96 H undreds of years ago, an annual poetry fair was held in Ukaz, near Mecca, where Arabian tribes presented the work of their greatest poets. These were their ambassadors, men whose poetry defined the nobility and eminence of their respective tribes. Legend has it that seven of these poems were so exceptional, they were printed on Egyptian linen in gold thread and hung on the Ka’aba and hence came to be known as The Hanging Odes or moallaqat . Others propose that the poems’ verses were so beautiful, they became ‘suspended’ in one’s mind. It is imperative to mention this in a review of 21,39 – the initiative put forth by HRH Princess Jawaher Bint Majed Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud and the Saudi Art Council (SAC) – not least because one of 21,39 ’s shows is based on, and named, Moallaqat , but to demonstrate that patronage in the Kingdom is a practice which is hundreds of years old and dates back to since its Jahiliyyah (pre-Islamic) period. Hammad Ar-Rawiyah, the eighth century patron and collector of Jahiliyyah poetry would have been proud to learn that centuries later, 38 Saudi families sponsored 21,39 Saudi’s cultural capital brims with Contemporary art and activities in the first week of February through 21,39 and the second edition of Jeddah Art Week. Myrna Ayad reviews the events. This page: Installation view of Moallaqat with (left) Maha Malluh’s Moallaqat , (foreground) Musaed Al-Hulis’s Holy-wood and (background) Nasser Al-Salem’s Skoon Facing page, clockwise from top left: Mohammed Siam. Untitled. 2006. Oil and acrylic on canvas. (Triptych) 121 x 75 cm each. Image courtesy Zaki M A Farsi; Mahdi Al-Jeraibi. They Were All There . 2000. Used wooden school desks. 40 x 60 cm each. Collection of the Al-Mansouria Foundation, Jeddah. Photography by Myrna Ayad; Exhibition view of Past Is Prologue with (foreground) a sculpture by Ali Al-Tukhais and (on the wall, left to right) works by Bakr Sheikhoon, Dia Aziz Dia, Ali Al- Ruzaiza and Mohammed Al-Resayes. Photography by Myrna Ayad. RHAPSODY IN JEDDAH 97 IDEA TO EXECUTION The idea to celebrate Saudi art and culture through an annual event was conceived last sum- mer. Princess Jawaher, President of the Al-Man- souria Foundation, which, since its inception in 1998, promotes Saudi and Arab art internationally, gathered key figures in the Saudi art arena. She ap- pointed 14 nationals who comprise SAC, a regis- tered non-profit entity, to launch an event named after Jeddah’s geographical coordinates. These individuals range in age, expertise and profession but are all patrons who are fiercely patriotic. In the lead-up to 21,39 ’s opening, they wore many hats – some were even seen supervising the installa- tion of artworks pre-vernissage. Sub-committees were established – Sara Alireza and Nawwaf Al- Nassar oversaw the initiative’s education division, that entails exhibition tours to Moallaqat and Past Is Prologue for about 1800 school students in ad- dition to workshops by Moallaqat ’s participating artists. Aya Alireza and Raneem Farsi curated the shows. Sara Bin Laden organised the gala dinner and managed VIP guests with Abdullah Al-Turki. Sharifa Al-Sudairi planned the one-day sympo- sium that brought in panellists and speakers such as Anne Pasternak of Creative Time, the Sharjah Art Foundation’s HE Sheikha Hoor Al-Qassimi and Chris Dercon of the Tate; the latter dedicated time to mentorship sessions with some of Athr Gallery’s artists. In his opening lecture at the symposium, Dercon cited Jeddah, Beirut and Sharjah as “the re- gion’s three main art centres”. Indeed so, but what about Dubai and Cairo? To mark the opening events, which included the launch of Canvas ’s Contemporary Kingdom: The Saudi Art Scene Now , a publication which surveys the visual arts practices in Saudi Arabia, guests were treated to a series of activities over five days. These included a trip to Jeddah’s histori- cal town, Al-Balad (slated to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site) where a sculpture by Saudi artist Saddek Wasil was placed; a visit to the Darat Safeya Binzagr gallery of the eponymous pioneer- ing female Saudi artist; tours to galleries – most notably Athr, which presented solo shows by Ziad Antar, Hazem Harb and Ibrahim Abumsmar in its newly expanded and renovated space; a walk in the new but still-nameless sculpture park, which houses