100 a s he was giving the press a tour of Adel Abdessemed’s L’âge d’or exhibition at Math- af: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Pier Luigi Tazzi, the show’s curator, had to raise his voice to be heard over the deafening sounds of the Algerian artist’s Ayaï and Printemps video works. We finally put a face to the hysterical racket emanating from Printemps and it wasn’t pretty: across three walls, a film depicts chickens being burnt alive. “Adel wants to confront you with the violence of the world,” explained Tazzi. Well, Abdessemed definitely fans the flames of violence in L’âge d’or . ‘I’m angry at the world’ is what the show seems to declare across the artist’s clever attempts to mirror contemporary and vicious realities in his body of work. “I think it is unlikely that Printemps would be shown in a public museum in London,” commented Dr Sarah Thornton, author of Seven Days in the Art World. “Animal rights activists would be up in arms.” PrEVIEW Burning chickens. Terracotta labourers. Bronze foetuses. Beheaded cows. Doha cooks up a storm with its blockbuster exhibitions. Myrna Ayad reviews the Qatari capital’s latest shows. This spread: Left: An installation view of six of 14 bronze sculptures comprising Damien Hirst’s The Miraculous Journey at Doha’s Sidra Medical and Research Centre. 2005–13. Variable dimensions. Right: Detail of Hirst’s The Miraculous Journey Photography by Nadine Koudsi. the Bold and The BeauTiful 101 A few days after the vernissage, visitors to L’âge d’or reported that the video had been turned off, as did some Twitter users. one com- ment on Mathaf’s Instagram account said: “Mathaf is already having a hard time getting visitors. Good luck getting the locals to visit. Disgusting satanic art is not welcome in Qa- tar.” Though many Tweeted their anger at the presentation of Printemps , Mathaf’s social net- working sites continued to reiterate the same statement: ‘The artwork Printemps (Spring) by Adel Abdessemed is a FILM’. A film? So? Perhaps some missed ‘spring’, which alludes to the Arab Spring. Tazzi grinned at the sug- gestion; Abdessemed’s work after all, is noth- ing if not political. “I find it impossible not to interpret it politically. It’s reflective of the vio- lence and servitude that prevails in the region,” said Thornton. There is no chronology in the rather small L’âge d’or , nor can the show be classified as a miniature model of Abdessemed’s retrospec- tive at the Pompidou last year. What unites the works is the exhibition’s title: L’âge d’or , as in, this is what the artist believes to be the golden age. “The Pompidou show was Adel’s history,” said Tazzi. “This show is a statement.” Dispersed across Mathaf’s ground floor is Soldaten (Ger- man for soldier), a series of large charcoal on paper drawings of uniformed soldiers that of- fers a very orwellian feel to the high school- turned-museum. of the 16 works on display in L’âge d’or , three have been specially commis- sioned for Mathaf: Shams , Julie and La Chine est proche . Non-Arabic speakers may have gravely misread Shams in English to mean a fraud, when in reality it means sun and was named so to cast a light on the status of labourers. This is quite a sensitive topic given the ongoing news reports of Qatar’s maltreatment of its mi- grant workers. The ethereal installation is made with 30 tonnes of terracotta and employed 21 chinese craftsmen, 30 young interns and Abdessemed himself to create a room filled with labourers. “He is celebrating the fatigue of the proletariats in the capitalist era,” explained Tazzi. one figure in Shams depicts a construc- tion worker with outstretched arms cast in a gesture comparable to christ’s crucifixion – no doubt indicative of the concept of sacrifice. In the adjacent room is La Chine est proche , a bicy- cle made from camel bone and sits alongside a series of vases made from various materials in- cluding gold, ceramic, wood and dried hashish. How did dried hashish get into Qatar? “I don’t know,” laughed Tazzi. The show ends with Ab- dessemed’s wife Julie , sculpted from salt from Siwa and which sits atop a limestone from Qa- tari quarries. It is a sweet, albeit anomalous end- ing to a harsh show. THE PEoPLE HAVE SPoKEN Before Printemps caused a flurry of hostility on social networking sites, Abdessemed’s Coup de Tête sculpture irked denizens when an edi- tion acquired by the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) was placed on Doha’s corniche. The art- ist immortalised one of FIFA’s memorable mo- ments – the infamous Zidane head-butt dur- ing the 2006 World cup Final – in five metres of bronze. Local press reported on residents Tweeting their outrage, questioning how the footballer was linked to Qatar