An Impression of the contributions of several artists from the Arab world at the Venice Biennial 2011. Photos by Floris Schreve. An extensive article will follow later
The Future of a Promise
Curatorial Statement by Lina Nazaar:
“What does it mean to make a promise? In an age where the ‘promise of the future’ has become something of a cliché, what is meant by The Future of a Promise?
In its most basic sense, a promise is the manifestation of an intention to act or, indeed, the intention to refrain from acting in a specified way. A commitment is made on behalf of the promisee which suggests hope, expectation, and the assurance of a future deed committed to the best interests of all.
A promise, in sum, opens up a horizon of future possibilities, be they aesthetic, political, historical, social or indeed, critical. ‘The future of a promise’ aims to explore the nature of the promise as a form of aesthetic and socio-political transaction and how it is made manifest in contemporary visual culture in the Arab world today.
In a basic sense, there is a degree of promise in the way in which an idea is made manifest in a formal, visual context – the ‘promise’, that is, of potential meaning emerging in an artwork and its opening up to interpretation. There is also the ‘transaction’ between what the artist had in mind and the future (if not legacy) of that creative promise and the viewer. Whilst the artists included here are not representative of a movement as such, they do seek to engage with a singular issue in the Middle East today: who gets to represent the present-day realities and promise of the region and the horizons to which they aspire?
It is with this in mind that the show will enquire into the ‘promise’ of visual culture in an age that has become increasingly disaffected with politics as a means of social engagement. Can visual culture, in sum, respond to both recent events and the future promise implied in those events? And if so, what forms do those responses take?”
Mona Hatoum, Drowning sorrows (Gran Centenario), installatie van ‘doorgesneden’ glazen flessen, 2002, op ‘The Future of a Promise’, Biënnale van Venetië, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve
‘Hatoum’s work is the presentation of identity as unable to identify with itself, but nevertheless grappling the notion (perhaps only the ghost) of identity to itself. Thus is exiled figured and plotted in the objects she creates (Said, “Art of displacement” 17).
‘Hatoum’s Drowning Sorrows distinctly exemplifies the “exile” Said denotes above. Drowning Sorrows displays the pain and beauty of being an exile without overtly supplying the tools with which to unhinge the paradox attached to it. It creates suggestive effects which ultimately lead the viewer towards its paradoxical ambiance. The work contains a circle of glass pieces drawn on a floor. The circle is made up of different shapes of glass flasks and, as they appear on the floor, it seems that the circle holds them afloat. The disparately angled glasses imply cuts from their sharp edges and their appearance is associated with a feeling of pain from the cut. This circle of glasses, therefore, signifies an exilic ache and embodies an authority to “figure” and “plot” the pain’.
The work signifies the reality of being unmoored from a fixed identity as the flasks are ambiguously put on a ground where they are perceived to be ungrounded. The appearance of the glasses is also unusual—we do not get to see their full shapes. As the artist’s imagination endows them with a symbolic meaning, they have been cut in triangular and rectangular forms of different sizes. These varieties of cut glasses speak of an undying pain that the exile suffers. In an exile’s life, irresolvable pain comes from dispossessions, uncertainty, and non-belonging. Being uprooted from a deep-seated identity, an exile finds him/herself catapulted into a perpetual flux; neither going back “home” nor a complete harmony with the adopted environment through adopting internally the “new” ideals is easily achievable. There exists an insuperable rift between his/her identity and locales which both are nevertheless integral parts of their identity. Hence, Hatoum portrays the exilic “identity as unable to identify with itself,” as Said puts it.
However, the glass edges above also represent that an exile’s experiences are nonetheless beautiful and worthy of celebration. The glass pieces show the experiences that an exilic traveller gathers in the journey of life. The journey is all about brokenness and difference. But an exile’s life becomes enriched in many ways by being filled up with varieties of knowledge and strengths accrued through encountering differences. Hatoum’s creation, therefore, befittingly captures these benefits by transferring them into an art work that bewitches the viewer through an unknown beauty. Being an expression of beauty, the art work is transformed into a celebration of “exile.” Despite “Drowning” in “Sorrows,” Hatoum’s work demonstrates an authority to give vent to the exilic pain through a work of beauty.
Ultimately, we see that an exile is not entirely drowned by the sorrows of loss. Notwithstanding the anguish, the exile gains the privilege to explore the conditions that create the pain; because the painfulness zeroes in on the very nature of identity formation. The exile has the privilege of reflecting on the reality surrounding his/her identity. Therefore, Hatoum’s glasses are not pieced together purposelessly; they depict the ambiguity that the exile feels towards identity. Her creative ambiguity makes us both enjoy the art and question the reality which we ourselves, exiles or not, find ourselves in. “Drowning Sorrows” shows a way to question the reality by being ambiguous towards it. Hatoum thus transmutes her exilic pain into a work of imagination which becomes an emblem of her artistic power through such suggestiveness.