some 20 restored works by the likes of Henry Moore, Victor Vasarely and César Baldaccini, among others, which were brought three decades ago by-then Jeddah Mayor Dr Mohamed Said Farsi. SHOW TIME Moallaqat and Past Is Prologue are staged in a 1400-square-metre area within the mostly vacant Gold Moor Mall, whose high ceilings and brick walls lend the space a rustic feel. Both shows are envisioned by Hamza Serafi, SAC member and co-founder of Athr Gallery. Where Moallaqat is theme-based, Past Is Prologue displays largely unseen works by the Kingdom’s Modern artists, gathered from Saudi foundations and collectors – which, again, reveals the age-old tradition of patronage in the country – and the artists them- selves. Raneem Farsi went back to her thesis from the Sotheby’s Institute of Art on the development of the Saudi art market for the show. “My only ref- erence points for my Master’s were two Arabic literature books,” she says. “I had to provide 98 REVIEW a historical background and so interviewed many Modern Saudi artists and discovered things that were largely unknown. For example, Mohammed Al-Resayes’s thesis in 1987 focused on the impor- tance of having a museum in the Kingdom. We share the same ideas.” No doubt, Modern Arab art is a vital genre that allows us a peek into the circumstances that surround life and artistic practices in the Arab world in the 20th century. Audiences have been exposed to art from this domain in recent years, but have rarely seen work by Saudi Modernists, which makes Past Is Prologue essential to one’s understanding of art appreciation in a country that is less than 100 years old. Varied in theme and style, 24 works by pioneering Saudi artists – including those by two women, Safeya Binzagr and Mounirah Mously – comprise the show. The exhibitions’ display, however, begs the question: since the past is indeed a prologue, why does Past Is Prologue not precede Moallaqat ? “We wanted it to come as a surprise, an unexpected journey,” says Aya Alireza. The shows bring the past to the present – links them even – and also take the present back to the past. There was no perceptible dialogue between the two exhibitions, though Farsi maintains that some discourses are noticeable through themes that dominate works of Modern and Contemporary Saudi artists such as the human condition and ornamentation etc. Works by 20 Saudi artists show through Moal- laqat . The pieces themselves – a handful of which were specially commissioned – are not based on the ancient poems per se, but rather on the con- cept and phenomenon of poetry “as an assembly point to where people flocked,” says Alireza. The curators sought the same objective: to gather audiences to artworks. As far as being suspended is concerned vis-à-vis the definition of moallaqat , some works exemplified this notion more than others did. Ayman Yossri Daydban’s 1998 mixed media work shows two figures bound to each other with wires; Manal Al-Dowayan’s Tree Of Guardians is comprised of hundreds of hanging brass leaves engraved with the names of female Saudis; Mahdi Al-Jeraibi’s installation of 24 school desks scribbled with the dreams and aspirations of students embody a collective memory; and Nasser Al-Salem’s hypnotising video reveals a fas- cination with the number seven – the amount of celebrated moallaqat and also a significant figure in the Qur’an. One too many pieces make up Musaed Al-Hulis’s installation of fabric-up- holstered foam, entitled Holy-wood, which, says Farsi, “address the complexity of the Islamic world and the capacity of the rest of the world to un- derstand it.” Equally numerous are Maha Malluh’s cooking pots hanging on a wall; burnt at their bases, they address the communal activity and tradition of feasting together. IN PARALLEL Works by Malluh showed through two other av- enues in Jeddah – at Ayyam Gallery and at the sophomore edition of Jeddah Art Week (JAW), organised by Lina Lazaar of Sotheby’s, which also staged a preview show of its upcoming Doha sale. Ayyam’s exhibition – ‘coincidentally’ titled Contemporary Kingdom – succeeded in grouping works by three generations of Saudi artists, however, the majority of pieces are al- ready familiar to audiences. Visitors wondered why 21,39 and JAW did not merge to form one big cultural event. “They are two organisations with two different visions,” says Mohammed Hafiz, Vice Chairman