, the director of the museum, who attended the celebration. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that the museum had lent Egypt five pieces in metal, glass, ceramics and wood that reflected the artistic skills of the Ayyubid period. "This is the first cooperation between the Islamic museum in Berlin and the Islamic museum in Cairo, which we hope will be very fruitful and an indication of a further collaboration in this field," Haase said. He pointed out that negotiations were now on their way to organise an exhibition of Egyptian Islamic objects in Berlin.
SALAHEDDIN was born in Tikrit in Iraq and joined the military at the age of 15, eventually establishing himself as a prominent military leader and devout Muslim. At the height of his power his Ayyubid Dynasty ruled Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Hejaz and Yemen. His achievements included the recapture of Jerusalem from the Knights Templar in 1187; the restoration of Sunni Islam in Egypt; and the foundation of schools and mosques. By the time he died in 1193 he had gained a reputation throughout Europe as a great warrior and chivalrous adversary, and was revered in the Muslim world.
The Castle of Damascus is built at the same level as the city ground. The castle architects made up for its being deprived of natural elevation by providing it with alternative features not found in other castles that are fortified with heights. These features include its huge and fortified construction, the height of the towers, and the way they were built.
Salaheddin's tomb is located next to the northwestern corner of the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Although Salaheddin died in 1193, he was initially interred at the Damascus Citadel until his son Al-Malik Al-Afdal Nureddin Ali, ruler of Damascus, completed the construction of the mausoleum. Salaheddin's body was transferred to its final resting place in 1195. Soon afterwards, Salaheddin's other son, Al-Malik Al-Aziz Uthman II, ruler of Egypt, decided to construct a madrasa attached to his father's tomb. Thus it is also known as Al-Madrasa Al-Aziziya. The events surrounding the death and burial of Salaheddin are clearly recorded in the historical sources, based on the eyewitness account of Imadeddin Al-Isfahani, who was Saladin's confidant and administrative genius.
The construction of the tomb is typically Damascene with a square chamber with ablaq walls and four arches capped by a cupola. The movement from square room to circular dome is achieved by a transitional drum in two zones: octagonal and 16-sided polygonal. The interior of the tomb chamber is mounted with blue and green Ottoman tiles of the 17th century . More subtle decoration can be seen in the stone-paste floral and geometric designs above the arches.
In the middle of this domed chamber lie two coffins. The white marble coffin was a gift from the German Kaiser William II on the occasion of his visit to Damascus in 1903. Next to it is the original wooden cenotaph, a masterpiece of the linear interplay typical of Ayyubid woodworking. It is decorated with geometric and astral patterns as well as floral and vegetal motifs.
The tomb chamber occupies the southwest corner of the building. A chamber used for Quranic recitation is accessible from its east side and a series of five smaller rooms are found along the north side. As for the building's exterior and its connection to the Madrasa Al-Aziziya, little of this original architecture has survived to modern times.
The original inscriptions have been modernised, but contemporary Ayyubid histories contain accounts of Salaheddin's burial.
Cairo contains several Ayyubid structures, and the Citadel is one of the many popular tourist attractions in Cairo. It was begun by Salaheddin in 1176 and modified and expanded later on by consecutive sultans. The Citadel is famous for its mosques, museums and forts, and most of all the Mosque of Mohamed Ali which was built almost seven centuries later.
Several other structures associated with Salaheddin have survived within modern cities. Among the forts he built in Egypt was a mountain-top fortress and caravansary in Sinai, but the most important military fortifications that has survived is the Ayyubid city wall, also known as the Citadel fortifications.
The Ayyubid city walls were built by Salaheddin between 1176 and 1183 with a view to containing the former Fatimid city and its suburbs, the old city of "Al-Fustat", to reinforce existing fortifications and to create one single solid city wall protecting the whole metropolis from Crusaders. Salaheddin imported new defensive devices from Syria and introduced the concept of cities centred on a defensible citadel. Features such as bent gate entrances and arrow slits reaching the floor were a feature of his fortifications.
al Ahram
Cairo Citadel in 1176; a portrait of Salaheddin; From far left: a bronze coin and the renovation relief of Damascus Citadel from Damascus National Museum; an arch at Prince Taz Palace in Cairo; a ceramic relief from the British Museum;
Last week the atmosphere at the beautiful historic Mameluke Palace of Prince Taz in Saliba Street, usually so quiet and serene, was rather different from normal. Journalists, photographers, archaeologists, German and Egyptian curators assembled in the palace courtyard, which was bedecked with softly lit trees, palms and plants for the occasion. At the core of the courtyard, a violinist, a flautist and an oud (Arabian lute) player wearing formal black ties played soft oriental music. In these enchanting surroundings the German ambassador to Cairo, Bernd Erbel, and secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), Zahi Hawass, cut the red ribbon and launched "Sultan Al-Nasser Salaheddin Al-Ayyubi... Between Cairo and Damascus", an exhibition of magnificent Islamic monuments which will run for the next two months.
The exhibition, a co-production of the SCA and the Natural History Museum of Oldenburg in Germany, focuses on the Ayyubid Sultan Al-Nasser Salaheddin (1174-1193), one of the most brilliant and fascinating personalities in history.
Salaheddin fervently pursued his political aim to unite the territories of Islam and reoccupy the areas taken by the Crusaders, including Jerusalem. Yet Salaheddin's fame does not rest on his political perseverance alone, but is also due to his outstanding character. Arab historians described him as honest, courageous and just. He respected the treaties he made, and never refused an honest request. Likewise, European sources described him as a formidable gentleman and perfect knight. Both Arab and European assessment of his historical personality is also touched upon at the exhibition.
More than 80 masterpieces from the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mameluke periods are on display. They include objects from the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin now on view in Egypt for the first time, such as a glazed ceramic table, a large dish with an unusual depiction of a peacock, and a delicate pilgrim flask. The Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo has also contributed some outstanding artworks, among them two carved rock crystal bottles, carved wood, metalwork, a rare enamelled and gilded glass vase, and an exceptional mosque lamp which once hung in the famous Madrasa of Sultan Hassan.
The exhibition is further enriched with models of the citadels in Aleppo and Damascus, and Salaheddin's mausoleum in Damascus. Photographs of various portraits of Salaheddin and several of his monuments in Egypt and Damascus are also on show, among them photographs of the Damascus and Cairo citadels and mosques and the mausoleum in Damascus.
The idea of the exhibition, which is generously funded by the German Foreign Office and Mercedes-Benz Cairo, originated in Oldenburg where the Natural History Museum put on a large show on "Saladin and the Crusaders" in March 2006 on the fringe of a joint conference of ICOM-Arab, ICOM-Germany and ICOM- Europe. When the Egyptian delegation visited the exhibition it was decided to transfer it to Cairo, once the capital and economically vibrant centre of the Ayyubid Kingdom.
"This is the first time that the Islamic museum in Berlin has given Egypt some of its collection on loan," said Claus-Peter Haase, the director of the museum, who attended the celebration. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that the museum had lent Egypt five pieces in metal, glass, ceramics and wood that reflected the artistic skills of the Ayyubid period. "This is the first cooperation between the Islamic museum in Berlin and the Islamic museum in Cairo, which we hope will be very fruitful and an indication of a further collaboration in this field," Haase said. He pointed out that negotiations were now on their way to organise an exhibition of Egyptian Islamic objects in Berlin.
SALAHEDDIN was born in Tikrit in Iraq and joined the military at the age of 15, eventually establishing himself as a prominent military leader and devout Muslim. At the height of his power his Ayyubid Dynasty ruled Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Hejaz and Yemen. His achievements included the recapture of Jerusalem from the Knights Templar in 1187; the restoration of Sunni Islam in Egypt; and the foundation of schools and mosques. By the time he died in 1193 he had gained a reputation throughout Europe as a great warrior and chivalrous adversary, and was revered in the Muslim world.
The Castle of Damascus is built at the same level as the city ground. The castle architects made up for its being deprived of natural elevation by providing it with alternative features not found in other castles that are fortified with heights. These features include its huge and fortified construction, the height of the towers, and the way they were built.
Salaheddin's tomb is located next to the northwestern corner of the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Although Salaheddin died in 1193, he was initially interred at the Damascus Citadel until his son Al-Malik Al-Afdal Nureddin Ali, ruler of Damascus, completed the construction of the mausoleum. Salaheddin's body was transferred to its final resting place in 1195. Soon afterwards, Salaheddin's other son, Al-Malik Al-Aziz Uthman II, ruler of Egypt, decided to construct a madrasa attached to his father's tomb. Thus it is also known as Al-Madrasa Al-Aziziya. The events surrounding the death and burial of Salaheddin are clearly recorded in the historical sources, based on the eyewitness account of Imadeddin Al-Isfahani, who was Saladin's confidant and administrative genius.
The construction of the tomb is typically Damascene with a square chamber with ablaq walls and four arches capped by a cupola. The movement from square room to circular dome is achieved by a transitional drum in two zones: octagonal and 16-sided polygonal. The interior of the tomb chamber is mounted with blue and green Ottoman tiles of the 17th century . More subtle decoration can be seen in the stone-paste floral and geometric designs above the arches.
In the middle of this domed chamber lie two coffins. The white marble coffin was a gift from the German Kaiser William II on the occasion of his visit to Damascus in 1903. Next to it is the original wooden cenotaph, a masterpiece of the linear interplay typical of Ayyubid woodworking. It is decorated with geometric and astral patterns as well as floral and vegetal motifs.
The tomb chamber occupies the southwest corner of the building. A chamber used for Quranic recitation is accessible from its east side and a series of five smaller rooms are found along the north side. As for the building's exterior and its connection to the Madrasa Al-Aziziya, little of this original architecture has survived to modern times.
The original inscriptions have been modernised, but contemporary Ayyubid histories contain accounts of Salaheddin's burial.
Cairo contains several Ayyubid structures, and the Citadel is one of the many popular tourist attractions in Cairo. It was begun by Salaheddin in 1176 and modified and expanded later on by consecutive sultans. The Citadel is famous for its mosques, museums and forts, and most of all the Mosque of Mohamed Ali which was built almost seven centuries later.
Several other structures associated with Salaheddin have survived within modern cities. Among the forts he built in Egypt was a mountain-top fortress and caravansary in Sinai, but the most important military fortifications that has survived is the Ayyubid city wall, also known as the Citadel fortifications.
The Ayyubid city walls were built by Salaheddin between 1176 and 1183 with a view to containing the former Fatimid city and its suburbs, the old city of "Al-Fustat", to reinforce existing fortifications and to create one single solid city wall protecting the whole metropolis from Crusaders. Salaheddin imported new defensive devices from Syria and introduced the concept of cities centred on a defensible citadel. Features such as bent gate entrances and arrow slits reaching the floor were a feature of his fortifications.
al Ahram
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
The road less-travelled
I am waiting for Abbas Kiarostami to join me at our appointed rendezvous, a dusty villa in the Tehran suburbs set amid the lush foliage and crumbling grandeur of the diplomatic quarter. The director of over 40 films, the recipient of numerous prestigious cinema awards, the winner of a clutch of global polls declaring him the greatest film maker of the 1990s, the man who Bernado Bertolucci claimed was responsible for a new “birth in cinema”, is running late.
But then there is a small hubbub at the doorway and Kiarostami finally lopes in, grumbling, a victim of Tehran’s notorious traffic. At 68, he cuts an imposing figure. Fatigue is etched on his face, no doubt due in part to his recent traffic battle. Despite his trademark dark spectacles, he looks tired and immediately calls for coffee and ibuprofen pills. However, he is polite, gracious and during the subsequent interview unbends and relaxes as he warms to his themes. Kiarostami’s status in his homeland reached iconic status long ago. For film buffs and Iran’s intelligentsia, his first films from the early 1970s, made at the children’s film co-operative Kanun, immediately pointed out an auteur with an artistic manifesto and a wilful manner who insisted on stylistically and intellectually subverting and confounding preconceived notions of filmmaking.
"With an experience of loneliness, it will help you to understand my loneliness through these roads," says Abbas Kiarostami. Courtesy Baharak Raoufi
His range of subjects – children, the delicate threads of society, the absurdities and incongruities of everyday life – were laced with a strange mix of pessimism and idealism, filmed with a peculiar reserve, a sense of distance. His coruscating social documentary style features and shorts were merciless in their relentless dissection of a society in flux. Later films reveal a fascination with cars, roads and journeys, using car interiors as backdrops for emotional drama, metaphors for a sense of alienation and isolation.
From his first short in 1970, The Bread and Alley, a story of a boy encountering a fierce dog in an alleyway, through to masterpieces such as Close-Up, the Kokar trilogy, the prize-winning A Taste of Cherry, the socio-realist Ten and most recently, Shirin, he has continued to stubbornly plough his own furrow. By gradually eliminating all extraneous matter from his narratives, using digicams and untrained actors, his films seem to pursue a search of purity. There is, especially in his more recent works, a freedom from conventional narrative structures and a fascination with the stranger, more unpredictable corners of the human condition.
This image recalls the starkness of his Snow White series. Courtesy Baharak Raoufi
Kiarostami not only decided to stay in Iran following the 1979 revolution, but in doing so, became a vital force in pushing Iranian cinema out of the doldrums, creating a body of work that would become internationally acclaimed. Like Godard in France or the late Satyajit Ray in India, his films are at once entwined with his country’s cultural fabric, yet transcend limitations to speak to audiences universally. In his poetry too – he has had a volume of recondite, haiku-style poetry published – his trademark emotional drive and solitary soul emerges from inspiration borne of centuries of Persian poetry and modern Iranian existence.
However, it is mainly his photography that has occasioned our encounter today. The Road exhibition at the Basement gallery sees 47 prints drawn from over 25 years of photography on the roads of Iran. The show was first seen as part of a multimedia retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York last year, alongside a number of films and his monochromatic Snow White series.
“These images were taken over the past 20, 25 years,” says Baharak Raoufi of the Basement Gallery. “The Road series is emotional for him, as he is deeply attached to the feelings expressed in this collection. When we invited him to show his work in Dubai, this is the series he chose. He chooses not to sell work in Iran any longer, so he will be selling here.”
Since he began taking photographs of the Iranian landscape in the late 1970s, Kiarostami has generated hundreds of these deceptively simplistic pictures of roads, through rain-flecked windscreens, isolated trees, vast snow plains, and motionless tableaux, each suffused with a heavy emotional payload. Looking at the motives and reasons behind Road is as good a place as any to delve into a career that has spanned over 40 years in a relentless, methodical and occasionally haphazard pursuit of inner peace and creative satisfaction.
“My photographic career started as a matter of fact, when I went to buy a camera for a friend,” he begins. “It was a 1,000-something dollars, and I thought, I want to buy one for myself too. It was the exact year of the revolution, 1979. That is when I started taking photographs. We had a lot of spare time because of the revolution. We couldn’t make films and we were very depressed. So we took ourselves out of the town to deal with our depression. I had this camera, a Yashica, and started shooting. It was a cheap camera.”
