In the past decade, I have been fascinated by the emergence of new art museums, galleries, schools and cultural foundations in cities such as Abu Dhabi, Beirut, Cairo, Sharjah, and Doha, among others. The makers, sponsors, consumers, forms and histories of Arab and Middle Eastern art are becoming more and more visible. This visibility is fueled in part by the fast-paced development of a new infrastructure for the visuals arts in the Arabian Gulf – an infrastructure that will include the largest-to-date Guggenheim museum by Frank Gehry, a Louvre museum by Jean Nouvel, a Performing Arts Centre by Zaha Hadid, a maritime museum by Tadao Ando, a Sheikh Zayed National Museum by Foster and Partners, and a New York University campus by Rafael Viñoly, all on the Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. These buildings and their programs are part of strategic state initiatives to showcase Arab, Emirati, Middle Eastern and Islamic cultures and traditions in their full complexity, and to stimulate the creation of new concepts and forms by artists, writers, thinkers and others. There can be little doubt that the development of this new infrastructure is linked to a trend whereby cultural tourism figures more and more as an engine of economic growth.
Here, I present photographs from my ongoing project titled Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World. These works put forward forms and stories that shed light on how art and culture in the Arab world are affected materially and immaterially by various forms of violence. They also help me imagine the forms compatible with the new infrastructure for the arts in the Arab world.
Scratching on Things I Could Disavow:
A History of Art in the Arab World
Part I _Chapter One.
Section 88: Views from Inner to Outer Compartment
At the opening of a new museum of modern or contemporary Arab art in an Arab city, a proud local resident rushes the entrance only to find that he is unable to proceed.
Was it his casual wear at an event announced as a black-tie affair? No.
Was it the thugs that shielded the ruling dynasty, attending the event en masse to showcase their benevolence and refined sensibilities, pubescent-future-rulers in tow, that prevent his access? No.
He simply feels that were he to walk in, he will certainly “hit a wall.”
On the spot, he turns to face the rushing crowd and screams: “Stop. Don’t go in. Be careful?”
Within seconds, he is removed from the site, severely beaten and sent to a psychiatric facility.
These events will take place sometime between 2014 and 2024. We will read in newspapers the following day the headline: “Demented Man Disturbs Opening: Claims World Is Flat.”
Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World was presented in the context of Wiener Festwochen at TBA-21 Vienna; courtesy Galerie Sfeir-Semler (Hamburg/Beirut).