From this point of view, Hatoum is an exemplary Saidian “exile” as she turns the reality of being uprooted from “home” into an intellectual power against the systematisation of identities. In Orientalism, Said distinguishes the dividing line that severs the supposedly superior Western culture from the ostensibly inferior one of the “Others.” He examines the modus operandi of such a disjunction. He studies power-structures to reveal how they dissociate cultures. Thus the Saidian “exile” develops independent criticisms of cultures in order to defeat the debilitating effects of discursivity that disconnect cultures. The “exile” thus sees the whole world as a foreign land captured in the power-knowledge nexus’.
From: Rehnuma Sazzad, Hatoum, Said and Foucault: Resistance through Revealing the Power-Knowledge Nexus? van Postcolonial Text, Vol 4, No 3 2008), see here
Emily Jacir, Embrace, 2005 (‘The Future of a Promise’, Venetië, 2011- foto Floris Schreve)
Embrace is a circular, motorised sculpture fabricated to look like an empy luggage conveyor system found in airports. It remains perfectly still and quiet, but when a viewer comes near the sculpture their presence activates the work; it turns on and starts moving. The work’s diameter refers to the height of the artist. The work symbolizes, amongst many things, waiting and the etymology of the word ‘embrace’.
Emily Jacir (statement for The Future of a Promise)
Ahmed Alsoudani, Untitled, acryl en houtskool op doek, 2010 (‘The Future of a Promise’, Venetië, 2011- foto Floris Schreve)
‘At the time I was in the tenth grade and I was spending hours reading Russian novels and poetry. Reading things like The Brothers Karamazow, The Idiot, War and Peace, Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova, and an anthology of poetry from the frontline of World War II- I can’t remember the title- helped me clarify my own circumstances and put the idea of leaving Iraq in my head. At that time in Iraq all ideas, even private thoughts, could land you in jail. As millions of Iraqis dreamt of leaving, I knew I had to plan carefully. (…) I left Baghdad in the middle of the afternoon and traveled by taxi to Kurdistan, which was under U.S. protection. We had to pass many heavily guarded checkpoints, but my older brother used his connections to bribe our way through. It cost him a lot of money. I stayed for a few weeks in Kurdistan, and later I met with an Iraqi opposition member who helped me cross into Syria (…) After I escaped from Baghdad I spent four years in Syria. In the beginning life was pretty rough and lonely, but eventually I made a few friends. One in particular helped me tremendously- an Iraqi poet named Mohammed Mazlom who was a friend of my brother. He let me stay at his place in Damascus for a year and helped me get a job writing for the Iraqi opposition newspaper there. The big problem with Syria is that though they don’t bother you as an Iraqi exile, you can’t get the paperwork you need to be a legal resident either. You’re in a kind of a limbo: it’s almost if you don’t exist. I knew I would eventually have to leave there as well. In Damascus there is an office called UNHCR, which is a part of the United Nations. Every day the office is full of refugees waiting to get an application to leave. It was a complicated process but I decided after two years in this state of limbo to do it. It took almost a year of waiting but finally I got a meeting with someone from the US embassy. As someone writing for the Iraqi opposition in Syria my case was strong, and after several meetings they granted me political asylum’
(in Robert Goff, Cassie Rosenthal, Ahmed Alsoudani, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, Germany, 2009).