In these observations of the world, Kiarostami eschews the conventions of landscape photography and instead forges an emotional relationship with his surroundings, channelling himself from behind the lens. The documentary element of his work is there – echoing the style he favours for his films – but through repetition and subtle shifts in perspective, small fragments of detail emerge that differentiate and define the pieces. Again, this echoes his modus operandi with filmmaking.
In his best-known series of images, the Snow White collection, in which he repeatedly shoots high contrast black and white images of smooth, undulating snow-laden terrain occasionally broken by the stark blackness of a tree or road, the sense of cold isolation is complete. Yet in their frozen silence these pictures resonate with a deep humanity and a fundamental engagement with nature.
Since Kiarostami began his photographic career with no intention of publishing the work, it came as a mild surprise when a decade or so later, a friend asked him to collect a series of images for an exhibition. Interest in what the maverick filmmaker had produced was strong, and critical consensus overwhelmingly positive. Now, he is a veteran of over 30 major photography exhibitions worldwide, all of them based on the quantities of images he repeatedly shot in and around Tehran – the roads, the trees, the empty desolate landscapes. His work is in a number of key museum permanent collections, including the V&A in London.
“Two topics have been always inviting for my photography – trees and roads,” reflects Kiarostami. “You should know that the external revolution, the Islamic revolution which was going on at that time, was hardened by an internal revolution going on in my personal life, with my home and family (Kiarostami’s marriage was breaking down during this time). With the Road photographs, that was my way of thinking, my emotions at that moment made them this way. When you look at them now, your own emotion is coming in and influencing it. For instance, if you know nothing about the experience of loneliness, then you wouldn’t understand these photographs. But with an experience of loneliness, it will help you to understand my loneliness through these roads.”
The minimalism he emphasises in his images, the natural purity, is also the dominant driving force in his film career. Since gaining international acclaim from directors ranging from Tarantino to Scorsese for the semi-documentary Close-Up in 1990, to winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes for A Taste of Cherry in 1997, he has been balancing an increasing global profile with continued artistic experimentation, refining his practise, honing his technique down to the bare essentials. Experiments with digital cameras, a non-professional cast, improvisation and reliance on chance have paid off. However, despite success, he is frequently irritated with critics and audiences who, in his view, lazily fail to grasp his vision.
“Why are we always trying to define cinema separately from photography and music?” he argues. “They are connected, they mingle and are interwoven. Why do we like to have something very specific and defined? If that was the case, then the person who likes cinema shouldn’t go to the gallery or vice versa. We have to have them all together.”
Still, as with the case of his latest film, Shirin, Kiarostami’s uncompromising vision can cause mass confusion. Shirin is a series of close-ups of 117 women’s faces as they watch a play. We hear the play happening off screen and see the natural responses – laughter, sadness, suspense, relief – on the features of these faces. At Venice, where it was screened this summer, there was pandemonium in the auditorium, with confused viewers storming out and slating the film bitterly. Kiarostami has a spirited defence.
“The reaction in Venice was very predictable, actually. What was not predictable was the bad quality of the projection and organisation. The film for the media screening was actually projected with English subtitles, which were going on and off all the time and, at one point, for about 10 minutes, there was a total absence of subtitles. In spite of that, glory to the audience, because they were very patient! Shirin is a very difficult film which needs a lot of patience. So Venice was really a mess, an uncontrollable mess.”
Nevertheless, Kiarostami remains driven, determined. Describing Shirin as the end of a cycle that began back in 1970 with The Bread and Alley, he is currently working on an undefined new project. At this stage, he isn’t sure what the end result will be, but he is hoping he can eliminate as much narrative as possible, leaving most of it to be inferred by the viewer. Scraps of ideas are discussed – one scene he describes, sees a shy couple on the day of their wedding, reluctant to be photographed, left alone in a room with a camera with the plan that they will take their own portrait. Their off-screen conversation and inability to control the camera makes up the action. It is typically Kiarostami – wry, bittersweet, visually perplexing, yet quite rational.
Returning to the topic of Shirin, he delivers a final reflection. “Taking a picture is just freezing a moment, taking it out. That’s why I like photography, I don’t have to tell stories. In cinema, I am putting the storytelling outside the main frame of what is really happening and what you can see is your own story, being seen on the face of the person you are looking at. Therefore, you have so many different stories, so many complicated stories, that you know the story but yet you don’t know it. It leaves a lot of space, for you the viewer to look at it. I am not telling you the exact story, but it is there for you to find out about. That is my idea of the art of cinematography.”
Road, Basement Gallery, Dubai. www.basementdubai.com Until Nov 5.
But then there is a small hubbub at the doorway and Kiarostami finally lopes in, grumbling, a victim of Tehran’s notorious traffic. At 68, he cuts an imposing figure. Fatigue is etched on his face, no doubt due in part to his recent traffic battle. Despite his trademark dark spectacles, he looks tired and immediately calls for coffee and ibuprofen pills. However, he is polite, gracious and during the subsequent interview unbends and relaxes as he warms to his themes. Kiarostami’s status in his homeland reached iconic status long ago. For film buffs and Iran’s intelligentsia, his first films from the early 1970s, made at the children’s film co-operative Kanun, immediately pointed out an auteur with an artistic manifesto and a wilful manner who insisted on stylistically and intellectually subverting and confounding preconceived notions of filmmaking.
"With an experience of loneliness, it will help you to understand my loneliness through these roads," says Abbas Kiarostami. Courtesy Baharak Raoufi
His range of subjects – children, the delicate threads of society, the absurdities and incongruities of everyday life – were laced with a strange mix of pessimism and idealism, filmed with a peculiar reserve, a sense of distance. His coruscating social documentary style features and shorts were merciless in their relentless dissection of a society in flux. Later films reveal a fascination with cars, roads and journeys, using car interiors as backdrops for emotional drama, metaphors for a sense of alienation and isolation.
From his first short in 1970, The Bread and Alley, a story of a boy encountering a fierce dog in an alleyway, through to masterpieces such as Close-Up, the Kokar trilogy, the prize-winning A Taste of Cherry, the socio-realist Ten and most recently, Shirin, he has continued to stubbornly plough his own furrow. By gradually eliminating all extraneous matter from his narratives, using digicams and untrained actors, his films seem to pursue a search of purity. There is, especially in his more recent works, a freedom from conventional narrative structures and a fascination with the stranger, more unpredictable corners of the human condition.
This image recalls the starkness of his Snow White series. Courtesy Baharak Raoufi
Kiarostami not only decided to stay in Iran following the 1979 revolution, but in doing so, became a vital force in pushing Iranian cinema out of the doldrums, creating a body of work that would become internationally acclaimed. Like Godard in France or the late Satyajit Ray in India, his films are at once entwined with his country’s cultural fabric, yet transcend limitations to speak to audiences universally. In his poetry too – he has had a volume of recondite, haiku-style poetry published – his trademark emotional drive and solitary soul emerges from inspiration borne of centuries of Persian poetry and modern Iranian existence.
However, it is mainly his photography that has occasioned our encounter today. The Road exhibition at the Basement gallery sees 47 prints drawn from over 25 years of photography on the roads of Iran. The show was first seen as part of a multimedia retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York last year, alongside a number of films and his monochromatic Snow White series.
“These images were taken over the past 20, 25 years,” says Baharak Raoufi of the Basement Gallery. “The Road series is emotional for him, as he is deeply attached to the feelings expressed in this collection. When we invited him to show his work in Dubai, this is the series he chose. He chooses not to sell work in Iran any longer, so he will be selling here.”
Since he began taking photographs of the Iranian landscape in the late 1970s, Kiarostami has generated hundreds of these deceptively simplistic pictures of roads, through rain-flecked windscreens, isolated trees, vast snow plains, and motionless tableaux, each suffused with a heavy emotional payload. Looking at the motives and reasons behind Road is as good a place as any to delve into a career that has spanned over 40 years in a relentless, methodical and occasionally haphazard pursuit of inner peace and creative satisfaction.
“My photographic career started as a matter of fact, when I went to buy a camera for a friend,” he begins. “It was a 1,000-something dollars, and I thought, I want to buy one for myself too. It was the exact year of the revolution, 1979. That is when I started taking photographs. We had a lot of spare time because of the revolution. We couldn’t make films and we were very depressed. So we took ourselves out of the town to deal with our depression. I had this camera, a Yashica, and started shooting. It was a cheap camera.”
In these observations of the world, Kiarostami eschews the conventions of landscape photography and instead forges an emotional relationship with his surroundings, channelling himself from behind the lens. The documentary element of his work is there – echoing the style he favours for his films – but through repetition and subtle shifts in perspective, small fragments of detail emerge that differentiate and define the pieces. Again, this echoes his modus operandi with filmmaking.
In his best-known series of images, the Snow White collection, in which he repeatedly shoots high contrast black and white images of smooth, undulating snow-laden terrain occasionally broken by the stark blackness of a tree or road, the sense of cold isolation is complete. Yet in their frozen silence these pictures resonate with a deep humanity and a fundamental engagement with nature.
Since Kiarostami began his photographic career with no intention of publishing the work, it came as a mild surprise when a decade or so later, a friend asked him to collect a series of images for an exhibition. Interest in what the maverick filmmaker had produced was strong, and critical consensus overwhelmingly positive. Now, he is a veteran of over 30 major photography exhibitions worldwide, all of them based on the quantities of images he repeatedly shot in and around Tehran – the roads, the trees, the empty desolate landscapes. His work is in a number of key museum permanent collections, including the V&A in London.
“Two topics have been always inviting for my photography – trees and roads,” reflects Kiarostami. “You should know that the external revolution, the Islamic revolution which was going on at that time, was hardened by an internal revolution going on in my personal life, with my home and family (Kiarostami’s marriage was breaking down during this time). With the Road photographs, that was my way of thinking, my emotions at that moment made them this way. When you look at them now, your own emotion is coming in and influencing it. For instance, if you know nothing about the experience of loneliness, then you wouldn’t understand these photographs. But with an experience of loneliness, it will help you to understand my loneliness through these roads.”
The minimalism he emphasises in his images, the natural purity, is also the dominant driving force in his film career. Since gaining international acclaim from directors ranging from Tarantino to Scorsese for the semi-documentary Close-Up in 1990, to winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes for A Taste of Cherry in 1997, he has been balancing an increasing global profile with continued artistic experimentation, refining his practise, honing his technique down to the bare essentials. Experiments with digital cameras, a non-professional cast, improvisation and reliance on chance have paid off. However, despite success, he is frequently irritated with critics and audiences who, in his view, lazily fail to grasp his vision.
“Why are we always trying to define cinema separately from photography and music?” he argues. “They are connected, they mingle and are interwoven. Why do we like to have something very specific and defined? If that was the case, then the person who likes cinema shouldn’t go to the gallery or vice versa. We have to have them all together.”
Still, as with the case of his latest film, Shirin, Kiarostami’s uncompromising vision can cause mass confusion. Shirin is a series of close-ups of 117 women’s faces as they watch a play. We hear the play happening off screen and see the natural responses – laughter, sadness, suspense, relief – on the features of these faces. At Venice, where it was screened this summer, there was pandemonium in the auditorium, with confused viewers storming out and slating the film bitterly. Kiarostami has a spirited defence.
“The reaction in Venice was very predictable, actually. What was not predictable was the bad quality of the projection and organisation. The film for the media screening was actually projected with English subtitles, which were going on and off all the time and, at one point, for about 10 minutes, there was a total absence of subtitles. In spite of that, glory to the audience, because they were very patient! Shirin is a very difficult film which needs a lot of patience. So Venice was really a mess, an uncontrollable mess.”
Nevertheless, Kiarostami remains driven, determined. Describing Shirin as the end of a cycle that began back in 1970 with The Bread and Alley, he is currently working on an undefined new project. At this stage, he isn’t sure what the end result will be, but he is hoping he can eliminate as much narrative as possible, leaving most of it to be inferred by the viewer. Scraps of ideas are discussed – one scene he describes, sees a shy couple on the day of their wedding, reluctant to be photographed, left alone in a room with a camera with the plan that they will take their own portrait. Their off-screen conversation and inability to control the camera makes up the action. It is typically Kiarostami – wry, bittersweet, visually perplexing, yet quite rational.
Returning to the topic of Shirin, he delivers a final reflection. “Taking a picture is just freezing a moment, taking it out. That’s why I like photography, I don’t have to tell stories. In cinema, I am putting the storytelling outside the main frame of what is really happening and what you can see is your own story, being seen on the face of the person you are looking at. Therefore, you have so many different stories, so many complicated stories, that you know the story but yet you don’t know it. It leaves a lot of space, for you the viewer to look at it. I am not telling you the exact story, but it is there for you to find out about. That is my idea of the art of cinematography.”
Road, Basement Gallery, Dubai. www.basementdubai.com Until Nov 5.
Monday, 6 October 2008
The road to Islamic art
The Silk Road. The name alone conjures up visions of bounty-laden caravans travelling to distant locations, saddlebags full of riches like gold, ivory, spices, incense, and of course silk, all ready for the trade or raid, whichever came first.
The Silk Road was not one long paved caravan superhighway; it was made up of many routes. Northern stretches and southern passages carried soldiers, traders and even Marco Polo himself from Rome all the way to modern-day Xi’an in Western China since the second century BC. These routes also helped the transmission of theologies over the difficult mountain passes, carrying Islam to non-Arab lands until the 15th century when a sea route from Europe to Asia was discovered.
When Islam arrived in the cities along the routes, it brought its own artistic tradition as well. Calligraphy, architecture and replications of the Quran a mingled with the local cultures of central Asia, the Far East and the Levant.
The 11th annual Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival is a tribute to Islamic art from the countries that made up the former Silk Road, from Syria and Uzbekistan to Iran and China. Instead of displaying historical artefacts, the festival shows off artwork from the modern and contemporary periods. All of the art, whether it be calligraphy or video, bears the mark of those Arabs who spread Islam along the Silk Road.
The festival is too large for a one-day visit; it’s so large that the emirate’s Art Directorate has spaced programmes for the festival out over the course of a month and a half. The bad news: the festival’s programmes are all finished. The good news: the exhibits are still showing until October 10, so there is still time to experience the multitude of Islamic-influenced art and video from former Silk Road regions that is on display.
Detail from Taraneh Saheb’s 2003 poster commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Iranian author Sadeq Hedayat. Pawan Singh / The National
The eight separate exhibitions that make up the Islamic Arts Festival were selected for a purpose. “We chose them because it’s a new way to use calligraphy in design and their social motifs,” says Hisham al Mazloum, the festival’s general coordinator. In the 20 years that he has worked at the Sharjah Directorate of Art, Mazloum says he rarely saw the museum shift focus from Arab countries to other Muslim countries. “We did a little on these countries, but not like this before.”
