72 review A lot of noise surrounded the build-up to the Art & Patronage Summit: The Middle east earlier this year. A sense of optimism was clearly in the air; even sceptics, who had doubted the summit’s ability to deliver anything concrete, were silenced by the news of its backers – Doha’s Katara Cultural village Foun- dation, Magic of Persia, Plurimi Capital and the Maryam and edward eisler Foundation. For most, it was the support of the so-called ‘Three Ms’ – Maya rasamny, Maryam eisler and Maria Sukkar – that appeared to confirm the legitimacy of the summit, an event masterminded by maverick figure Hossein Amirsadeghi. The fact that the conference was to take place at the British Muse- um on 12 January, followed by 13 January at the royal College of Art, in six sessions comprising 42 notable speakers, conferred yet more credibility. DAnger SignS Alarm bells rang when the entrance fee for Day One was announced: a steep $476 and with admission ‘by invitation only’. “if you want to do something with such large exposure, it shouldn’t say ‘invitation-only’,” noted one patron. “when it’s related to art and culture, it will target its own audience.” A second hiccup happened during the main course interval at the invitation-only dinner hosted by two of the summit’s patrons at Tate Britain on 11 January: a troupe of evidently non-Middle eastern belly-dancers waltzed into the foyer to the beat of Arabic drums. Some of those present were less than impressed, with one London dealer storming out of the gallery and others following suit. The odd choice of dancers dominated conversations thereafter to the point where, on the final Q&A session, Sukkar felt com- pelled to say: “For every disgusted person, there was a delighted person.” Still, it was in high spirits and amid much expectation that the crowds of collectors, curators, gallerists, artists, museum directors and other Mid- dle eastern artistas gathered for the start of Day One. The summit kicked off with a welcome from British Museum Deputy Director Andrew Burnett, who then gave the floor to Amirsadeghi. in a rather theatrical presentation, the iranian-born publisher meeting point Myrna Ayad reviews the first Art & Patronage Summit: The Middle east, which took place in London over two days in January. underlined the “need for an honest appraisal to seek out some of the causes for the creative back- wardness of the [Middle eastern] regions”. it was a sentence that jarred with a few of those present. “we are here to bury the albatross of mediocrity,” he continued. “now let’s do battle,” was his rally- ing cry as he invited the Serpentine gallery’s Hans Ulrich Obrist to the podium. why “battle” many of us were asking? Surely we’re all on the same side? SMALL iS BeAUTiFUL Obrist cited – as he often does – Caribbean intellec- tual Édouard glissant’s mondialité concept – “institu- tion building is not about XL or XXL,” he said, high- lighting the value of a system comprising smaller organisations. He provided a neat intro to Tate Modern Director Chris Dercon’s presentation on the importance of small institutions – “soft power”, as he called it – and how they are fundamental to the “ecology” of the art world and can make up for the absence of public institutions. True indeed, as we know only too well in the Middle east, where our art scenes are largely composed of just such small institutions. Panel One, Institution Building: New Perspectives, Common Practices, Future Goals , featured no fewer than six participants – too many cooks spoiled the broth, as in other panels during the summit, and their introductions took away valuable discussion time. A particular highlight was william wells of Cairo’s Townhouse gallery, who enthralled the au- dience with his candid talk about his organisation’s evolution and its current positioning in post-rev- olution egypt. “You promised us,” said wells, quot- ing the egyptian people who, after the country’s uprising, sought the Townhouse as a space for cultural dialogue. 