Ahmed Alsoudani, Untitled, acryl en houtskool op doek, 2010 (‘The Future of a Promise’, Venetië, 2011- foto Floris Schreve)
‘These turbulent paintings depict a disfigured tableau of war and atrocity. Although the content of the paintings draw on my own experiences of recent wars in Iraq, the imagery of devestation and violence- occasionally laced with a morbid and barbed humour-evoke universal experience of conflict and human suffering. Deformed figures, some almost indistinguishable and verging on the bestial, intertwine and distort in vivid, surreal landscapes. Figures are often depicted at a moment of transition- through fear and agony- from human to grotesque’
Ahmed Alsoudani (statement for The Future of a Promise)
Jananne Al-Ani, Shadow Sites II, 2011 (The Future of a Promise, Venetië, 2011-foto Floris Schreve)
Jananne Al-Ani, Shadow Sites II, 2011 (The Future of a Promise, Venetië, 2011-foto Floris Schreve)
Jananne Al-Ani, Shadow Sites II, 2011 (The Future of a Promise, Venetië, 2011-foto Floris Schreve)
‘Shadow Sites II is a film that takes the form of an aerial journey. It is made up of images of landscape bearing traces of natural and manmade activity as well as ancient and contemporary structures. Seen from above, the landscape appears abstracted, its buildings flattened and its inhabitants invisible to the human eye. Only when the sun is at its lowest, do the features on the ground, the archeological sites and settlements come to light. Such ‘shadow sites’ when seen from the air, map the latent images by the landscape’s surface. Much like a photographic plate, the landscape itself holds the potential to be exposed, thereby revealing the memory of its past. Historically, representations of the Middle Eastern landscape, from William Holman Hunt’s 1854 painting The Scapegoat (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scapegoat_(painting), FS) to media images from the 1991 Desert Storm campaign have depicted the region as uninhabited and without sign of civilization. In response to the military’s use of digital technology and satellite navigation, Shadow Sites II recreates the aerial vantage point of such missions while taking an altogether different viewpoint of the land it surveys. The film burrows into the landscape as one image slowly dissolves in another, like a mineshaft tunneling deep into substrate of memories preserved over time’.
Jananne Al-Ani (statement The Future of a Promise)
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Ahmed Mater, The Cowboy Code, op ‘The Future of a Promise’, Biënnale van Venetië, 2011 (foto Floris Schreve)
Mater in his statement about ‘Antenna’:
“Antenna is a symbol and a metaphor for growing
up in Saudi Arabia. As children, we used to climb
up to the roofs of our houses and hold these
television antennas up to the sky.
We were trying to catch a signal from beyond the
nearby border with Yemen or Sudan; searching –
like so many of my generation in Saudi –
for music, for poetry, for a glimpse of a different
kind of life. I think this work can symbolise the
whole Arab world right now… searching for a
different kind of life through other stories and
other voices. This story says a lot about my life
and my art; I catch art from the story of my life,
I don’t know any other way”.
Ahmed Mater
Ahmed Mater, Antenna, op ‘The Future of a Promise’, Biënnale van Venetië, 2011 (foto Floris Schreve)
Spring Cleaning! By Franck Hermann Ekra (winner of 2010 AICA Incentive Prize for Young Critics):
‘The lost Springs, Mounir Fatmi’s minimal installation, displays the 22 flags of the states of the Arab League at half mast. In the Tunisian and Egyptian pavilions, two brooms refer to the upheavals that led to the fall of President Ben Ali in Tunisia and President Mubarak in Egypt. This evocative, subtle and trenchant work of art has been inspired by the current protests against neo-patriarchal powers in the Maghreb, the Mashriq and the Arabian Peninsula.
In the anthropology of the state, the flag is a symbol rich in identity and attribution. It is a part of a secular liturgy which establishes a holy space for the politically sacred. Mounir Fatmi seems to have captured this with his intuition of an iconic device halfway between the altar and the universalizing official dramaturgy. He gets to the core of democratic representation, on the capacity to metaphorically catalyse the civil link. There is a touch of the domestic in his contemporary heraldry.
The necessary cleansing that Mounir Fatmi suggests does not concern the community but rather the dictators who dream themselves as demiurges. It calls for action-creation. The Brooms ironically point to some dynamic process and stimulating imitation effect. Who’s next? What else should be dusted? Where has the rubbish been hidden?
Though the aesthetics of sweeping, the artist testifies to some timeless spring. A standard bearer of the pan-Arabic revolutionary revivalism and its enchanting Utopia, he breaks away from the prevailing monotony of always disenchanted tomorrows, irreverently using the devices of complicity through self-sufficient references, and blurring the familiar novel and popular romance. Giving his work an essential and symbolic function, he dematerializes it, as if to repeat over and over again that symbols are food for thought’.
From ’The Future of a Promise’.
Abdulnasser Gharem, The Stamp (Amen), rubber on wooden stamp, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
‘My relationship with the urban environment is reciprocal; streets and the cities inspire a particularly critical reaction. As a socially engaged artist, I need to take back to the people, to the city, to the built environment.
In previous works I have related the story of social environments marked for destruction, regardless of the fate of the people who live in it, or of disaster arising from a misplaced trust in the security of concrete. With the current work, I turn my attention to the false promise of the manufactured modern city.
Viewing 3D models for the future cities springing up across the Gulf, focuses attention on the disjunction between the apparent utopia of the future they appear to offer and the daily, complex and problematic reality of our actual urban lives.