“The Silk Route is an integral part of Islamic history,” says Charles Pocock, an expert on ancient and modern Islamic art who is an official adviser to the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation (ADMAF). “It was like a throbbing vein – a jugular through the Islamic world. “
The various galleries present a microcosm of the Islamically-influenced post-Silk Road world. The city-states and counties that emerged along the route combined their own traditions with those of Arabian Islam so well that today they appear to be seamless. Farsi calligraphy uses Arabic letters and fonts; Chinese red lacquer looks perfectly at home in a mosque’s interior. Even the red pigment in the lacquer is a combination from the Middle and Far East. Its base is made with the sap of dragon’s blood trees (Dracaena cinnabari) endemic to the Yemeni island of Socotra, which surely made its way to China via the Silk Road.
The two “must-see” parts of the eight exhibits, which heavily cover Central and Eastern Asia, are the Iranian posters and the Chinese photography displays.
The Iranian posters, all of them dating from the 1960s and onward, are clean and sparse with their use of script, a change from traditional Arabic calligraphy. There are posters for music festivals, theatre festivals, poetry festivals … even posters for poster festivals.
“The Iranian graphic design pieces are interesting because of the huge influence they have in the region,” adds Pocock, who points out that the exhibition features works by a number of well-known Iranian designers who unfortunately get precious little wall-time at galleries outside of Iran.
The Sharjah Art Museum’s display of over 130 posters will remind those who think of Iran only in terms of today’s rhetoric of nuclear armament that the country’s populace is both globally aware and extremely sophisticated, something that is articulated in contemporary Iranian graphic design.
One poster by Sadeg Barirani from 1967 references the iconic 1896 Don Quixote poster by the Beggarstaff Brothers by using the same shadowing and colour blocking techniques. Only in Barirani’s print, the poster advertises an Iranian folk dancing program at Roudaki Hall with a white figure atop a mirror image in indigo on a cobalt background. This technique creates a damask pattern in the blue-on-blue silhouettes, building on the inventions of its less visually lush 19th century predecessor.
Another work by Taraneh Saheb from 2003 commemorates the 100th anniversary Sadeq Hedayat’s birth (Hedayat was a celebrated Iranian short story writer and is widely considered to be a national treasure). Saheb’s poster for the exhibition uses thumbnail reproductions of other posters from the exhibition arranged in a way that they create a shadowy portrait of Hedeyat emerging from the background.
Saheb, herself a “grande dame” of Iranian graphic design, uses the same technique in her Hedayat poster’s design as the American artist Chuck Close uses in his oversized portraits. Saheb, along with a host of other Iranian graphic designers including Barirani, clearly still inform their work with western artistic traditions, though they use them as another tool in their box in order to create uniquely Iranian design. As far as their Islamic-ness goes, it’s unclear how these posters are religiously orientated in the traditional sense, besides their origination in a Muslim country.
That is less of a conundrum for the richly coloured portraits of Chinese Islamic life captured by Haji Mohammed Bai Xue Yi, a photographer and professor in China’s central Henan province. Bai is known at home for his photographs of Muslim life in the Arabian Peninsula and has mounted solo shows featuring shots of Oman and his pilgrimage to Mecca. Here, Bai depicts the colourful street life – and the serene religious life – of Chinese Muslims. Pictures like Xichuan Mosque in Guanghe, Gansu Province, are photographed in colour but almost look like they were printed in all sepia. The terracotta spires and dome of the titular mosque rise in the foreground against a hennaed sunrise along the mountains that frame them. Gansu province, which runs from Mongolia to Central China, is at the heart of the Silk Road and is considered one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. It also has a large Muslim population, featured prominently and proudly in Bai’s photos.
In Make a Du’a (informal prayers) a photo of Chinese men praying in an open-air mosque while light streams in on them, there is a palpable spirituality. Other photos of the same series, all taken in 2007, show the mixing of Arab Islamic culture and Chinese heritage. Plug into the Incense is a photo of mourners at a funeral hoisting a giant stick of incense that is twice their size into an even larger copper pot filled with sand in front of a mosque as others look on. The mosque is not domed as in the Middle East but tiered like traditional Chinese architecture. Though burning incense at a funeral is more often associated with Buddhist tradition, the oversized incense stick here is green – the colour of Islam.
Chinese and Arabic cultures have influenced each other since before the time of the famed travelers Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo. “Islam was brought through to China on the Silk Road,” says Pocock. “And the central themes of Middle Eastern renaissance were borne out of the influx of Chinese ceramics brought through the Silk Road.” The two cultures undeniably share a reverence for calligraphic art and are known for their elegant scripts.
“The Silk Road was very important to the exchange of cultures and facilitated understanding,” says Mazloum. “And old writing in Chinese has something Arabic in it.”
The rest of the shows in the festival are worth checking out if you’ve got the time, but the lack of explanations, background or historical significance of the works certainly dampens the desire. The space itself is beautiful though, and there is a plentiful amount of work from lands of the Silk Road displayed in the museum’s various galleries. As Pocock says, “there’s something for everyone there.”
swolff@thenational.ae
Friday, 5 September 2008
Jenin's theatrical oasis
Zakaria Zubeidi has featured near the top of Israel's most wanted list for many years.
But the head of the Jenin branch of the al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade now believes that children's theatre is as important a method for achieving Palestinian statehood as armed conflict.
"One of my first poignant memories in life was waking up in a hospital with a bullet wound when I was thirteen and a half," Zubeidi says. "At 14 I was imprisoned."
"With its invasions, tanks, and explosives, the occupation destroyed our childhood."
Having felt his own youth was taken from him Zubeidi is investing his efforts in the Freedom Theatre which is giving that childhood back, by allowing the current Palestinian youth to develop a different narrative.
One of the most popular armed leaders in the Palestinian intifada he has now laid down his weapons.
Sited in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank the Freedom Theatre aims to provide "a safe space in which children are free to express themselves and in which they can develop the skills, self-knowledge and confidence which would empower them to challenge present realities."
In a community that is often forced to live in fear, isolated from the rest of the world and subject to regular raids by the Israeli army the theatre provides a social oasis in the Jenin camp.
When Al Jazeera vists Zubeidi is welcoming home a former political prisoner.
Umbrella
Incarceration is a right of passage for young men in Palestinian refugee communities and many of Zubeidi's childhood friends are now dead. Consequently he is determined today’s young Palestinians have better prospects.
"Instead of playing on the streets like I used to," he says. “The kids of the Jenin camp now have a place to go."
"The Freedom Theatre is an umbrella for everyone. I’m the head of the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades, but when I walk in that gate, I become Zakaria Zubeidi, a member of the Freedom Theatre."
A theatre was first established in Jenin by Arna Mer Khamis, an Israeli woman who taught Zubeidi and his friends acting skills at his parents house.
But as the war dragged on the teenagers became soldiers and the theatre was forgotten.
The new theatre is now run by Kamis' son Juliano. Zubeidi for security reasons is not officially on the staff but is very much a strong presence.
"I am very happy that Zakaria went in this way, and decided to put down the weapons, and joined the Freedom Theatre," Jualiano Khamis says.
Mixed environment
"It's not safe from a fundraising point of view, you know, some people still consider Zakaria a terrorist. So he supports us from the top of that mountain, protecting us, giving us the legitimacy to be here."
Zubeidi says his childhood was robbed by conflict
Khamis says that because the camp is home to Jews, Muslims, Christians, Americans and is among the most attacked camps in Palestine, the theatre is a true phenomenon.
"Art cannot free you from your chains," he says. "But art can generate and mobilise discourse of freedom. Art can create debate, art can expose,"
In a community often segregated by gender the theatre also provides a rare occasion for boys and girls to gather and act and play together.
"Palestinian girls are essentially oppressed by their male relatives, an atmosphere of fear exists between them," Nadine, one of the theatre's regular performers, says.
"So in my sketch I am trying to get the message across that no matter what the Palestinian girl does, she will be monitored."
Many of the performances are improvised and raw but in a society where acting has often been considered taboo the theatre provides a rare chance to leave everyday problems at the stage door.
"I love being in the theatre, because it gives me a stage to express my thoughts and feelings," Nadine says.
Movement Therapist, Petra Barghouti, works with the performers and says that although acting is frowned upon in much of Palestinian society, talking about psychological problems is traditionally even more looked down upon.
"In this culture if you have any kind of psychological problem you hide it, because it's a shame," she says. "But now they ask for help, which is wonderful, because it’s the first step to a healthy environment or healthy community."
The interminable threat of violence and repression has often meant that life as a child in the Palestinian territories has involved growing up a lot faster than elsewhere in the world.
The Freedom Theatre is at least giving some youngsters the opportunity to act their age for a while longer.
But the head of the Jenin branch of the al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade now believes that children's theatre is as important a method for achieving Palestinian statehood as armed conflict.
"One of my first poignant memories in life was waking up in a hospital with a bullet wound when I was thirteen and a half," Zubeidi says. "At 14 I was imprisoned."
"With its invasions, tanks, and explosives, the occupation destroyed our childhood."
Having felt his own youth was taken from him Zubeidi is investing his efforts in the Freedom Theatre which is giving that childhood back, by allowing the current Palestinian youth to develop a different narrative.
One of the most popular armed leaders in the Palestinian intifada he has now laid down his weapons.
Sited in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank the Freedom Theatre aims to provide "a safe space in which children are free to express themselves and in which they can develop the skills, self-knowledge and confidence which would empower them to challenge present realities."
In a community that is often forced to live in fear, isolated from the rest of the world and subject to regular raids by the Israeli army the theatre provides a social oasis in the Jenin camp.
When Al Jazeera vists Zubeidi is welcoming home a former political prisoner.
Umbrella
Incarceration is a right of passage for young men in Palestinian refugee communities and many of Zubeidi's childhood friends are now dead. Consequently he is determined today’s young Palestinians have better prospects.
"Instead of playing on the streets like I used to," he says. “The kids of the Jenin camp now have a place to go."
"The Freedom Theatre is an umbrella for everyone. I’m the head of the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades, but when I walk in that gate, I become Zakaria Zubeidi, a member of the Freedom Theatre."
A theatre was first established in Jenin by Arna Mer Khamis, an Israeli woman who taught Zubeidi and his friends acting skills at his parents house.
But as the war dragged on the teenagers became soldiers and the theatre was forgotten.
The new theatre is now run by Kamis' son Juliano. Zubeidi for security reasons is not officially on the staff but is very much a strong presence.
"I am very happy that Zakaria went in this way, and decided to put down the weapons, and joined the Freedom Theatre," Jualiano Khamis says.
Mixed environment
"It's not safe from a fundraising point of view, you know, some people still consider Zakaria a terrorist. So he supports us from the top of that mountain, protecting us, giving us the legitimacy to be here."
Zubeidi says his childhood was robbed by conflict
Khamis says that because the camp is home to Jews, Muslims, Christians, Americans and is among the most attacked camps in Palestine, the theatre is a true phenomenon.
"Art cannot free you from your chains," he says. "But art can generate and mobilise discourse of freedom. Art can create debate, art can expose,"
In a community often segregated by gender the theatre also provides a rare occasion for boys and girls to gather and act and play together.
"Palestinian girls are essentially oppressed by their male relatives, an atmosphere of fear exists between them," Nadine, one of the theatre's regular performers, says.
"So in my sketch I am trying to get the message across that no matter what the Palestinian girl does, she will be monitored."
Many of the performances are improvised and raw but in a society where acting has often been considered taboo the theatre provides a rare chance to leave everyday problems at the stage door.
"I love being in the theatre, because it gives me a stage to express my thoughts and feelings," Nadine says.
Movement Therapist, Petra Barghouti, works with the performers and says that although acting is frowned upon in much of Palestinian society, talking about psychological problems is traditionally even more looked down upon.
"In this culture if you have any kind of psychological problem you hide it, because it's a shame," she says. "But now they ask for help, which is wonderful, because it’s the first step to a healthy environment or healthy community."
The interminable threat of violence and repression has often meant that life as a child in the Palestinian territories has involved growing up a lot faster than elsewhere in the world.
The Freedom Theatre is at least giving some youngsters the opportunity to act their age for a while longer.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
DAMASCUS BOOK FAIR DISAPPOINTS
Publishers who took part in this year's Damascus book fair said
attendance and sales were lower than those of the previous year
because of Syria's economic woes.
"The turnout last year in the fair was much better than this year.
Sales weren't good because of high prices," said Mihyar Kurdi, director
of the Arab Cultural Publishing Centre in Morocco.
The twenty-fourth annual Damascus book fair, which ended last week, drew
participants from 24 nations and included 35,000 titles. This year's fair
coincided with Damascus being named the 2008 Arab capital of culture. Yet
that did not help to boost sales, said publishers, nor did the 20 per cent
discount on all books.
"Syrians' purchasing power is weak and they're living on tight budgets,"
said Jibran Abu Joda, a sales representative for Al-Saqi publishing house,
a popular Arabic-language book publisher which is based in London and
also publishes in Lebanon.
"When readers visit our house, they want to buy as many books as
possible. But they can't afford it, and they?re putting off buying books
until next year."
The government and event organisers did not release any figures on the
number of people who attended this year's fair or the number of books
sold.
Al-Saqi said its daily book sales dropped from about 600 last year to
300, while the Arab Cultural Publishing Centre said its sales plummeted
from about 200 books daily to 40.
Mustafa Al-Sadi, a sales representative for Al-Ubaikan bookstore
in Riyadh, said publishers could not offer more of a discount because
they were paying such high rents at the fair.
"If the Syrian government lowered the prices for publishing houses, then
[publishers] would lower the prices more," said Sadi. "Now, the only ones
who lose out in all of this are Syrian citizens."
Suhaib Al-Sharif, director of Al-Fikr publishing house in Syria,
attributed the poor turnout to insufficient publicity for the fair.
He also said that fewer young people are buying books because they
spend so much time online.
But young Syrians attending the fair cited economic factors, saying
their disposable income is too tight to purchase books.
Shadi, a 26-year-old sales representative for a private company
who did not want his last name used, said he makes only 15,000 liras
(300 US dollars) per month, and the cheapest books costs about 300 liras.
"Someone coming from abroad who makes a lot of money might be able to
buy a book, but I can't," he said.
Iraqi writer Fadhil Al-Rubaii said he did not sell any copies of his new
book "Imagined Palestine" at the fair, noting that at 1,200 lira the price
may have been too high for the Syrian market.
In addition, eleven books addressing sexual issues were pulled from the
fair this year when religious leaders reportedly balked at their content -
perhaps a backlash against the growing number of books available over the
past few years on topics that were once taboo in Syria.
The fair included a larger number of religious titles than in previous
years, said observers.