and why a vio- lent act had been commemorated, while oth- ers cited Islam’s stance against idolatry. only a 10-minute drive away from Coup de Tête is the Museum of Islamic Art, where an impressive col- rEVIEW “ The Miraculous Journey doesn’t feel like Hirst because it’s sweet and Hirst isn’t sweet ” Dr Sarah Thornton 102 lection spanning 1400 years includes figures in busts, tapestries, bowls, paintings, manuscripts and masks – some even feature women bathing. Coup de Tête received a lot more criticism than Damien Hirst’s The Mi- raculous Journey – a set of 14 monumental bronze sculptures that depict the development of a foetus from the moment of conception to birth, concluding with a fully formed baby boy. Visitors to Venice’s Fondazione Giorgio cini on the island of Saint Giorgio Maggiore this year may have likened Hirst’s babies to Evolution by fellow YBA Marc Quinn, whose site- specific installation includes 10 giant marble sculptures of foetuses at various gestational stages. The Qatar-Hirst relationship, however, is not a new one: in 2009, the artist was commissioned to create The Miraculous Journey and QMA sponsored his Tate retrospective last year. The unveil- ing of the “babies” – as the work has been dubbed – at the Sidra Medical and research centre was attended by HE Sheikha Al-Mayassa Bint Ha- mad Al-Thani, chairperson QMA Board of Trustees, Hirst, QMA staff and a host of dignitaries, dealers and enthusiasts. Before the 14 balloons cover- ing the sculptures were slipped off, a young boy recited verses from the Qur’an that discuss conception. It was perhaps the first time that such a reading to mark a cultural event took place in Qatar – a smart move to appease those who may have reservations surrounding the nature of the sculptures. Awe-inspiring for their sheer size and cumulative weight of 216 tonnes, the babies, said many, were just not Hirst-esque. “ The Mi- raculous Journey doesn’t feel like Hirst because it’s sweet and Hirst isn’t sweet,” said Thornton. Given the work’s ‘un-Hirst-like’ nature, others won- dered why Qatari artists or craftsmen were not commissioned to create the babies, which are rumoured to have cost $20 million – a conservative figure by Hirst standards. THE HIrST EFFEcT Meanwhile, themes of life, death, anguish and harsh realities take cen- tre stage at the Al-riwaq exhibition space, plastered in Hirst’s signature spot painting. curated by Francesco Bonami, Relics , the artist’s largest retrospective to date, presents over 90 works and is, hands down, spec- tacular. “I think it’s a new and improved Tate show,” Hirst told Canvas . “A This page: Above: Adel Abdessemed. (Detail) Shams . 2013. Mixed media. Site- specific installation on four walls. 600 x 550 cm. Below: Adel Abdessemed. (Detail) Julie . 2013. Salt on limestone rock. 370 x 200 x 150 cm. Facing page: Damien Hirst. The Beheading. 2006–13. Glass, painted stainless steel, silicone, ceramic floor tiles, stainless steel, resin butcher’s block, knives, machete, chain mail glove, cow and formaldehyde solution. 213.4 x 304.8 x 182.9 cm. 103 “I don’t want people to be able to walk away from my work. My work is designed to engage you, involve you and make you think; it’s not designed to reject.” Damien Hirst 104 relic is something that is kind of from the past, it’s old; I mean, why can’t you create a relic from today?” Relics ’ overall display was intelligent, offered works plenty of breathing space and was, unlike the Tate retrospective, not chrono- logical. “ Relics also de-emphasises the market,” said Thornton. “The climax of the Tate show was a room dedicated to his Sotheby’s sale, which gave the exhibition a commercial feel; Doha wasn’t like that.” A room full of Hirst’s spot paintings caused their intended effect – dizziness – but it was the first shark in formaldehyde, The Kingdom in room 1, that stopped people in their tracks. rumoured to have been acquired by a member of the Qatari ruling family for over $15 million at Hirst’s single-artist Sotheby’s sale in 2008, The Kingdom is one of three sharks on show, alongside 10 other animals in formaldehyde or in glass cases. one would be hard-pressed to identify which work is the show’s pièce de résistance, but many fingers point to the cir- cular room 11, which presents two diamond- encrusted skulls, the notorious $80 million For the Love of God and For Heaven’s Sake , an infant’s skull. Memento mori aside, “It’s hard to look at a skull and say it was living,” said Hirst. “They become objects very quickly.” It isn’t room 11’s expensive contents as much as it is the show’s overall arresting curation: the skulls overlook The Immortal in room 7, a shark whose wide open jaws appear to devour the glistening remains. Another