HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM I The world’s energy capital hosted the 15th FotoFest Biennial with a focus on Arab photography. Myrna Ayad reports. n a panel discussion about collecting Middle Eastern art held on 30 March at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Canvas Publisher and Editor-in- Chief Ali Khadra told guests the story behind this magazine’s inception: that it was founded in response to the negative media backlash towards the region following 9/11 and seeks to educate the world about the wealth and breadth that is Middle Eastern art and culture. I pondered this on the flight from Hou- ston to Dubai and realised that I had flown over 25,000 kilometres to and from the 15th FotoFest Biennial to see exactly what Canvas has been battling for a decade: a Middle East represented by art that revolves around conflict and oppression. PREPARE FOR BATTLE The show, View From The Inside, curated by Karin Adrian von Roques, featured the photographs, videos and mixed media work of 49 Arab artists. One of them, Ahmed Jadallah, is a Reuters photojournalist and through his hard-hitting images, visitors viewed scenes of recent strife in Libya, Palestine, Syria, Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen. Not that those conflicts were not found elsewhere in View From The Inside – checkpoints, soldiers, armed men, martyrs and other conflict paraphernalia were hung across Silver Street Studios, the largest of the biennial’s four venues. It was akin to watching news networks’ reports about the Arab Spring. This, for a biennial which “we did not want to give a theme to,” said von Roques at the event’s day-long conference on visual art in the Arab world. In a phone interview, the German-born curator explained that “Silver Street’s topic is the war and the conflict situation”. Why then, were Youssef Na- bil’s poetic self-portraits hung there? “For me, the whole idea [of these works] was not so far from the question about your own identity when you cannot live in your home country anymore because of conflict situations,” she replied, also citing space constraints and “a matter of budget” with regards to no specially commissioned works. Though artists such as Huda Lutfi, Steve Sabella, Shadia Alem and Manal Al-Dowayan participated, other leading names in the sphere of Arab photography were missing in America’s first, largest and longest-running photographic festival; among them Yto Barrada, Walid Raad, Jananne Al-Ani, Mona Hatoum, Taysir Batniji, Ziad Antar, Bouchra Khalili, Fouad Elkoury, Rabih Mroué and Akram Zaatari. The latter “accepted and then declined,” said von Roques, adding that “some didn’t want to be labelled as Arab artists.” Perhaps they didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into that dark and insular stereotype of ‘conflict art’ or even worse, ‘artists of the Arab Spring’. “The emphasis on the word ‘Arab’ was played out much more extensively than we are comfortable using, as we feel it does exoticise the work,” said a staff member from a Dubai gallery, which lent works to FotoFest. The decision to participate, said the rep, is the artists’. “It cannot be a complete picture of Arab photography nor can it be a reflection of the Arab world’s diversity,” said 58 REVIEW This page: Shadia Alem. (Detail) From the Black Mirror Celebration series. 2007. Mixed media. Variable dimensions. Facing page: Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. (Detail) Faces. 2009. Lambda prints. 50 x 35.5 cm each. Photography by Myrna Ayad. Maya El-Khalil, Director of Athr Gallery in Jeddah. tyrs in Lebanon. It could have been enlightening thought: violence against women and construc- “It remains that FotoFest created a platform for for American audiences to instead have seen work tion are what a visual arts student will walk away dialogue and it is definitely an initiative worth from the duo’s The Lebanese Rocket Society – the for- with vis-à-vis Middle Eastern art. building on.” gotten history of Lebanon joining ‘the space race’ in This brings me to the exhibition’s confer- Then, there is the exhibition’s name itself – the 1960s. Or Lara Baladi’s Alone Together… In Media ence, which included talks and panels by Ussama View From The Inside – which I found mislead- Res, the Egyptian/Lebanese artist’s media collage Makdisi, the Arab-American Foundation Chair of ing. The title could have been preceded with that references events in Tahrir Square. It could have Arab Studies at Rice University, art historian Salwa ‘A’ to convey that this is one view and not the been illuminating for American audiences to in- Mikdadi and participating artists. However much view. In her essay for the exhibition’s publica- stead have wandered into Baladi’s Roba Vecchia – a I enjoyed Makdisi’s talk – in which he mentioned tion, von Roques writes: “In fact, if we wanted kaleidoscope of motifs rooted in Arab pop culture. that the Arab world is comprised of over 20 coun- to have a heading for the Biennial that linked all Participating Egyptian artist Khaled Hafez, how- tries, a breakdown of its religious sects, astrolo- the themes, then the title could be Change be- ever, says that FotoFest gave “American audiences gers, philosophers and the region’s discovery of cause so many of the artists are responding in the chance to see issues of gender, identity, migra- oil – I was amazed to hear what is, to me, an old their works to change. This is change brought on tion and other concepts from a region that has conversation. I heaved a sigh of relief when Samer by political conflicts, by war and destruction, by long been vilified, or at best, exoticised.” Mohdad, one of the Biennial’s participating artists exile and the loss of one’s homeland, and by dis- and co-founder of the Arab Image Foundation, enfranchisement and repression.” said, “Arab art began before Islam.” NOT ‘A POND’ Overall, it felt as though what is referred to as Works in the Spring Street Studios included those the proverbial ‘pond’ is really a vast ocean when IS SEEING BELIEVING? by Abdulnasser Gharem, Ahmed Mater, Hassan addressing Middle Eastern art in the USA. Cul- Initially, von Roques and Wendy Watriss, Hajjaj and Lalla Essaydi, among others, while the tural protagonists in America still seem to dis- photographer and FotoFest co-founder, wanted Williams Tower in Houston’s Galleria area, featured cuss regional art in the frames of ‘gender-based’ to feature the works of 30 artists but that number the works of only five artists, including Tarek Al- or ‘conflict-inspired’. On the other shore, conver- rose to 60, dropped to 50 and then settled at 49, Ghoussein, Jowhara Al-Saud and Tammam Azzam. sations are about Modern Arab art, establishing when “a particular work” by Kader Attia “could not Hung in an amateurish fashion, one could be for- foundations and increasing the visibility of the be found”. The idea to focus on the Middle East given for mistaking them for a student show. The Middle East at the Venice Biennale. Naturally, at FotoFest in the world’s oil capital had stayed in Winter Street Studios seemed to focus on the in my capacity as editor of Canvas, I have seen Watriss’s mind after seeing – and bringing to Hou- themes of identity, aspirations and memory with the majority of works at FotoFest a multitude ston – Nazar: Photographs From The Arab World, an works by Maha Malluh, Sami Al-Turki and Sama of times, which means that unlike other bienni- exhibition that was first shown at the Noorderli- Al-Shaibi, among others. “I’ve never seen such vio- als, this was not a point of discovery for me, nor cht Photo Festival in Holland in 2005. lence against women and now I know that there’s was it the image of the Middle East that I, and Curatorially, central concerns were the selec- a lot of construction in the Middle East,” said a stu- many others, wanted all reported 275,000 visi- tion of works and their grouping – those who per- dent from the University of Houston, who manned tors to see. “Americans,” said von Roques, “asked haps do not focus on conflict in their oeuvre may the reception desk near Al-Shaibi’s traumatising about the veil; they thought it was mandatory have seemed ‘guilty’ by mere association. Take for images from her Between Two Rivers series, which until I explained that it wasn’t. Many didn’t know example Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige’s see the Iraqi/Palestinian artist carve wounds on her where Qatar was. This was a chance to give infor- Faces – pictures of memorial-like images of mar- body in reference to the war in Iraq. Wonderful, I mation.” Yes, it was. 59
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