(Syria News Briefing, a weekly news analysis service, draws on information
and opinion from a network of IWPR-trained Syrian journalists based in the
country.)
attendance and sales were lower than those of the previous year
because of Syria's economic woes.
"The turnout last year in the fair was much better than this year.
Sales weren't good because of high prices," said Mihyar Kurdi, director
of the Arab Cultural Publishing Centre in Morocco.
The twenty-fourth annual Damascus book fair, which ended last week, drew
participants from 24 nations and included 35,000 titles. This year's fair
coincided with Damascus being named the 2008 Arab capital of culture. Yet
that did not help to boost sales, said publishers, nor did the 20 per cent
discount on all books.
"Syrians' purchasing power is weak and they're living on tight budgets,"
said Jibran Abu Joda, a sales representative for Al-Saqi publishing house,
a popular Arabic-language book publisher which is based in London and
also publishes in Lebanon.
"When readers visit our house, they want to buy as many books as
possible. But they can't afford it, and they?re putting off buying books
until next year."
The government and event organisers did not release any figures on the
number of people who attended this year's fair or the number of books
sold.
Al-Saqi said its daily book sales dropped from about 600 last year to
300, while the Arab Cultural Publishing Centre said its sales plummeted
from about 200 books daily to 40.
Mustafa Al-Sadi, a sales representative for Al-Ubaikan bookstore
in Riyadh, said publishers could not offer more of a discount because
they were paying such high rents at the fair.
"If the Syrian government lowered the prices for publishing houses, then
[publishers] would lower the prices more," said Sadi. "Now, the only ones
who lose out in all of this are Syrian citizens."
Suhaib Al-Sharif, director of Al-Fikr publishing house in Syria,
attributed the poor turnout to insufficient publicity for the fair.
He also said that fewer young people are buying books because they
spend so much time online.
But young Syrians attending the fair cited economic factors, saying
their disposable income is too tight to purchase books.
Shadi, a 26-year-old sales representative for a private company
who did not want his last name used, said he makes only 15,000 liras
(300 US dollars) per month, and the cheapest books costs about 300 liras.
"Someone coming from abroad who makes a lot of money might be able to
buy a book, but I can't," he said.
Iraqi writer Fadhil Al-Rubaii said he did not sell any copies of his new
book "Imagined Palestine" at the fair, noting that at 1,200 lira the price
may have been too high for the Syrian market.
In addition, eleven books addressing sexual issues were pulled from the
fair this year when religious leaders reportedly balked at their content -
perhaps a backlash against the growing number of books available over the
past few years on topics that were once taboo in Syria.
The fair included a larger number of religious titles than in previous
years, said observers.
(Syria News Briefing, a weekly news analysis service, draws on information
and opinion from a network of IWPR-trained Syrian journalists based in the
country.)
Umm Kulthum Homage to Egypt's "Fourth Pyramid"
An exhibition in the Parisian Institut du Monde Arabe is dedicated to the life and work of renowned Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, whose repertoire is still popular with stars such as Franco-Moroccan Sapho and up-and-coming singers such as Lebanese Nancy Agram. Mona Sarkis reports
| Bild: Umm Kulthum (photo: Deutsche Welle)
Bild vergr�ssern The Voice of Egypt: like few other singers, Umm Kulthum embodied the principle of "al Tarab", the emotional rapture of musician and audience | On four intersecting paths the Institut du Monde Arabe wants to offer viewers an up-close look at the "Fourth Pyramid", as Umm Kulthum is called in her native country on the Nile. The first section presents the roots and career of the Egyptian diva. Documents, objects, photographs, video and recording sequences take viewers back to the era of the British mandate, the rule of Kings Fuad and Faruq, the revolution of 1952, and Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadar, and naturally to the period of the epochal defeat of 1948.
Umm Kulthum, born in 1904 as the child of farmers in the impoverished Nile delta, dressed as a boy for her first performance. In the 1940s and 1950s she had already reached the height of her fame.
Pride and ignominy
As a devout adherent to pan-Arabism she supported the war against Israel. And when her admirer and mentor Nasser led the Arabs into the trauma of 1967, she demonstratively and majestically launched a concert tour that visited nearly every Arab country. In the same year she declared in Paris, where she gave her first and only concert in a non-Arab city: "We would rather die than surrender. There is no ceasefire in the battle."
| Bild: Institut du Monde Arabe (photo: dpa)
Bild vergr�ssern The Institut du Monde Arabe was founded in 1980. Its main purpose is to foster the dialogue between France and the Arab world, and to put on display the Arab world's cultural and spiritual values | But Umm Kulthum was not only a fervent nationalist. She was also known for her passion, the almost unending love cry in "El-Atlal" (The Ruins), probably the most famous song in her repertoire, written by Ibrahim Naji for Riad al-Sunbati's composition. In "El-Atlal" song and passion merge, underscoring what Umm Kulthum stands for musically: "Al-Tarab".
Exhibition viewers can also immerse themselves in her music. Concert excerpts enable the viewer to experience the singer, savour every intonation, at times with hours of her improvisations in direct emotional interaction with the audience. This second section, "The Talent", also includes interviews with music experts as well as the stage costumes of Umm Kulthum.
"Unveil yourselves, my sisters"
Section three is devoted to the music icon's public engagement. Before her spectacular rise to fame Umm Kulthum often performed in front of a primitive public, as she later recounted: " [In the beginning] we were often threatened by drunks, and the public requested vulgar songs such as 'Let's pull the curtains shut so that neighbours wont' see us'".
| Bild: photo: AP
Bild vergr�ssern Umm Kulthum was courted even by the ruling class - this chain of pearls was presented to her as a gift by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of United Arab Emirates from 1971-2004 | Later her Muslim brothers suspected her of blasphemy for her "taiwid", the musical Koran recitations she pushed to perfection. But such accusations did not bother the daughter of an Imam, who sought to calm her nerves before performances with lectures from the Koran – at least externally. Nor did rumours about her strictly guarded private life and the insinuation that she married late only to seek refuge behind an honourable façade.
During her last concert abroad in Libya she called out to her backstage women assistants: "Unveil yourselves, my sisters. We are the productive power of our societies. We can carry our heads high and bare!"
The fourth exhibition section demonstrates that Umm Kulthum's legacy is still alive: 25 artists from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, from the Czech Republic to Italy, from the Sudan to the Netherlands, encircle the "Egyptian nightingale" with their works: whether in Huda Lufti's representation of Umm as a statue of liberty; whether with a playful wink, as with Sarah Baydoun's und Sarah Nahhouli's purses that portray the diva in pop art manner with trendy chignon, glasses, and pearl necklace.
Mona Sarkis
| Bild: Umm Kulthum (photo: Deutsche Welle)
Bild vergr�ssern The Voice of Egypt: like few other singers, Umm Kulthum embodied the principle of "al Tarab", the emotional rapture of musician and audience | On four intersecting paths the Institut du Monde Arabe wants to offer viewers an up-close look at the "Fourth Pyramid", as Umm Kulthum is called in her native country on the Nile. The first section presents the roots and career of the Egyptian diva. Documents, objects, photographs, video and recording sequences take viewers back to the era of the British mandate, the rule of Kings Fuad and Faruq, the revolution of 1952, and Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadar, and naturally to the period of the epochal defeat of 1948.
Umm Kulthum, born in 1904 as the child of farmers in the impoverished Nile delta, dressed as a boy for her first performance. In the 1940s and 1950s she had already reached the height of her fame.
Pride and ignominy
As a devout adherent to pan-Arabism she supported the war against Israel. And when her admirer and mentor Nasser led the Arabs into the trauma of 1967, she demonstratively and majestically launched a concert tour that visited nearly every Arab country. In the same year she declared in Paris, where she gave her first and only concert in a non-Arab city: "We would rather die than surrender. There is no ceasefire in the battle."
| Bild: Institut du Monde Arabe (photo: dpa)
Bild vergr�ssern The Institut du Monde Arabe was founded in 1980. Its main purpose is to foster the dialogue between France and the Arab world, and to put on display the Arab world's cultural and spiritual values | But Umm Kulthum was not only a fervent nationalist. She was also known for her passion, the almost unending love cry in "El-Atlal" (The Ruins), probably the most famous song in her repertoire, written by Ibrahim Naji for Riad al-Sunbati's composition. In "El-Atlal" song and passion merge, underscoring what Umm Kulthum stands for musically: "Al-Tarab".
Exhibition viewers can also immerse themselves in her music. Concert excerpts enable the viewer to experience the singer, savour every intonation, at times with hours of her improvisations in direct emotional interaction with the audience. This second section, "The Talent", also includes interviews with music experts as well as the stage costumes of Umm Kulthum.
"Unveil yourselves, my sisters"
Section three is devoted to the music icon's public engagement. Before her spectacular rise to fame Umm Kulthum often performed in front of a primitive public, as she later recounted: " [In the beginning] we were often threatened by drunks, and the public requested vulgar songs such as 'Let's pull the curtains shut so that neighbours wont' see us'".
| Bild: photo: AP
Bild vergr�ssern Umm Kulthum was courted even by the ruling class - this chain of pearls was presented to her as a gift by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of United Arab Emirates from 1971-2004 | Later her Muslim brothers suspected her of blasphemy for her "taiwid", the musical Koran recitations she pushed to perfection. But such accusations did not bother the daughter of an Imam, who sought to calm her nerves before performances with lectures from the Koran – at least externally. Nor did rumours about her strictly guarded private life and the insinuation that she married late only to seek refuge behind an honourable façade.
During her last concert abroad in Libya she called out to her backstage women assistants: "Unveil yourselves, my sisters. We are the productive power of our societies. We can carry our heads high and bare!"
The fourth exhibition section demonstrates that Umm Kulthum's legacy is still alive: 25 artists from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, from the Czech Republic to Italy, from the Sudan to the Netherlands, encircle the "Egyptian nightingale" with their works: whether in Huda Lufti's representation of Umm as a statue of liberty; whether with a playful wink, as with Sarah Baydoun's und Sarah Nahhouli's purses that portray the diva in pop art manner with trendy chignon, glasses, and pearl necklace.
Mona Sarkis
Monday, 25 August 2008
Bread and circuses versus the clash of ignorance; Moroccan state's promotion of cultural festivals hangs from a political skeleton
Beirut -- CASABLANCA: If you were under the impression that Muslims have something against music, the sheer number of summer music festivals around the Middle East and North Africa might come as something of a surprise. Morocco provides a case in point.
The Casablanca Festival turns Morocco's commercial capital into an urban Woodstock, with masses of young people clogging the mosque-filled streets and partying to the pulse of hip-hop, rock, pop and Arab music. An estimated 2 million people attend free concerts at a dozen venues, many snapping up the action on their cell phones.
Casablanca's is only one of about 400 yearly festivals sponsored by authorities across that country, not to mention the sports, dancing and singing contests organized on popular beaches every summer.
The Moroccan state's promotion of cultural events and leisure activities hangs from a political skeleton.
The country's increasingly powerful Islamist groups view it as a deliberate attempt to deviate youth from traditional Islamic values. Even some government officials admit the aim of the merrymaking is to promote the liberal values they'd like to see society embrace rather than radical Islam.
Not surprisingly perhaps, most youth say they don't see it that way. They just enjoy the free music and the opportunity to party in this country of 34 million where unemployment is particularly high among young adults and where parents usually keep a tight grip on their children.
"I like these concerts ... the artists are role models for young people," said 19-year-old Fadoua Hakki at a hip-hop event in Casablanca. Oumaima, 17, praised the "great strides" made by the new generation of home-grown Moroccan rap singers. "They're very good," she said, "and they voice our concerns."
The streets full of trendy teenagers dancing to the Tecktonik craze that has swept Europe stand in striking contrast to the near-medieval living conditions in Morocco's countryside or the sprawling slums around Casablanca, which have become a hotbed of Islamism.
Such festivals would be unheard of in more rigorously conservative Muslim states, where the mixing of boys and girls, free sale of alcohol or even dancing in public can be forbidden.
Like all those states in the MENA region habitually termed "moderate," Morocco has strong economic and political ties to the West and is a major tourist destination. Like them, Morocco prides itself on a cultural diversity that allows scantily clad girls to attend a concert side by side with women wearing Islamic headscarves.
Artists in Casablanca this year included international reggae and hip-hop stars. The yearly Gnaoua Mystical Music Festival in the resort town of Essaouira attracts top jazz and rock players. In Rabat, Morocco's capital, this year's edition of the Mawazine World Music Fest (a stone's throw from King Mohammed VI's palace and under his direct patronage) included Whitney Houston for her return to the stage, jazzman George Benson and French electro DJ David Vendetta.
Organizers say bringing in big names to festivals reflects Morocco's traditions of mixing cultures and people from Europe and Africa. "That openness can only continue if there is an exposure to cultures from the rest of the world," said Ahmad Ammor, the head of the Casablanca Festival organizing committee. "It's part of the king's project for society, that's why you see a festival in nearly every town."
With a budget of about $3.18 million, Ammor's festival remains the largest in Morocco. Like many official events in Morocco, it is half funded by public money and half by large companies close to the state. Ammor says he works for free, presiding the rest of the time over a subsidiary of the national carrier Royal Air Maroc.
Morocco's attitude toward summer festivals may be unique in financial support the state provides, but the concept is in step with that of other "moderate" states in the region, seeking to add value to the archaeological and natural sites in order to lure more Western tourists in the summertime.
In the Hashemite Kingdom this year, the principal platform for such activity was the Jordan Festival. Between July 8 and August 9, Amman, Jerash, and the Dead Sea provided venues for shows by such Arab performers as Amr Diab, Ragheb Alameh, George Wasouf, Faudel, Biyouna, Cheb Khaled and international artists like Placido Domingo, Monica Yunus, Jazz celebrity Diana Krall and British-Lebanese pop star Mika.
The festival also attracted press attention and boycott threats when rumors surfaced that the events organizer behind the festival had also worked on Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations.
In its profile and line-up, the Jordan Festival very much emulated a successful prototype used in Lebanon but largely becalmed by the political vagaries visited upon that country since the 2006 summer war.
The Byblos Festival, tucked in its Christian enclave and so largely free of the sectarian-political stresses felt elsewhere in Lebanon, was the first to clamber to its feet. The 2008 season witnessed the return of Byblos' high-profile models - the Baalbek and Beiteddine International Festivals - as well as a host of smaller festivals whose programs range from heritage events and to pop musicians and DJs.
Security is a major concern at such events and a massive police presence is visible Morocco's public events. Organizers say unruliness is rare at Morocco's summer festivals, noting that parents often attend with their children and then take them home.
Many have qualms with all this revelry, however. Some critics say funding the stars' contracts costs the state a fortune. Others deplore the import of Western music such as rap, which they accuse of corrupting Moroccan youth. Others still say the large spring festivals are badly timed because they interfere with exam periods.