striking space is room 14, which houses A Thousand Years , the infamous glass case containing a severed cow’s head, from which flies feed underneath an insect-o- cutor. Many were repelled by the gore or was it perhaps the reality of the cycle of life? “I don’t want people to be able to walk away from my work,” said Hirst. “My work is designed to engage you, involve you and make you think; it’s not designed to reject.” Shock, however, may lead to rejection. “The world is shocking,” replied Hirst. one visitor couldn’t bring herself to walk through the narrow passageway in the biblically named Mother and Child (Divided) – a cow and a calf sliced in four separate glass cases of formaldehyde. other artworks with biblical references include the gold-plated Saint Bartholomew, Exquisite Pain sculpture of the flayed apostle. Some were surprised at the presentation of a “naked” saint; there is a fun- damental difference, however, between being skinned and naked. on the subject of biblical references, it is interesting to note that while all caption boxes include Arabic translations of the works’ materials, none present the names of the pieces in Arabic. It would have been tricky, to say the least, to write ‘Allah’ in the caption box for God , the medical cabinet in room 7. 105 coLLATErAL SHoWS Across the lawn from Al-riwaq is the IM Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art (MIA), which stages Hajj: The Journey Through Art , an incarnation of the British Museum’s landmark 2012 show Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam . The MIA show’s timing was fitting as it preceded the Islamic pilgrimage, but the exhibition itself has been significantly scaled down from its mother version. The MIA show’s three rooms are crammed with 144 pieces and the main difference between the two exhibitions is their content: 90 per cent of the pieces are from Qatari collections, including those of HE Sheikh Saud Bin Moham- med Bin Ali Al-Thani, HE Sheikh Hassan Bin Mohammed Bin Ali Al-Thani (founder of Mathaf and Vice chairperson of QMA), the QMA Media collections Department, Doha’s orientalist Museum and Dr Abdullah Al-Sulaiti. “The main idea was to take a concept. It wasn’t about taking objects,” said Dr Mounia chekhab-Abudaya, the show’s co-curator and MIA’s curator of Manuscripts. “I was sure there were things in Qatar, so why bring works from elsewhere?” In a sense, Hajj: The Journey Through Art recalled Mal Lawal , a show staged in Al-riwaq last September that presented the varied collections of Qatari nationals. Many pieces in Hajj: The Journey Through Art had never been exhibited before and only a handful are contemporary, including those by Ahmed Mater, Walid Siti, Mahmoud Al-obaidi, reem Al-Faisal, Idris Khan and Ayman Yossri Daydban. contemporary art can be found in Francesco Vezzoli’s Museum of Crying Women , a show at the QMA Gallery in Katara staged to resemble Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors and which presents the Ital- ian artist’s portraits of iconic women of the 21st century with his signature embroidered tear. The exhibition doesn’t leave much to the imagination as it very obviously depicts the glamour versus the anguish of celebrity, making it, simply put: pretty. A subsection of the show is a hall dedicated to legendary Arab songstress Umm Kulthum, whose many portraits have been cleverly matched to suit various fashion publications. Again, pretty, but then again, being ‘pretty’ means it is tough to compete with, or even take the spotlight away from, two giants: Abdessemed and Hirst, who delivered blockbuster shows that added more strings to Qatar’s bow. But there’s always an encore in Qatar: next year, the cast will include maestros Mona Hatoum and richard Serra. For more information visit www.qma.com.qa This page: Left: Francesco Vezzoli. Four Fabulous faces: Garbo Laughs . 2001. One of nine elements. Mixed media. 35 x 55 cm. Image courtesy Chiara Bersi Serlini Collection. Right: Walid Siti. (Detail) Untitled from the White Cube series. 2010. Acrylic and crayon on paper. 71 x 100 cm. Image courtesy QMA, Doha. Facing page: Installation view of Damien Hirst’s (background) Beautiful, cheap, sh***y, too easy, anyone can do one, big, motor- driven, roto-heaven, corrupt, trashy, bad art, sh**e, motivating, captivating, over the sofa, celebrating painting. 1996. Household gloss on canvas and electric motor. Diameter: 365.8 cm; (foreground) Horror at Home . 1995. Fibreglass, cigarettes, cigarette packaging, tobacco packaging, cigarette papers, matches, tissues, sweet wrappings, crisp packets, swizzel sticks, drug paraphernalia, paper and ash. Diameter: 69.9 x 243.8 cm. Photography by Myrna Ayad unless otherwise specified. rEVIEW