73 review Facing page, from left to right: Founder and Director of The Townhouse Gallery Williams Wells, President of Lord Cultural Resources Barry Lord, Director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Gard Richard Koshalek, Director General of the Institut du Monde Arabe Mona Khazindar, Director of Tate Modern Chris Dercon and Co-Director of the Serpentine Gallery Hans Ulrich Obrist during the Art & Patronage Summit’s panel on Institution-Building: New Perspectives, Common Practices, Future Goals Above, left: Artist Amir Baradaran during his performance Augmented Reality Performance: The Failure of Expectation s. Right: Founder of the Art & Patronage Summit, Hossein Amirsadeghi. All images courtesy the Art & Patronage Summit. The second panel, Collections and Collecting: How to Make a Difference Big or Small , proved equally entertaining, if for the wrong reasons. Moderated by reem Fadda, Associate Curator of Middle eastern Art Abu Dhabi Project Solomon r guggenheim Foundation, it started innocently enough with narratives by patrons Shafik gabr and Olga Davidson. Then The Art Newspaper ’s Anna Somers Cocks dropped a bombshell, ask- ing Fadda about the status of the guggenheim Abu Dhabi project. The elephant in the room was unleashed. “i was really invited here as a mod- erator and i would appreciate it if the questions were addressed to my panellists,” replied Fadda. But the room wanted more. “i would have liked the discussions on the taboo subjects to have been explored further,” later commented Christa Meindersma, Director of the Prince Claus Fund. what was becoming a long day was punctu- ated by two ‘artist interventions’ – a video message from Shirin neshat and a performance by Amir Baradaran, which bewildered most: 3D glasses (each an editioned artwork) were distributed, but proved useless for watching the cloaked iranian artist, armed with an axe, chant indecipherably and strike at a layer of plaster under which sat a con- tainer filled with soil; soon after, a group of teenag- ers distributed apples to the audience. Thankfully, a real jewel awaited with Funding Art and Market Dynamics , a panel moderated by Art Dubai Fair Director Antonia Carver and which saw Founder and group CeO of Abraaj Capital, Arif naqvi, dis- cuss “patronage as a critical piece of development in the region”. He underlined the necessity for a “stakeholder culture”, and urged the creation of an environment where “artists don’t feel curtailed by what they’ve done but by what they’d like to do”. Talks such as this made all the difference at the summit: naqvi was suggesting to patrons how best to perform their role, and there are many who should take note. MOre eLePHAnTS Day Two began with a breakfast at Sotheby’s and a screening of Pia getty’s wonderful film, Axis of Light , about eight Contemporary Middle eastern artists, at the iCA. Second-day attendees were largely members of the public and were ener- getic and engaged in the two panels, Cultural Risk-Taking: How it Looks on the Ground and Power, Knowledge and Patronage . Topics ranged from the risks that artists in iraq face to the issues sur- rounding the Picasso in Palestine show and the role of Diasporic artists vis-à-vis their homelands. Then another elephant in the room charged into view: the dismissal of Jack Persekian from his post as Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation. Again, the audience wanted more, and Haig Aivazian, art- ist and Associate Curator of the Sharjah Biennial, attempted to explain the background surround- ing the censored installation by Algerian artist Mustapha Benfodil. Perhaps this and the machinations of the guggenheim Abu Dhabi project were areas that the summit should have addressed; people un- derstandably want to know the real story. So where does all this leave the inaugural summit? “it’s a good start, but i would like to see the format changed to one where there is more dialogue,” said Bashar Al-Shroogi of Dubai-based Cuadro Fine Art gallery. Like the proverbial curate’s egg, the summit was good and bad in parts. One undoubt- ed high point was the generous financial support given by the Art and Patronage Project Mart to the Townhouse’s independent Study Programme, Ashkal Alwan’s Home workspace in Beirut and echo’s Sada Portal in Baghdad. The Programme for Cultural and Curatorial Practitioners, instituted by the Maryam and edward eisler Foundation, also granted bursaries to 14 curators in collaboration with the Delfina Foundation. Such financial assist- ance was welcome and encouraging. western participants perhaps took more away from the summit than did their Middle eastern counterparts, and some key players from the region were notable by their absence – no representatives from the UAe government, for example. As a showcase for a Middle east on the move artistically, the summit may prove to have been useful. But next time, more artists need to be heard, more patrons need to suggest and im- plement new forms of patronage, and more en- gagement is necessary with government bodies so that new and effective channels of collabora- tion can be established. Like the proverbial curate’s egg, the summit was good and bad in parts.