"There are too many festivals in Morocco," said Zine Eddine Bekkal, a Casablanca shopkeeper. "As soon as one finishes, another starts. No wonder young people don't read anymore."
The most vocal critics are usually affiliated with Islamist groups, who hold growing sway in Morocco. The gap between the educated, wealthy and Westernized elite and the vast majority of the impoverished population has been widening.
"We stand against the debauchery observed during these festivals," Abdelilah Benkirane, said on a state TV talk show. Benkirane leads Morocco's biggest authorized Islamist group, the Justice and Development Party.
"Have you seen the type of groups they invite?" he was quoted as saying by the liberal-leaning "TelQuel" weekly magazine. "The suggestive, scantily clad women?"
More hard-line Islamist groups, like the semi-legal Justice and Charity movement - regarded as the largest in Morocco - see more than bad morality to the partying.
"It's not only dissolute, it's cynical," said Nadia Yassine, spokeswoman for the movement and the daughter of its founder, Sheik Yassine.
"It's like ancient Rome: bread and circus to keep the masses happy," she said, accusing the state of trying to divert public attention from Morocco's lasting problems, such as unemployment, poverty and corruption.
Moroccan government officials say the drive for culture comes within a wider plan to improve public education and build new infrastructure throughout the destitute hinterland.
They also gingerly admit they are waging a struggle for the hearts and minds of the country's youth.
One high-ranking Interior Ministry official - who spoke anonymously because this is not a publicly avowed government policy - recalled how some Islamists began speaking out against public beaches. Groups walked the seafront to preach for better morals and fewer bikinis, or set up segregated areas.
"No one wants to be bothered on the beach" he said, "so people began shying away."
He added that the government's reaction was to promote sports and leisure activities as well as song and dance contests on beaches during the summer.
"Sure, this bothers the 'bearded ones,'" the official grinned, using a slightly derogatory slang to refer to Islamists because of the long beards they often grow.
Ammor, the festival organizer, said the state was on a mission to make Morocco a place where Arab and Western cultures can interplay, rather than dwell on the growing tensions of the last decade.
"People call it a clash of civilizations," he said. "I think it's a clash of ignorance." - With The Daily Star
The Casablanca Festival turns Morocco's commercial capital into an urban Woodstock, with masses of young people clogging the mosque-filled streets and partying to the pulse of hip-hop, rock, pop and Arab music. An estimated 2 million people attend free concerts at a dozen venues, many snapping up the action on their cell phones.
Casablanca's is only one of about 400 yearly festivals sponsored by authorities across that country, not to mention the sports, dancing and singing contests organized on popular beaches every summer.
The Moroccan state's promotion of cultural events and leisure activities hangs from a political skeleton.
The country's increasingly powerful Islamist groups view it as a deliberate attempt to deviate youth from traditional Islamic values. Even some government officials admit the aim of the merrymaking is to promote the liberal values they'd like to see society embrace rather than radical Islam.
Not surprisingly perhaps, most youth say they don't see it that way. They just enjoy the free music and the opportunity to party in this country of 34 million where unemployment is particularly high among young adults and where parents usually keep a tight grip on their children.
"I like these concerts ... the artists are role models for young people," said 19-year-old Fadoua Hakki at a hip-hop event in Casablanca. Oumaima, 17, praised the "great strides" made by the new generation of home-grown Moroccan rap singers. "They're very good," she said, "and they voice our concerns."
The streets full of trendy teenagers dancing to the Tecktonik craze that has swept Europe stand in striking contrast to the near-medieval living conditions in Morocco's countryside or the sprawling slums around Casablanca, which have become a hotbed of Islamism.
Such festivals would be unheard of in more rigorously conservative Muslim states, where the mixing of boys and girls, free sale of alcohol or even dancing in public can be forbidden.
Like all those states in the MENA region habitually termed "moderate," Morocco has strong economic and political ties to the West and is a major tourist destination. Like them, Morocco prides itself on a cultural diversity that allows scantily clad girls to attend a concert side by side with women wearing Islamic headscarves.
Artists in Casablanca this year included international reggae and hip-hop stars. The yearly Gnaoua Mystical Music Festival in the resort town of Essaouira attracts top jazz and rock players. In Rabat, Morocco's capital, this year's edition of the Mawazine World Music Fest (a stone's throw from King Mohammed VI's palace and under his direct patronage) included Whitney Houston for her return to the stage, jazzman George Benson and French electro DJ David Vendetta.
Organizers say bringing in big names to festivals reflects Morocco's traditions of mixing cultures and people from Europe and Africa. "That openness can only continue if there is an exposure to cultures from the rest of the world," said Ahmad Ammor, the head of the Casablanca Festival organizing committee. "It's part of the king's project for society, that's why you see a festival in nearly every town."
With a budget of about $3.18 million, Ammor's festival remains the largest in Morocco. Like many official events in Morocco, it is half funded by public money and half by large companies close to the state. Ammor says he works for free, presiding the rest of the time over a subsidiary of the national carrier Royal Air Maroc.
Morocco's attitude toward summer festivals may be unique in financial support the state provides, but the concept is in step with that of other "moderate" states in the region, seeking to add value to the archaeological and natural sites in order to lure more Western tourists in the summertime.
In the Hashemite Kingdom this year, the principal platform for such activity was the Jordan Festival. Between July 8 and August 9, Amman, Jerash, and the Dead Sea provided venues for shows by such Arab performers as Amr Diab, Ragheb Alameh, George Wasouf, Faudel, Biyouna, Cheb Khaled and international artists like Placido Domingo, Monica Yunus, Jazz celebrity Diana Krall and British-Lebanese pop star Mika.
The festival also attracted press attention and boycott threats when rumors surfaced that the events organizer behind the festival had also worked on Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations.
In its profile and line-up, the Jordan Festival very much emulated a successful prototype used in Lebanon but largely becalmed by the political vagaries visited upon that country since the 2006 summer war.
The Byblos Festival, tucked in its Christian enclave and so largely free of the sectarian-political stresses felt elsewhere in Lebanon, was the first to clamber to its feet. The 2008 season witnessed the return of Byblos' high-profile models - the Baalbek and Beiteddine International Festivals - as well as a host of smaller festivals whose programs range from heritage events and to pop musicians and DJs.
Security is a major concern at such events and a massive police presence is visible Morocco's public events. Organizers say unruliness is rare at Morocco's summer festivals, noting that parents often attend with their children and then take them home.
Many have qualms with all this revelry, however. Some critics say funding the stars' contracts costs the state a fortune. Others deplore the import of Western music such as rap, which they accuse of corrupting Moroccan youth. Others still say the large spring festivals are badly timed because they interfere with exam periods.
"There are too many festivals in Morocco," said Zine Eddine Bekkal, a Casablanca shopkeeper. "As soon as one finishes, another starts. No wonder young people don't read anymore."
The most vocal critics are usually affiliated with Islamist groups, who hold growing sway in Morocco. The gap between the educated, wealthy and Westernized elite and the vast majority of the impoverished population has been widening.
"We stand against the debauchery observed during these festivals," Abdelilah Benkirane, said on a state TV talk show. Benkirane leads Morocco's biggest authorized Islamist group, the Justice and Development Party.
"Have you seen the type of groups they invite?" he was quoted as saying by the liberal-leaning "TelQuel" weekly magazine. "The suggestive, scantily clad women?"
More hard-line Islamist groups, like the semi-legal Justice and Charity movement - regarded as the largest in Morocco - see more than bad morality to the partying.
"It's not only dissolute, it's cynical," said Nadia Yassine, spokeswoman for the movement and the daughter of its founder, Sheik Yassine.
"It's like ancient Rome: bread and circus to keep the masses happy," she said, accusing the state of trying to divert public attention from Morocco's lasting problems, such as unemployment, poverty and corruption.
Moroccan government officials say the drive for culture comes within a wider plan to improve public education and build new infrastructure throughout the destitute hinterland.
They also gingerly admit they are waging a struggle for the hearts and minds of the country's youth.
One high-ranking Interior Ministry official - who spoke anonymously because this is not a publicly avowed government policy - recalled how some Islamists began speaking out against public beaches. Groups walked the seafront to preach for better morals and fewer bikinis, or set up segregated areas.
"No one wants to be bothered on the beach" he said, "so people began shying away."
He added that the government's reaction was to promote sports and leisure activities as well as song and dance contests on beaches during the summer.
"Sure, this bothers the 'bearded ones,'" the official grinned, using a slightly derogatory slang to refer to Islamists because of the long beards they often grow.
Ammor, the festival organizer, said the state was on a mission to make Morocco a place where Arab and Western cultures can interplay, rather than dwell on the growing tensions of the last decade.
"People call it a clash of civilizations," he said. "I think it's a clash of ignorance." - With The Daily Star
Friday, 22 August 2008
Iran: 17th Carpet Exhibit to Open on August 22
Section: General News - The 17th Hand-woven Persian Carpet Exhibition will be held in Tehran's Permanent International Fairground from August 22-28.
According to the exhibition's public relations office, 414 foreign and domestic companies will showcase their products including carpets, kilim and gabeh in an area of 35,000 square meters.
The event is a best venue for introducing the Iranian carpet industry to the world, the public relations office said.
Earlier, the Islamic republic news agency quoted deputy head of Iran Carpet Company as saying that the government will grant special facilities for establishment of carpet-weaving factories in a bid to make carpet production target-oriented and promote the quality of Persian carpets.
"So far a total of 200 carpet-weaving factories have become operational using such facilities," Mohammad Abed said, underlining that with the implementation of the plan, orders for Persian carpet as well as supervision over the quality of production will increase.
Commenting on the specifications of the plan, Abed also said that under the plan, raw materials used in the factories will also be overseen by technical inspectors.
He also said that Commerce Ministry has proposed the government to set aside 500 billion rials so as to procure quality raw materials for the purpose. - FNA
According to the exhibition's public relations office, 414 foreign and domestic companies will showcase their products including carpets, kilim and gabeh in an area of 35,000 square meters.
The event is a best venue for introducing the Iranian carpet industry to the world, the public relations office said.
Earlier, the Islamic republic news agency quoted deputy head of Iran Carpet Company as saying that the government will grant special facilities for establishment of carpet-weaving factories in a bid to make carpet production target-oriented and promote the quality of Persian carpets.
"So far a total of 200 carpet-weaving factories have become operational using such facilities," Mohammad Abed said, underlining that with the implementation of the plan, orders for Persian carpet as well as supervision over the quality of production will increase.
Commenting on the specifications of the plan, Abed also said that under the plan, raw materials used in the factories will also be overseen by technical inspectors.
He also said that Commerce Ministry has proposed the government to set aside 500 billion rials so as to procure quality raw materials for the purpose. - FNA
Monday, 18 August 2008
Iraqi booth at Damascus International Fair inaugurated
BAGHDAD, Aug. 17 (VOI) - The Iraqi booth at the Damascus International Fair held in the Syrian capital was inaugurated as part of the activities of its 55th session, the Iraqi Ministry of Trade said on Sunday.
"Iraqi traders, businessmen and industry players participated in the Iraqi booth, where different Iraqi products and craft work have been displayed," according to a ministerial statement received by Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI), quoting the general director of the Public Company for Iraqi Fairs, Sabty Jum'a Hassan, who led the Iraqi delegation to the fair.
Damascus International Fair is an annual fair that has been held in the Syrian capital for over 55 years and is considered as one of the oldest of its kind in the Middle East. Representatives from dozens of world countries participate in the fair, in addition to thousands of Syrian and international companies.
The fair's activities include a theatrical festival, where troupes from all over the world present different performances.
Commenting on the participation of the Iraqi private sector, Hassan said that the participation of private companies in the Iraqi booth was 100 percent.
"Most prominently is Ayk Ltd., which displayed different domestic goods and products that were manufactured to high quality standards," Hassan noted.
"The mixed sector played a major role with its participation with national products at Damascus International Fair," Hassan added.
"Iraqi traders, businessmen and industry players participated in the Iraqi booth, where different Iraqi products and craft work have been displayed," according to a ministerial statement received by Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI), quoting the general director of the Public Company for Iraqi Fairs, Sabty Jum'a Hassan, who led the Iraqi delegation to the fair.
Damascus International Fair is an annual fair that has been held in the Syrian capital for over 55 years and is considered as one of the oldest of its kind in the Middle East. Representatives from dozens of world countries participate in the fair, in addition to thousands of Syrian and international companies.
The fair's activities include a theatrical festival, where troupes from all over the world present different performances.
Commenting on the participation of the Iraqi private sector, Hassan said that the participation of private companies in the Iraqi booth was 100 percent.
"Most prominently is Ayk Ltd., which displayed different domestic goods and products that were manufactured to high quality standards," Hassan noted.
"The mixed sector played a major role with its participation with national products at Damascus International Fair," Hassan added.
Nabatiyeh exhibition pays tribute to slain Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh
Beirut -- NABATIYEH: An exhibition commemorating slain Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh opened to the public on Sunday in Nabatiyeh in South Lebanon. Focusing mainly on the summer 2006 war with Israel and the Jewish state's withdrawal from most of South Lebanon in 2000, "Al-Imad Exhibition: Leader of the Two Victories," was organized by Hizbullah and inaugurated by Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, head of the group's Executive Council.
Mughniyeh was killed on February 12 in Damascus in a car bombing as he was leaving an Iranian Embassy party celebrating a major Iranian holiday. Hizbullah immediately blamed Israel for the killing, a charge denied by the Jewish state. The location of the hit strained relations between Hizbullah and Syria, which has yet to release the findings of its investigation into the killing. Hizbullah also promised retaliation for the death of its storied commander - many have given Mughniyeh credit for Hizbullah's successes in the 2006 conflict, and legends of his handiwork against the Israelis are legion, although his appearance and location became closely guarded secrets in the last decade of his life.
Visitors enter the Nabatiyeh exhibit by walking through a giant hat labeled Radwan's Cap, a reference to Mughniyeh's nom de guerre.
Referring to South Lebanon, one section called The Invader's Graveyard displayed samples of destroyed Israeli military equipment. Israeli vehicles, tanks and weapons seized by Hizbullah fighters were laid out in a recreated battlefield.
Another section, The Time of Victories, showed artwork that demonstrated the steadfastness of Hizbullah and the Shiite residents of South Lebanon.
In the Victory Makers area, the weapons and belongings of slain Hizbullah fighters were laid out. Mughniyeh's desk, mobile phone, glasses, Kalashnikov and uniform were placed beside the torn and bloodied clothes he had been wearing when killed.
Samples of the different weapons used by Hizbullah were also on display for the first time and included rocket-propelled grenades, katyusha rockets and Kalashnikovs.
Visitors could also watch a film, "The Path of the Martyrs," which focused on the values of martyrdom and sacrifice.