of SAC and co-founder of Athr Gallery. “In the UAE, there’s Art Dubai and the Sharjah Biennial; one is commercial and one isn’t.” JAW too, included a symposium and visits to various galleries as well as the sculp- ture park, and was again staged at Al-Furusiya Mall, home of the 2012 exhibition We Need To Talk by Edge of Arabia, one of JAW’s support- ers. The event was sponsored by the Abdul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives (ALJCI), an organisation founded by Lazaar’s in-laws and for which she acts as an advisor. ALJCI has re- cently announced the establishment of the Beyt Jameel museum in Jeddah for a reported $27 million, scheduled for completion in 2016. Aesthetically, JAW was too busy and artisti- cally, it was a hodgepodge. One could not dis- tinguish the beginning and end of the various shows within. It was a red sticker on the caption This page: Tunisian artist eL Seed’s specially commissioned mural as part of Jeddah Art Week 2. Image courtesy Ibraaz. Facing page, clockwise from top left: Works from Kakaibang Jeddah ; exhibition view of Galerie El-Marsa’s show, featuring works by Nja Mahdaoui and Khalid Ben Slimane; Maha Malluh. (Detail) Food For Thought IV. 2013. 22 chinco dish towers. Variable dimensions. Unique piece. All images courtesy Ibraaz. 99 REVIEW of a work by Malluh that confirmed that the So- theby’s exhibition had ended. This was where Selma Feriani Gallery had shown pieces by the Saudi artist. “I didn’t want clear-cut distinctions between spaces,” says Lazaar. “The point is, we’re celebrating art, no matter who has done it and how expensive it is.” Another participat- ing gallery was Galerie El-Marsa, which showed works by Nja Mahdaoui and Khaled Bin Slimane in what was a visibly dedicated space for the Tunis-based gallery. Other distinct areas were occupied by solo shows for Wasma Mansour and Khalid Zahid as well as Arabian Wings Gal- lery. At times, the layout felt like an art fair. Adjacent to Galerie El-Marsa was a room filled with incredible photographs of the Red Sea port city, shot by Filipino photographers called Kakaibang Jeddah . This was perhaps the highlight of JAW and an achievement on the part of Lazaar, who identified these artists after a discussion with her massage therapist, who practices underwater photography. La- zaar got in touch with “this secret Filipino soci- ety of nurses, drivers, cooks and other workers” and then ran a competition that drew in 220 Filipinos and subsequently staged the exhibi- tion of 30 unique and specially commissioned works by 15 participants. “In 2013, Saudi Arabia expelled people due to migrant worker issues and residencies. Overnight, people who have been here for decades were asked to leave,” adds Lazaar, who contacted the Minister of La- bour to inform him of Kakaibang Jeddah . In an interesting twist of fate, he decided to inaugu- rate the event. In the name of further engaging local au- diences, JAW also brought in celebrated cal- ligrafitti artist eL Seed to paint a mural in Al-Bal- ad with five children volunteers. The verse that the Tunisian artist chose comes from a poem by a Tunisian Bedouin. It felt like there was a lot of Tunis at JAW. But, there was Saudi art too through Arabian Wings and works by Abdulaziz Ashour and others. “In fact, 80–85 per cent of art shown at JAW was from Saudi Arabia,” maintains Lazaar. Plans for the next editions of both initiatives are being compiled, with the aim of strength- ening Jeddah’s positioning as not only Saudi’s capital of culture, but also of cementing the city’s placement on the region’s cultural map. There are talks of Moallaqat and Past Is Prologue travelling to Riyadh and elsewhere, and more chatter surrounding a second Pavilion for Sau- di Arabia at the 2015 Venice Biennale. British sculptor Antony Gormley flew to Jeddah in late February for a talk with Saudi artist Ahmed Ma- ter as part of 21,39 ’s education programming. There are also plans to allocate a headquarters for 21,39 , which will serve as an office and exhi- bition space. Next year also sees the Qatar Mu- seums Authority partner with Saudi Arabia for its annual Year of Culture initiative. One thing is certain: all eyes look to Saudi art and the perse- verance of those behind 21,39 and JAW. Moallaqat and Past Is Prologue run until 4 April. For more information visit www.21-39.com and www.jeddahartweek.com