Doha’s Cultural Landscape in 2012 A CUP OF TEA, YOUR MAJESTY? However charming the name given to the groundbreaking exhibition, Tea With Nefertiti at Doha’s Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art is, it is not about the life and times of a beautiful Ancient Egyptian queen, nor does it revolve around artefacts from 4000BC. Myrna Ayad reviews a land- mark show that proposes a new set of spectacles for the ways in which we perceive art. It has been 100 years since the bust of Nefertiti was curiously The Discovery Channel transported from Egypt to Germany, and there it has remained Just how we see art forms the crux of Tea With Nefertiti – a show since. This may well have been Nefertiti in a nutshell – after all, she that has been two years in the making and has seen Bardaouil is a queen – but a show proposing a cup of tea with Her Majesty and Fellrath scour libraries, archival material in multiple languages does more than the eye can see. Tea With Nefertiti is, for a start, and even trace the descendants of some Modern artists in the the sophomore return to Mathaf for curators Sam Bardaouil and exhibition. “It was a treasure hunt and a puzzle too. Excavation Till Fellrath – the dynamic duo awed audiences with their Told/ allows you to even reinterpret the contemporary moment,” Untold/Retold exhibition as part of the museum’s inaugural shows says Bardaouil. “Most importantly, we are trying to build an in 2010. The pair get a kick out of telling stories – narratives from art history.” which we, as cultural enthusiasts, can learn from and be inspired. The curators’ findings are astonishing – there are no records, Through this show, they sought to contest previously held ways for example, at L’École des Beaux Arts in Paris that show that of looking at art and strip down existing and long-held views Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891–1934) was a student there as has been tied to geography, art history, cultural typecasting and means of widely believed (not that this discounts Mokhtar’s standing as display. Their show offers a thematic tri-angled perspective: that of the ‘father of Modern Egyptian sculpture’). In 1928, Dutch painter the Artist, the Museum and the Public. Tea With Nefertiti opened in Kees van Dongen (1877–1968) staged an exhibition in Cairo in parallel with Forever Now, an exhibition curated by fellow Mathaf the space set up by Mokhtar. Swiss/German painter Paul Klee returnee curator Dr Nada Shabout, and that sees rooms dedicated (1879–1940) visited Egypt in 1927 and created a series of works to Modern Arab artists – Saliba Douaihy, Ahmed Cherkaoui, (hanging in Tea With Nefertiti) that negotiated Ancient Egyptian Jewad Selim and Fahrelnissa Zeid – alongside a space allocated icons and motifs. Modern Egyptian/French artist, Georges for Contemporary Iraqi artist Salem Al-Dabbagh. It was insightful, Sabbagh (1877–1951), shared a studio with Amedeo Modigliani to say the least, and also complemented the sense of time vis-à- in 1917 and painted a portrait of Modigliani’s wife. These vis the Modernist era when considering Tea With Nefertiti. examples share Egypt as a common denominator in terms of 108 EXHIBITIONS , 12 context and time – in the 19th century, the land of the Pharaohs Sabbagh that had been shown in Paris in the 1920s, and Facing page, clockwise: Bassem Youssri. (Detail) It’s Not as prompted substantial archaeological excavations and brought which are juxtaposed with magnified exhibition reviews Easy as it May Have Seemed to Be. Mixed media installation. about the establishment of numerous museums. The era also from that time. He had been compared to van Gogh, and Variable dimensions. Photography witnessed the end of colonial occupation, a heightened sense of also referred to as “the Egyptian Constructor”. Just why it by Myrna Ayad. © Canvas Archives; Vik Muniz. Tupperware nationalism, the independence of Arab states and subsequent was necessary to classify him is the point here, pushed Sarcophagus, Object ‘Relicario’. 2010. Mixed media object. 76.2 x wars in the region. Egypt, thus, is Tea With Nefertiti’s departure further through the curators’ placement of Sabbagh’s 185.4 x 63.5 cm; Nida Sinnokrot, KA (JCB, JCB). 2009. 