Mughniyeh's mother, also visiting the exhibit, told The Daily Star, "I am proud of my son, and for the first time I am learning about how he lived. I knew nothing more about him than anybody else."
Mughniyeh was killed on February 12 in Damascus in a car bombing as he was leaving an Iranian Embassy party celebrating a major Iranian holiday. Hizbullah immediately blamed Israel for the killing, a charge denied by the Jewish state. The location of the hit strained relations between Hizbullah and Syria, which has yet to release the findings of its investigation into the killing. Hizbullah also promised retaliation for the death of its storied commander - many have given Mughniyeh credit for Hizbullah's successes in the 2006 conflict, and legends of his handiwork against the Israelis are legion, although his appearance and location became closely guarded secrets in the last decade of his life.
Visitors enter the Nabatiyeh exhibit by walking through a giant hat labeled Radwan's Cap, a reference to Mughniyeh's nom de guerre.
Referring to South Lebanon, one section called The Invader's Graveyard displayed samples of destroyed Israeli military equipment. Israeli vehicles, tanks and weapons seized by Hizbullah fighters were laid out in a recreated battlefield.
Another section, The Time of Victories, showed artwork that demonstrated the steadfastness of Hizbullah and the Shiite residents of South Lebanon.
In the Victory Makers area, the weapons and belongings of slain Hizbullah fighters were laid out. Mughniyeh's desk, mobile phone, glasses, Kalashnikov and uniform were placed beside the torn and bloodied clothes he had been wearing when killed.
Samples of the different weapons used by Hizbullah were also on display for the first time and included rocket-propelled grenades, katyusha rockets and Kalashnikovs.
Visitors could also watch a film, "The Path of the Martyrs," which focused on the values of martyrdom and sacrifice.
Mughniyeh's mother, also visiting the exhibit, told The Daily Star, "I am proud of my son, and for the first time I am learning about how he lived. I knew nothing more about him than anybody else."
Thursday, 7 August 2008
ARAB WORLD FEST COMPLETE SCHEDULE
From 5 p.m. to midnight Friday, noon to midnight Saturday, noon to 10 p.m. Sunday. Maier Festival Park, 200 N. Harbor Drive. $10, free for children under 6 when accompanied by an adult. Fireworks: 9:30 p.m. Saturday. Information: www.arabworldfest.com
FRIDAY
Maier Festival Park: 5-9 p.m. camel rides
Main Stage: 6 p.m. opening ceremony; 7 p.m. John Khoury (Lebanon); 8 p.m. Cedar's Debke Group; 8:30 p.m. Wissam Iraqi (Iraq); 9:30 p.m. Shadia Mansour (London); 10 p.m. Elias Haddad (Palestine)
Workshop Tent: 8-10 p.m. belly dance lessons
SATURDAY
Maier Festival Park: 1-9 p.m. camel rides
Children's Area: 1-8 p.m. arts and crafts; 1-8 p.m. tie-dye T- shirts; 1:30-5:30 p.m. Discovery World's "Touch Tank"; 3-5 p.m. Radio Disney's Road Crew
Film Festival: 1 p.m. "Paradise Now"; 3 p.m. "The Iron Wall"; 4:15 p.m. "The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour"; 5:30 p.m. "Occupation 101"; 7:15 p.m. "Checkpoint"
Main Stage: noon Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El-Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 1 p.m. The Desert Ensemble (World Music); 2, 8 p.m. Al Bahira Dance Theatre (Belly Dancers); 2:30 p.m. Shadia Mansour (London); 3 p.m. John Khoury (Lebanon); 4 p.m. Cedar's Debke Group; 4:30 p.m. Sawsan Kizy (Iraq); 5:30 p.m. Tony Madi; 6:30 p.m. Raj'een Debke Group; 7 p.m. Najim Suheil (Palestine); 8:30 p.m. Sofie (Morocco); 10 p.m. Maher Halabi (Palestine)
Potawatomi Stage: 2 p.m. Reda Dermane (Morocco); 3, 6:45 p.m. Safaafir: Maqams of Baghdad; 4:15 p.m. Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El- Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 5:30 p.m. The Desert Ensemble (World Music)
Workshop Tent: 2-5 p.m. belly dance lessons; 5:15-6 p.m. Debke Workshop; 6:15-7 p.m. Gravity Benders (Break Dancers)
SUNDAY
Maier Festival Park: 1-9 p.m. camel rides
Children's Area: 1-8 p.m. arts and crafts; 1-8 p.m. tie-dye T- shirts; 1:30-5:30 p.m. Discovery World's "Touch Tank and Interactive Science Tables"
Film Festival: 1 p.m. "The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour"; 2:15 p.m. "Arna's Children"; 4 p.m. "Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land"; 5:45 p.m. "Occupation 101"; 7:30 p.m. "Beyond the Mirage -- The Face of Occupation"
Main Stage: noon Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El-Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 1 p.m. 5 Card Studs; 2, 6:30 p.m. Al Bahira Dance Theatre (Belly Dancers); 2:30 p.m. Safaafir: Maqams of Baghdad; 3:30, 8 p.m. Cedar's Debke Group; 4 p.m. Sofie (Morocco); 5 p.m. Shadia Mansour (London); 5:30 p.m. Elias Haddad (Palestine); 7 p.m. Tony Madi (Lebanon); 8:30 p.m. Sawsan Kizy (Iraq)
Potawatomi Stage: 2 p.m. Reda Dermane (Morocco); 3 p.m. Ali Lubbad (World Music); 4 p.m. Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El-Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 5:15 p.m. Safaafir: Maqams of Baghdad
Workshop Tent: 2-5 p.m. belly dance lessons; 5:15-6 p.m. Debke Workshop; 6:15-7 p.m. Gravity Benders (Break Dancers)
Copyright 2008, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)
FRIDAY
Maier Festival Park: 5-9 p.m. camel rides
Main Stage: 6 p.m. opening ceremony; 7 p.m. John Khoury (Lebanon); 8 p.m. Cedar's Debke Group; 8:30 p.m. Wissam Iraqi (Iraq); 9:30 p.m. Shadia Mansour (London); 10 p.m. Elias Haddad (Palestine)
Workshop Tent: 8-10 p.m. belly dance lessons
SATURDAY
Maier Festival Park: 1-9 p.m. camel rides
Children's Area: 1-8 p.m. arts and crafts; 1-8 p.m. tie-dye T- shirts; 1:30-5:30 p.m. Discovery World's "Touch Tank"; 3-5 p.m. Radio Disney's Road Crew
Film Festival: 1 p.m. "Paradise Now"; 3 p.m. "The Iron Wall"; 4:15 p.m. "The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour"; 5:30 p.m. "Occupation 101"; 7:15 p.m. "Checkpoint"
Main Stage: noon Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El-Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 1 p.m. The Desert Ensemble (World Music); 2, 8 p.m. Al Bahira Dance Theatre (Belly Dancers); 2:30 p.m. Shadia Mansour (London); 3 p.m. John Khoury (Lebanon); 4 p.m. Cedar's Debke Group; 4:30 p.m. Sawsan Kizy (Iraq); 5:30 p.m. Tony Madi; 6:30 p.m. Raj'een Debke Group; 7 p.m. Najim Suheil (Palestine); 8:30 p.m. Sofie (Morocco); 10 p.m. Maher Halabi (Palestine)
Potawatomi Stage: 2 p.m. Reda Dermane (Morocco); 3, 6:45 p.m. Safaafir: Maqams of Baghdad; 4:15 p.m. Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El- Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 5:30 p.m. The Desert Ensemble (World Music)
Workshop Tent: 2-5 p.m. belly dance lessons; 5:15-6 p.m. Debke Workshop; 6:15-7 p.m. Gravity Benders (Break Dancers)
SUNDAY
Maier Festival Park: 1-9 p.m. camel rides
Children's Area: 1-8 p.m. arts and crafts; 1-8 p.m. tie-dye T- shirts; 1:30-5:30 p.m. Discovery World's "Touch Tank and Interactive Science Tables"
Film Festival: 1 p.m. "The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour"; 2:15 p.m. "Arna's Children"; 4 p.m. "Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land"; 5:45 p.m. "Occupation 101"; 7:30 p.m. "Beyond the Mirage -- The Face of Occupation"
Main Stage: noon Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El-Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 1 p.m. 5 Card Studs; 2, 6:30 p.m. Al Bahira Dance Theatre (Belly Dancers); 2:30 p.m. Safaafir: Maqams of Baghdad; 3:30, 8 p.m. Cedar's Debke Group; 4 p.m. Sofie (Morocco); 5 p.m. Shadia Mansour (London); 5:30 p.m. Elias Haddad (Palestine); 7 p.m. Tony Madi (Lebanon); 8:30 p.m. Sawsan Kizy (Iraq)
Potawatomi Stage: 2 p.m. Reda Dermane (Morocco); 3 p.m. Ali Lubbad (World Music); 4 p.m. Riad Abdel-Gawad and Omar El-Musfi Master Musicians of Arab Musical Art; 5:15 p.m. Safaafir: Maqams of Baghdad
Workshop Tent: 2-5 p.m. belly dance lessons; 5:15-6 p.m. Debke Workshop; 6:15-7 p.m. Gravity Benders (Break Dancers)
Copyright 2008, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
“HALAL EXPO 2008 – DUBAI”
‘Halal Expo 2008’, the definitive event for ‘Halal’ industry in the region, has rolled out the agenda for the event’s second edition, which will focus on developing standards and modernising the Middle East ‘Halal’ sector. The growing demands by global ‘Halal’ consumers – currently at 1.8 billion, continuously fuel the USD 2.1 trillion global markets to rake in as much as USD 500 billion annually, according to recent studies. The event, which is slated to run from Nov 24 – 26, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dubai, is expected to witness a 100% growth compared to its previous edition.
“HALAL EXPO 2008 – DUBAI”
To focus on developing standards and modernising the Middle East ‘Halal’ sector Growing demand by 1.8 billion global ‘Halal’ consumers racks up USD 2.1 trillion in revenues
Halal industry in the Middle East is estimated to be worth more than AED 73 billion in 2008
‘Halal Expo 2008’, the definitive event for ‘Halal’ industry in the region, has rolled out the agenda for the event’s second edition, which will focus on developing standards and modernising the Middle East ‘Halal’ sector. The growing demands by global ‘Halal’ consumers – currently at 1.8 billion, continuously fuel the USD 2.1 trillion global markets to rake in as much as USD 500 billion annually, according to recent studies. The event, which is slated to run from Nov 24 – 26, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dubai, is expected to witness a 100% growth compared to its previous edition.
“Given the outstanding business potential and other benefits of ‘Halal’ products, the aim of ‘Halal Expo 2008’ is to foster trade and facilitate convenient access to genuine ‘Halal’ goods, making it within reach of customers. “In addition to providing a comprehensive platform where ‘Halal’ companies can showcase their products to the global market, we are also focused on bringing forward the newest technologies that will revolutionise the global ‘Halal’ market. The concentration of ‘Halal’ trade lies within the Middle East region, and we have recognised the opportunity in mounting the second edition of the event in Dubai, as it serves as an economic gateway to the rest of the region.”
Dubai is expected to play an important role in the ‘Halal’ industry, due to several plans by leading locally-based ‘Halal’ companies to develop a credible and professional certification body within the emirate to monitor and uphold high quality standards according to global industry requirements. In addition, the expo will be accompanied by 1st Gulf Halal Forum, also features interactive seminars, which have been designed to attract buyers and representatives from the food service, hospitality, retail, logistics, import/export and packaging industries. Delegations from Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Brunei, Bosnia, Canada, China, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Netherlands, Pakistan, The Philippines, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, KSA, UK and the UAE are expected to attend the event. Representatives from government bodies including several regional and international Halal Certification Authorities, Chambers of Commerce, and the International Halal Associations, have also confirmed their presence.
Significant upgrades to current industry standards and practices are necessary to address the growing demands of the rapidly growing market. ‘Halal Expo 2008’ aims to provide a platform for organisations to meet, debate, discuss and explore standards, regulations and options into modernising this industry, which is growing at an equally fast rate as any other progressive verticals. There is huge potential for the UAE ‘Halal’ industry to produce and distribute high quality, regulation certified products throughout the region and the second edition of ‘Halal Expo 2008’ is set to further bolster this outstanding business opportunity for all the participants.
We welcome your support and look forward to your participation at the 2nd HALAL EXPO 2008 - DUBAI
© 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
“HALAL EXPO 2008 – DUBAI”
To focus on developing standards and modernising the Middle East ‘Halal’ sector Growing demand by 1.8 billion global ‘Halal’ consumers racks up USD 2.1 trillion in revenues
Halal industry in the Middle East is estimated to be worth more than AED 73 billion in 2008
‘Halal Expo 2008’, the definitive event for ‘Halal’ industry in the region, has rolled out the agenda for the event’s second edition, which will focus on developing standards and modernising the Middle East ‘Halal’ sector. The growing demands by global ‘Halal’ consumers – currently at 1.8 billion, continuously fuel the USD 2.1 trillion global markets to rake in as much as USD 500 billion annually, according to recent studies. The event, which is slated to run from Nov 24 – 26, 2008 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dubai, is expected to witness a 100% growth compared to its previous edition.
“Given the outstanding business potential and other benefits of ‘Halal’ products, the aim of ‘Halal Expo 2008’ is to foster trade and facilitate convenient access to genuine ‘Halal’ goods, making it within reach of customers. “In addition to providing a comprehensive platform where ‘Halal’ companies can showcase their products to the global market, we are also focused on bringing forward the newest technologies that will revolutionise the global ‘Halal’ market. The concentration of ‘Halal’ trade lies within the Middle East region, and we have recognised the opportunity in mounting the second edition of the event in Dubai, as it serves as an economic gateway to the rest of the region.”
Dubai is expected to play an important role in the ‘Halal’ industry, due to several plans by leading locally-based ‘Halal’ companies to develop a credible and professional certification body within the emirate to monitor and uphold high quality standards according to global industry requirements. In addition, the expo will be accompanied by 1st Gulf Halal Forum, also features interactive seminars, which have been designed to attract buyers and representatives from the food service, hospitality, retail, logistics, import/export and packaging industries. Delegations from Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Brunei, Bosnia, Canada, China, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Netherlands, Pakistan, The Philippines, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, KSA, UK and the UAE are expected to attend the event. Representatives from government bodies including several regional and international Halal Certification Authorities, Chambers of Commerce, and the International Halal Associations, have also confirmed their presence.
Significant upgrades to current industry standards and practices are necessary to address the growing demands of the rapidly growing market. ‘Halal Expo 2008’ aims to provide a platform for organisations to meet, debate, discuss and explore standards, regulations and options into modernising this industry, which is growing at an equally fast rate as any other progressive verticals. There is huge potential for the UAE ‘Halal’ industry to produce and distribute high quality, regulation certified products throughout the region and the second edition of ‘Halal Expo 2008’ is set to further bolster this outstanding business opportunity for all the participants.
We welcome your support and look forward to your participation at the 2nd HALAL EXPO 2008 - DUBAI
© 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
Saturday, 5 July 2008
A spiritual je ne sais quoi
In a labyrinthine exhibition that goes from such notions as the solitude of man, to profanation via the Apocalypse, Eden and paganism, the Centre Pompidou argues that religion didn’t die out with the Enlightenment, Nietzsche, science or the rise of secular society. Rather, it postulates that spirituality has continued to fuel artistic creation. The exhibition takes in the whole of the 20th century and all media, from oil paintings to installation art and video, architectural models and film clips. From the start, the show launches into unusual confrontations with a thickly encrusted black triptych by Damien Hirst, Forgive Me God for I have Sinned, hung alongside paintings by Caspar David Friedrich and Edvard Munch.
It is refreshing to see the Centre Pompidou return to the sort of broad thematic show that made its reputation when it opened 30 years ago. Here, the Centre bravely tackles a subject that goes against all formalist readings of art history, of modernity, avant-garde movements and art for art’s sake. But you can’t help concluding that the curators, Jean de Loisy, Angela Lampe and Alfred Pacquement (the director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne), got so carried away in their enthusiasm that they were unable to resist putting everything in, to the risk of becoming a catch-all for, well, just anything. We appear to be told that Brancusi’s Bird in Space and an Arp relief are part of a spiritual quest, but also that Paul Chan’s shadow theatre, Diaghelev’s Ballets Russes and Picasso’s Minotaur, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and, more disturbingly, Him, Maurizio Cattelan’s spooky little boy/Hitler mannequin are also part of the same journey. From behind, the Italian artist’s tweed-suited sculpture appears to be a small kneeling child, but close up reveals a sinister black moustache. Is it spiritual or a provocative look at history and preconceptions?
The layout is both thematic and vaguely chronological. After wafting through Room 21, The Doors of Perception – a psychedelic 1960s time warp of hallucinations, flower power, pouffes and Peter Sedgely’s optical video discs – the sacred suddenly veers from the loopy to the visceral in Room 22. Sacrifices, a brutal 1960s and 1970s Vienna actionist display, showcases Herman Nitsch’s Passionfries, painted with real blood, and film of a performance by Marina Abramowicz, who took body art and self-mutilation to discomforting limits.
What is missing is the intellectual debate this show should have fuelled, bypassed in the sheer fatigue of 350 works by some 200 artists, and the cacophony of views in a catalogue written by a cast of millions. What do they mean by sacred in the first place? Is it about representing religion or personal cosmographies, an artistic search for metaphysical transcendence or art as a religion in itself? While many works suggest a thesis more inclined to personal metaphysics, others address established religions: the symbolism of the cross in Joseph Beuys or Maurice Denis, Matisse’s wonderfully simple black line drawing of St Dominic for the Chapelle de Vence, a video on Sufi mysticism by Yazid Oulab and Nam June Paik’s Buddhas.
I’m not sure I came out any the wiser, but there are some extraordinary pieces here: a chance to see powerful landscapes by August Strindberg, Otto Dix’s drawings of the First World War, the rediscovery of Etienne Martin’s Coat, a different facet of Anish Kapoor in his mysterious crystal block Proposal for a New Model of the Universe and the characteristically oddball and winsome dice installation by Robert Filliou – a circle of 5000 scattered, coloured dice, which on inspection are all numbered one.
Surprisingly, perhaps the most worthwhile aspect of the show is the chance to discover some of art’s singular figures. I never thought I’d become a fan of early 20th century spiritualism, but it’s worth the visit just to discover the giant obsessively detailed mandala-like canvas of Alexandre Lesage, a coal miner who at 35 had a vision telling him to take up painting. Equally engaging is the messianic self-portrait of the poet-artist Aleister Crowley, as well as the Swedish artist and clairvoyant Hilma Af Klint, who viewed her art as a form of spiritual medium which curiously seems to anticipate abstraction. These are three artists who have never fit into formalist histories of art in any case.
Traces of the Sacred is at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, until Aug 11 and at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, from Sept 19 until Jan 11.
Monday, 30 June 2008
Through a cartoon darkly
An exhibition of cartoons on the Middle East exposes the corruption, torture, venality and oppression common to region, writes Ian Black
It could be an airport security check or a border crossing and the subject could be anyone — a heavily-moustachioed everyman patiently opening his suitcase for inspection while an armed, elaborately-uniformed guard peers instead deep into the traveller's brain, which is hinged open absurdly across his bowed head.
The image is a universal one but it has a special resonance across the Arab world. Its creator, Syrian Ali Ferzat, is the doyen of Arab cartoonists, justly famed for highlighting the absurdities, miseries and injustices of daily life. And the drawing's the thing: no words or captions are necessary to make his point.
Ferzat, one of the stars of Lighting Lamps, a new exhibition at the Guardian's Newsroom, has produced thousands of silent cartoons that speak volumes by lampooning corrupt leaders, torture, venality and oppression — yet (with some gaps) has still managed to carry on working in a political environment where creativity, wit and strongly-held views do not always sit happily together.
Other cartoonists from Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia may be blunter. But all tiptoe to some degree around the sensitivities of regimes which will tolerate mild criticism of social and economic issues — and hostility to Israel and America — but do not hesitate to censor and punish when domestic taboos are tackled.
On their home turf, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt are never caricatured like Gordon Brown, George Bush or Nicolas Sarkozy. The authoritarian Arab republics have made lese-majeste a crime, as it is in monarchical Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco. Steve Bell, the Guardian cartoonist, worked with the participants in this exhibition. But none have produced the equivalent of John Major wearing his underpants outside his trousers.
Mustafa Hussein, a veteran of Egypt's semi-official al-Akhbar newspaper, deploys his caustic talent to expose the multiple failures of the state — over unemployment, price rises, bread queues and sheer inefficiency — that exploded into riots earlier this year. Hussein's cartoons are wry and troubling images in a country where the gap between rich and poor has never felt so wide and the sense of stagnation in the political system is crippling to the point of paralysis.
Jordan's Imad Hajjaj takes well-aimed potshots at western power in the Middle East, drawing bloodstained Christmas stockings for the suffering children of Palestine and Iraq and a fine rear view of George Bush and Osama bin Laden milking the cow of the 9/11 attacks for all it is worth. His Wedding Security cartoon is a poignant take on the al-Qaida suicide bombings that killed 60 innocent wedding guests in Amman in 2005. Israel, as ever, is a source of anger and resentment: one recent Hajjaj cartoon portrays Barack Obama declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel — while collecting a shower of banknotes marked with a Star of David.
Jalal al-Rifai, a Palestinian-born cartoonist with Jordan's ad-Dustour, also keeps up withering eye on the Americans in Iraq and Israel in the Palestinian territories. But he is renowned too for tackling unemployment and poverty, favouritism, the use of connections ("wasta") and malpractice in the public sector. Zan Studio (Amer Shomali and Basel Nasr) in the West Bank town of Ramallah focus sharply on the conflict on their doorstep — producing bold graphics in support of ending the occupation and pressuring Israel.
Lebanon's Armand Homsi, who works mostly for the Beirut daily an-Nahar, takes a darkly humorous view of the volatile confessional and political divisions that have seen assassinations, sectarian incitement and fears of a return to open civil war. Yazeed Alharthi from Saudi Arabia stays closest to the "safety zone" drawn up by the British Council sponsors of this exhibition — looking exclusively at "soft" social issues such as marriage, charity and conspicuous consumption. Politics and religion do not even get a look in in that most conservative and deferential of Arab societies.
It's a reasonably representative selection, though it would also have been good to see some of the recent cartoons from Morocco and Algeria condemning takfiri terrorism as a distortion of Islam and criticism of the clergy's acquiescence in the face of violence.
Lighting Lamps grew out of the British Council's four-year Media in Society project, designed to improve "the effectiveness of the media in raising awareness of key social issues" in six Arab countries. Iraq was unable to take part because of the security situation. The exhibition will go on tour in North Africa and Middle East later in the year.
Lighting lamps: cartoons from the Middle East
July 2 to July 18. In conjunction with the British Council's media in society project, the Guardian Foundation presents a showcase of cartoonists from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Syria. A free catalogue will accompany the show, while stocks last.
Opening times
Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday 12pm to 4pm. Free admission. Opening times may vary – please check before visiting. For more information call 020 7886 9898, visit our website at guardian.co.uk/newsroom or email newsroom@guardian.co.uk. We are located at 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA
It could be an airport security check or a border crossing and the subject could be anyone — a heavily-moustachioed everyman patiently opening his suitcase for inspection while an armed, elaborately-uniformed guard peers instead deep into the traveller's brain, which is hinged open absurdly across his bowed head.
The image is a universal one but it has a special resonance across the Arab world. Its creator, Syrian Ali Ferzat, is the doyen of Arab cartoonists, justly famed for highlighting the absurdities, miseries and injustices of daily life. And the drawing's the thing: no words or captions are necessary to make his point.
Ferzat, one of the stars of Lighting Lamps, a new exhibition at the Guardian's Newsroom, has produced thousands of silent cartoons that speak volumes by lampooning corrupt leaders, torture, venality and oppression — yet (with some gaps) has still managed to carry on working in a political environment where creativity, wit and strongly-held views do not always sit happily together.
Other cartoonists from Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia may be blunter. But all tiptoe to some degree around the sensitivities of regimes which will tolerate mild criticism of social and economic issues — and hostility to Israel and America — but do not hesitate to censor and punish when domestic taboos are tackled.
On their home turf, Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt are never caricatured like Gordon Brown, George Bush or Nicolas Sarkozy. The authoritarian Arab republics have made lese-majeste a crime, as it is in monarchical Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco. Steve Bell, the Guardian cartoonist, worked with the participants in this exhibition. But none have produced the equivalent of John Major wearing his underpants outside his trousers.
Mustafa Hussein, a veteran of Egypt's semi-official al-Akhbar newspaper, deploys his caustic talent to expose the multiple failures of the state — over unemployment, price rises, bread queues and sheer inefficiency — that exploded into riots earlier this year. Hussein's cartoons are wry and troubling images in a country where the gap between rich and poor has never felt so wide and the sense of stagnation in the political system is crippling to the point of paralysis.
Jordan's Imad Hajjaj takes well-aimed potshots at western power in the Middle East, drawing bloodstained Christmas stockings for the suffering children of Palestine and Iraq and a fine rear view of George Bush and Osama bin Laden milking the cow of the 9/11 attacks for all it is worth. His Wedding Security cartoon is a poignant take on the al-Qaida suicide bombings that killed 60 innocent wedding guests in Amman in 2005. Israel, as ever, is a source of anger and resentment: one recent Hajjaj cartoon portrays Barack Obama declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel — while collecting a shower of banknotes marked with a Star of David.
Jalal al-Rifai, a Palestinian-born cartoonist with Jordan's ad-Dustour, also keeps up withering eye on the Americans in Iraq and Israel in the Palestinian territories. But he is renowned too for tackling unemployment and poverty, favouritism, the use of connections ("wasta") and malpractice in the public sector. Zan Studio (Amer Shomali and Basel Nasr) in the West Bank town of Ramallah focus sharply on the conflict on their doorstep — producing bold graphics in support of ending the occupation and pressuring Israel.
Lebanon's Armand Homsi, who works mostly for the Beirut daily an-Nahar, takes a darkly humorous view of the volatile confessional and political divisions that have seen assassinations, sectarian incitement and fears of a return to open civil war. Yazeed Alharthi from Saudi Arabia stays closest to the "safety zone" drawn up by the British Council sponsors of this exhibition — looking exclusively at "soft" social issues such as marriage, charity and conspicuous consumption. Politics and religion do not even get a look in in that most conservative and deferential of Arab societies.
It's a reasonably representative selection, though it would also have been good to see some of the recent cartoons from Morocco and Algeria condemning takfiri terrorism as a distortion of Islam and criticism of the clergy's acquiescence in the face of violence.
Lighting Lamps grew out of the British Council's four-year Media in Society project, designed to improve "the effectiveness of the media in raising awareness of key social issues" in six Arab countries. Iraq was unable to take part because of the security situation. The exhibition will go on tour in North Africa and Middle East later in the year.
Lighting lamps: cartoons from the Middle East
July 2 to July 18. In conjunction with the British Council's media in society project, the Guardian Foundation presents a showcase of cartoonists from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Syria. A free catalogue will accompany the show, while stocks last.
Opening times
Monday to Friday 10am to 5pm, Saturday 12pm to 4pm. Free admission. Opening times may vary – please check before visiting. For more information call 020 7886 9898, visit our website at guardian.co.uk/newsroom or email newsroom@guardian.co.uk. We are located at 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Silk Road Collection at Glasgow Museum
A collection Suzanis - richly embroidered wall hangings from Uzbekistan - along with carpets from Western China and Iran and textiles from Central Asia and Turkey. Burrell Collection, Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Orientalism, 30 years--Exhibition at the Tate Modern
Edward Said’s controversial book is now thirty years old. A new exhibition of Orientalist paintings at Tate Britain provides a timely opportunity to revisit its argument, says Kamran Rastegar.
A young academic who teaches at a university in Marvdasht, a small provincial city in central Iran, knowing of my interest in the work of the Palestinian-American literary scholar and public intellectual Edward W. Said (1935-2003), recently contacted me by email. He is the organizer of a reading group made up of students of geography who were beginning to read Said’s Orientalism (1978) and wished to engage with scholars based outside Iran to gain other perspectives on the work. Would I, he asked, agree to an email correspondence, writing responses to their questions? I was delighted, but also surprised – a reading group of geography students in a rather remote town in central Iran discussing the works of Edward Said? To paraphrase the title of a popular recent work of non-fiction, I had no idea that Iranian students were reading Orientalism in Marvdasht.
Thirty years have passed since the publication of Orientalism, Edward Said’s most influential work. To understand its impact, we need only to reflect on the fact that the students of Marvdasht have joined a worldwide community of humanities students for whom this particular text is considered essential reading. Said’s study still plays an important role in diverse contexts on both sides of what has been termed the ‘divide’ between ‘East’ and ‘West’, and his critique of representational activity around the ‘Orient’ continues to generate debates in societies seen as falling on both sides of this divide.
In fact, Said’s oeuvre fundamentally aimed to challenge the validity of such a division, and so in one sense Orientalism is a study addressing the history of the emergence of this conceptual divide. It does so by chronicling the entanglement of the concept of an immutable or essential division between East and West with ideological imperatives from the perspective of what the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault called ‘the power/ knowledge axis’ – or, more simply, the relationship of knowledge to power. With power comes the need to generate a kind of knowledge that reinforces this power, and so the academic field of Orientalism (and other representations of the parts of the world known as the Orient) is implicated in the power relations between West and East. This, Said argued, began with the advent of colonialism and was carried over in the global geopolitical power arrangements after the end of colonialism – arrangements that have certainly changed in the last thirty years, but arguably only in ways that underscore the importance of Orientalism’s critique.