2 JCB 1CX point and mirrors the themes surrounding the Ancient Egyptian French and Egyptian passports. Museum includes Emily backhoe arms. 460 cm x 255 queen’s exit, that witnessed one too many topographical, Jacir’s A Sketch in the Egyptian Museum – alarming in nature, cm. Image courtesy Sharjah Art Foundation; Terenuthis-Stele. symbolic and public interventions. A lot of air miles and literature the video shows a janitor wipe a centuries-old stele with Standing Adorant with Horus and Anubis. First century AD. later and Tea With Nefertiti opened at Mathaf last November with a moist cloth. Perhaps Nefertiti should remain in Germany Limestone. 35 x 29.5 x 4.5 cm. Photography by Sh Shalchi. works by over 40 artists/collectives. Perhaps most significantly, it after all? Throughout the exhibition are the figurines of Collection of Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim. marks the first museum exhibition from the Arab world to tour Bassem Yousri’s specially commissioned work, which sees internationally, with stops at the Institut du Monde Arabe, the these characters look at and engage with works; at times, Above:Fahrelnissa Zeid. (Detail) Réalités Nouvelles (New Valencia Institute of Modern Art and Bozar: Centre for Fine Arts in they ‘revolt’ against the museological theories in which Realities). 1954. Oil on canvas. 200 x 279.9 cm. Brussels slated this year. they exist. All images courtesy Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha. Tri-Spectacled Public Perceptions The iconic Ancient Egyptian queen – now a member of the Nefertiti may have been flattered by the demand she generated Egyptian Diaspora in Germany – has been privy to heated over the last century, but she and Thutmose may also have conversations regarding her various abodes. From her sculptor been appalled when the artist collective Little Warsaw sought Thutmose’s workshop and numerous stops in between, Nefertiti to ‘honour’ Her Majesty by placing her 20-kilogramme limestone finally relocated to Berlin’s Neues Museum in 2009. Her journeys bust onto a proportionally made headless bronze body. Material have lived up to her name – ‘the beautiful one has come’. documenting this appropriation (shown at the Hungary Pavilion In the Artist section, we see artworks exactly as their at the 2003 Venice Biennale) is placed within the Public. For the artists had intended for us to. Youssef Nabil’s portrait of critically acclaimed Little Warsaw, the work was an homage; Nefertiti is one example – the queen’s hand-coloured face for Egyptian cultural officials, it was an offense which further invites an admiration of her beauty. Similarly, Mokhtar’s strained relations between Egypt and Germany – just how a sculpture, Ibn Al-Balad (The Native) seeks to exemplify the museum could allow such an intervention perplexed the former. artist’s proposal of an influential symbol – that of the Ala Younis’s installation sees how the iconoclasm of Nefertiti Egyptian villager – through the enlargement of his head to made its way onto sewing machines in 1952 in the hope of highlight mental aptitude. Works by Klee, Modigliani and inspiring women to participate in Egypt’s modernisation projects. Giacometti are also in the Artist and all seek to negotiate Ghada Amer’s Le Salon Courbé tackles public perceptions of the the artists’ practices vis-à-vis Ancient Egyptian motifs. post–9/11 world through a polished life-size salon; look a little One of the rather humorous artworks here is Vik Muniz’s closer and the word ‘terror’ is repeated in the sofas and wallpaper. Tupperware Sarcophagus, Object (Relicario), a piece which Amer suggests that this terror has oozed into the very fabric of tackles exactly what we associate Ancient Egypt with – our consciousness. a visual of a preserved (Tupperware) era (sarcophagus). In the words of HE Sheikha Al-Mayassa Bint Hamad Al-Thani, We meet the queen again in Museum through Candida Chairperson of Qatar Museums Authority, Tea With Nefertiti Hofer’s photograph of Nefertiti in her current home at the “presents an ever-pressing need to explore our perceptions and Neues Museum. Here, she stands regal, commanding her assumptions of reality.” Can we ever look at artworks the same rotunda, gazing towards us. We don’t look at the queen way again? Perhaps not. Can we ever look at Nefertiti the same as such, but rather, within the context of the museum in way again? Definitely not. The queen has issued a decree for new which she rests. This happens again through works by sets of spectacles. Even when looking at her. 109
Enter the password to open this PDF file:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-