Just as the students in Marvdasht continue to grapple with Said’s writing in an effort to map out an understanding of their world, so readers in the UK and other parts of the world find a continuing relevance for the debates raised in Orientalism. It is true that in the weeks after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, certain commentators boldly proclaimed the end to the kind of critical approach represented by Said, but it now appears that, rather than be doomed to obsolescence, Orientalism is being revisited anew. Although Said’s critics have by no means retreated – as in, for example, the recent work by Robert Irwin, Lust for Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies (2007) – even the profusion of critiques of the work in recent years only serves to illustrate the continuing timeliness of the debates that were refracted within its prism.
As interest in issues relating to the Middle East and the Islamic faith expands both among the public and in the universities, it is unsurprising to find Orientalism being frequently cited and consulted. Indeed, with the Western countries involved in ongoing military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ever-inflamed wound that is the question of Palestine, and the dangerous prospects of a major conflagration over Iran’s nuclear programme, the issues debated around Orientalism may seem much less abstract than they did in 1978, when the book first appeared.
The thirtieth anniversary of its publication is a fitting moment for cultural institutions to revisit the debates raised by Orientalism. Tate Britain’s forthcoming exhibition ‘The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting’ does just that by bringing together some of the foremost British contributions in the field of visual arts to the European Orientalist imagination. The exhibition, a collaboration with the Yale Museum of British Art and Tate Britain, has been curated by Nicholas Tromans and Emily M. Weeks, who explicitly cite Said’s book as a touchstone. In a beautiful and very well-conceived exhibition catalogue they not only bring to the fore the complex aesthetic imperatives to the construction of a British Orientalist aesthetic within the field of the visual arts, but also attempt to revisit the ideological genealogies for the production of such works of art, linking these discussions directly to Orientalism. The catalogue includes a set of critical essays along with mesmerizing reproductions of the paintings and drawings that make up the core of the exhibition.
In his introductory essay, Nicholas Tromans links a range of social and material considerations to the aesthetic questions more often dwelt upon in curatorial work, insisting that it is necessary ‘to ask afresh the question of what the Orient had to offer the professional painter’. Tromans goes on to note that while Said’s Orientalism offers little by way of a direct contribution to art historical debates, the text nonetheless opens up a number of useful critical approaches to the study of the aesthetics of Orientalist painting. He questions the coincidence of the coalescence of Orientalist painting and the nineteenth-century Ottoman reformist tanzimat policies and suggests that the relationship of East and West – while largely defined by the demands of colonialism and imperialism – may be more interactive than sometimes understood in scholarship influenced by Said. His introduction ends by looking at instances where nineteenth-century Orientalist painting has been brought into contemporary contexts, for example citing the use of G. F. Watts’ painting ‘Hope’ ‘as an emblem of national perseverance’ by the Egyptian army after their defeat by Israel in 1967.
Co-curator Emily Weeks takes a more critical approach, arguing that ‘art history has been singularly reluctant to work through the faults of Said’s Orientalism and develop more nuanced lenses through which to view the Orientalist paintings that are, by an unfortunate coincidence of terminology, believed to reflect its tenets’. She presents an overview of the works of John Frederick Lewis, several of whose paintings are included in the exhibition, in order to raise questions about what she sees to be the reductive conclusions presented by Orientalism. However, at times this critique seems slightly misdirected – surely Said himself is not responsible for the widespread conflation of Orientalist painting with the academic discipline of Orientalism. While some scholars no doubt may have reductively applied the critiques in Orientalism to contexts deserving a more nuanced approach, any fair reader of Said’s scholarly corpus – including the related texts Culture and Imperialism and Humanism and Democratic Criticism – would not find that his own approach to cultural issues suffers from the kind of simplicity indicated by Weeks.
Further essays by Rana Kabbani, Fatema Mernissi and Christine Riding cover different aspects of the same general debate, whose central questions may be summarized as: How valid are the critiques of Orientalism for understanding visual representations of the ‘Orient’ carried out by British artists? What are the reasons for wishing to continue to revisit the period of high ‘Orientalism’ and its cultural dimensions? Do the works of Orientalist painters reflect the ways in which the Middle East, the Arab world and the Islamic world are perceived in the West?
The diversity of viewpoints on these and similar topics discussed in the exhibition catalogue go some way towards illuminating the extent to which the debates raised by Orientalism remain far from being settled. Said’s work, while subjected to a variety of cogent critiques over the years, has remained a vital marker of how we understand the relationship of ‘East’ to ‘West’. As this relationship continues to evolve, cultural institutions may play a very important role in exploring the interactions between the Middle East and Europe from a historical perspective. It is most valuable when these efforts link the past to current predicaments, as is the intention of the current exhibition.
In viewing anew these extraordinary works of art, we come to a better appreciation of the constellation of interests – material, aesthetic, ideological – that have come to frame the way in which the Orient, including the later permutations of this notion, has been imagined and represented in the West. It is a testament to Orientalism the book that even now, thirty years on, it continues to play a central role in outlining these debates. It is perhaps not so surprising, then, that in a small city in central Iran, university students are reading Said’s work in order to make better sense of their world.
Orientalism in Istanbul
The huge print of ‘Leila’ by Frank Dicksee which hangs, with prints of other nineteenth-century Orientalist paintings, in an Istanbul coffee house, reassures us that the girl dressed in brightly coloured silk and reclining languorously on a tiger skin does not offend Eastern sensibilities. (It also adorns the front cover of this magazine.) The Orientalist collection ‘Portraits from the Empire’ at the city’s Pera Museum (where the ‘Lure of the East’ exhbition will show after Tate Britain in London) suggests an acceptance of this fanciful Western view of a mysterious foreign world which few had ever seen.
Most British Orientalists painted their pictures back in England after a brief sketching tour around Turkey, Palestine or North Africa. They were often posed by models, sometimes even the artists themselves, in Ottoman dress purchased on the tour, and they showed Europeans the artificial, clichéed world they expected to encounter. In particular, paintings of the harem, an area forbidden to these male artists, presented a popular fantasy of sexual promiscuity.
This enduring fascination of the West with the East raises the question of how the East saw itself. The only Eastern artist in this exhibition is Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910), who was born and died in Constantinople, and as director of the Archaeological Museum there, was instrumental in preventing historical artefacts from being smuggled out of the country. He was heavily influenced by European Orientalism, having studied art for a number of years in Paris. So are his paintings different from those of European artists? Are they more authentic? Superficially they do not appear so, but they are less overtly erotic, showing a creative and elegant harem resonant with allegorical meanings. By contrast, photographs show him and his daughter in full Western dress. A pioneer in many fields, Hamdi Bey engaged with the modernisation of Turkey whilst portraying the Orientalist myth of a static world.
Thirty years have passed since the publication of Orientalism, Edward Said’s most influential work. To understand its impact, we need only to reflect on the fact that the students of Marvdasht have joined a worldwide community of humanities students for whom this particular text is considered essential reading. Said’s study still plays an important role in diverse contexts on both sides of what has been termed the ‘divide’ between ‘East’ and ‘West’, and his critique of representational activity around the ‘Orient’ continues to generate debates in societies seen as falling on both sides of this divide.
In fact, Said’s oeuvre fundamentally aimed to challenge the validity of such a division, and so in one sense Orientalism is a study addressing the history of the emergence of this conceptual divide. It does so by chronicling the entanglement of the concept of an immutable or essential division between East and West with ideological imperatives from the perspective of what the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault called ‘the power/ knowledge axis’ – or, more simply, the relationship of knowledge to power. With power comes the need to generate a kind of knowledge that reinforces this power, and so the academic field of Orientalism (and other representations of the parts of the world known as the Orient) is implicated in the power relations between West and East. This, Said argued, began with the advent of colonialism and was carried over in the global geopolitical power arrangements after the end of colonialism – arrangements that have certainly changed in the last thirty years, but arguably only in ways that underscore the importance of Orientalism’s critique.
Just as the students in Marvdasht continue to grapple with Said’s writing in an effort to map out an understanding of their world, so readers in the UK and other parts of the world find a continuing relevance for the debates raised in Orientalism. It is true that in the weeks after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, certain commentators boldly proclaimed the end to the kind of critical approach represented by Said, but it now appears that, rather than be doomed to obsolescence, Orientalism is being revisited anew. Although Said’s critics have by no means retreated – as in, for example, the recent work by Robert Irwin, Lust for Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies (2007) – even the profusion of critiques of the work in recent years only serves to illustrate the continuing timeliness of the debates that were refracted within its prism.
As interest in issues relating to the Middle East and the Islamic faith expands both among the public and in the universities, it is unsurprising to find Orientalism being frequently cited and consulted. Indeed, with the Western countries involved in ongoing military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ever-inflamed wound that is the question of Palestine, and the dangerous prospects of a major conflagration over Iran’s nuclear programme, the issues debated around Orientalism may seem much less abstract than they did in 1978, when the book first appeared.
The thirtieth anniversary of its publication is a fitting moment for cultural institutions to revisit the debates raised by Orientalism. Tate Britain’s forthcoming exhibition ‘The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting’ does just that by bringing together some of the foremost British contributions in the field of visual arts to the European Orientalist imagination. The exhibition, a collaboration with the Yale Museum of British Art and Tate Britain, has been curated by Nicholas Tromans and Emily M. Weeks, who explicitly cite Said’s book as a touchstone. In a beautiful and very well-conceived exhibition catalogue they not only bring to the fore the complex aesthetic imperatives to the construction of a British Orientalist aesthetic within the field of the visual arts, but also attempt to revisit the ideological genealogies for the production of such works of art, linking these discussions directly to Orientalism. The catalogue includes a set of critical essays along with mesmerizing reproductions of the paintings and drawings that make up the core of the exhibition.
In his introductory essay, Nicholas Tromans links a range of social and material considerations to the aesthetic questions more often dwelt upon in curatorial work, insisting that it is necessary ‘to ask afresh the question of what the Orient had to offer the professional painter’. Tromans goes on to note that while Said’s Orientalism offers little by way of a direct contribution to art historical debates, the text nonetheless opens up a number of useful critical approaches to the study of the aesthetics of Orientalist painting. He questions the coincidence of the coalescence of Orientalist painting and the nineteenth-century Ottoman reformist tanzimat policies and suggests that the relationship of East and West – while largely defined by the demands of colonialism and imperialism – may be more interactive than sometimes understood in scholarship influenced by Said. His introduction ends by looking at instances where nineteenth-century Orientalist painting has been brought into contemporary contexts, for example citing the use of G. F. Watts’ painting ‘Hope’ ‘as an emblem of national perseverance’ by the Egyptian army after their defeat by Israel in 1967. Co-curator Emily Weeks takes a more critical approach, arguing that ‘art history has been singularly reluctant to work through the faults of Said’s Orientalism and develop more nuanced lenses through which to view the Orientalist paintings that are, by an unfortunate coincidence of terminology, believed to reflect its tenets’. She presents an overview of the works of John Frederick Lewis, several of whose paintings are included in the exhibition, in order to raise questions about what she sees to be the reductive conclusions presented by Orientalism. However, at times this critique seems slightly misdirected – surely Said himself is not responsible for the widespread conflation of Orientalist painting with the academic discipline of Orientalism. While some scholars no doubt may have reductively applied the critiques in Orientalism to contexts deserving a more nuanced approach, any fair reader of Said’s scholarly corpus – including the related texts Culture and Imperialism and Humanism and Democratic Criticism – would not find that his own approach to cultural issues suffers from the kind of simplicity indicated by Weeks.
Further essays by Rana Kabbani, Fatema Mernissi and Christine Riding cover different aspects of the same general debate, whose central questions may be summarized as: How valid are the critiques of Orientalism for understanding visual representations of the ‘Orient’ carried out by British artists? What are the reasons for wishing to continue to revisit the period of high ‘Orientalism’ and its cultural dimensions? Do the works of Orientalist painters reflect the ways in which the Middle East, the Arab world and the Islamic world are perceived in the West?
The diversity of viewpoints on these and similar topics discussed in the exhibition catalogue go some way towards illuminating the extent to which the debates raised by Orientalism remain far from being settled. Said’s work, while subjected to a variety of cogent critiques over the years, has remained a vital marker of how we understand the relationship of ‘East’ to ‘West’. As this relationship continues to evolve, cultural institutions may play a very important role in exploring the interactions between the Middle East and Europe from a historical perspective. It is most valuable when these efforts link the past to current predicaments, as is the intention of the current exhibition.
In viewing anew these extraordinary works of art, we come to a better appreciation of the constellation of interests – material, aesthetic, ideological – that have come to frame the way in which the Orient, including the later permutations of this notion, has been imagined and represented in the West. It is a testament to Orientalism the book that even now, thirty years on, it continues to play a central role in outlining these debates. It is perhaps not so surprising, then, that in a small city in central Iran, university students are reading Said’s work in order to make better sense of their world.
- Kamran Rastegar is lecturer in Arabic and Persian at the University of Edinburgh.
Orientalism in Istanbul
The huge print of ‘Leila’ by Frank Dicksee which hangs, with prints of other nineteenth-century Orientalist paintings, in an Istanbul coffee house, reassures us that the girl dressed in brightly coloured silk and reclining languorously on a tiger skin does not offend Eastern sensibilities. (It also adorns the front cover of this magazine.) The Orientalist collection ‘Portraits from the Empire’ at the city’s Pera Museum (where the ‘Lure of the East’ exhbition will show after Tate Britain in London) suggests an acceptance of this fanciful Western view of a mysterious foreign world which few had ever seen.
Most British Orientalists painted their pictures back in England after a brief sketching tour around Turkey, Palestine or North Africa. They were often posed by models, sometimes even the artists themselves, in Ottoman dress purchased on the tour, and they showed Europeans the artificial, clichéed world they expected to encounter. In particular, paintings of the harem, an area forbidden to these male artists, presented a popular fantasy of sexual promiscuity.
This enduring fascination of the West with the East raises the question of how the East saw itself. The only Eastern artist in this exhibition is Osman Hamdi Bey (1842-1910), who was born and died in Constantinople, and as director of the Archaeological Museum there, was instrumental in preventing historical artefacts from being smuggled out of the country. He was heavily influenced by European Orientalism, having studied art for a number of years in Paris. So are his paintings different from those of European artists? Are they more authentic? Superficially they do not appear so, but they are less overtly erotic, showing a creative and elegant harem resonant with allegorical meanings. By contrast, photographs show him and his daughter in full Western dress. A pioneer in many fields, Hamdi Bey engaged with the modernisation of Turkey whilst portraying the Orientalist myth of a static world.
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