These cities can be a distraction, a vehicle exploited by bureaucracies who wish to divert the attention of a sophisticated population away from a reality which is not model. Through the use of stamps, I underline the inevitable stultifying and complicating effect the bureaucracy will have, even as it works to build its vision for a better society. Why do we look to an utopian future when we have social issues we need to address now? I am not opposed to this brave new world but I want to see governments engage with the streets and cities, and the problems of their people, as they are now. Why built new cities when there are poor people we need to look after? This is a distraction: we should not be afraid to change.
Abdulnasser Gharem (statement for The Future of a Promise)
‘Suspended Together is an installation that gives the impression of a movement and freedom.
However, a closer look at the 200 doves brings the realization that the doves are actually frozen and suspended, with no hope of flight. An even closer look shows that each dove carries on its body the permission document that allows a Saudi woman to travel. Notwithstanding the circumstances, all Saudi women are required to have this document, issued by their appointed male guardian.
The artist reached out to a large group of leading female figures from Saudi Arabia to donate their permission documents for inclusion in this artwork. Suspended Together carries the documents of award-winning scientists, educators, journalists, engineers, artists and leaders with groundbreaking achievements that contributed to society. The youngest contributor is six months old and the oldest is 60 years old. In the artist’s words: ‘regardless of age and achievement, when it comes to travel, all these women are treated like a flock of suspended doves’.
The Flying Carpet is an Oriental fairytale, a dream of instantaneous and boundless travel, but when I visited Venice I saw that illegal immigrants use carpets to fly the coop. They sell counterfeit goods in order to make some money for living. If they are caught by the police they risk expulsion.
There was a butcher in Tunis who wanted to honour Ben Ali. His idea was to call his shop ‘Butcher shop of the 7th November’, the day when Ben Ali assumed the presidency in a ‘medical’ coup d’ état from then President Habib Bourguiba. After he did so, he disappeared without a trace.
In winter 2010, I visited Cairo, a city which has more citizens than the country I was born. This metropolis is characterized by strong contradictions: tradition and modernism, culture and illiteracy, poverty and wealth, bureaucracy and spirituality. All voices fade through the noisy hustle of this melting pot, but if you risk a closer look on the walls you will find the whisper of the people carved into stone.
The three works document the crossing of borders: traversing the European border leads to problems of being a EU citizen or not; the wide line between insult and homage was transgressed through the unspoken proximity of slaughter and governance of the former Tunesian regime; and the longing for freedom in the police state of Cairo was already written into the walls of the city’
Right: Ahmed Basiony, “30 Days of Running in the Place” documentation footage, February–March2010, Palace of the Arts Gallery, Opera House Grounds, Cairo, Egypt.
Left: Ahmed Basiony, 28th of January (Friday of Rage) 6:50 pm, Tahrir Square. Photo taken by Magdi Mostafa.
Biennale di Arte / 54th International Venice Biennale
Ahmed Basiony (1978–2011) was a crucial component as an artist and professor to the use of new media technology in his artistic and socio-cultural research. He designed projects, each working in its own altering direction out of a diversity of domains in order to expose a personal account experienced through the function of audio and visual material. Motioning through his artistic projects, with an accurate eye of constant visibility, and invisibility, while listening to audio material that further relayed the mappings of social information: Whether in the study of the body, locomotion through a street, the visual impact of a scream versus data representation in the form of indecipherable codes. The artist functioned as a contemporary documentarian; only allowing the archival of data the moment it came in, and no longer there after.
30 Days of Running in the Place is the play of a video documentation to a project that had taken place one year ago. Marking a specific time when the artist had performed a particular demonstration of running, in order to anticipate a countering digital reaction; the aim was to observe how in the act of running in a single standing point, with sensors installed in the soles of his shoes, and on his body [to read levels of body heat], could it had been translated into a visual diagram only to be read in codes, and visually witness the movement of energy and physical consumption become born into an image.
One year later, the uprisings to the Egyptian revolution took on Basiony’s attention, as it had millions of other Egyptians motioning through the exact same states of social consumption. It was from then on, for a period of four days, did Basiony film with his digital and phone camera, the events of downtown Cairo and Tahrir Square, leading to his death on the night of the January 28th, 2011.
An evolution of universal networks created out of audio, visual and electronic communications, blurring the distinction between interpersonal communication, and that of the masses, Basiony’s works only existed in real-time, and then after that they became part of the archives of research he invested into making. It is with this note, we collectively desired, under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, to recognize and honor the life and death of an artist who was fully dedicated to the notions of an Egypt, that to only recently, demanded the type of change he was seeking his entire life.
A gesture of 30 years young, up against 30 years of a multitude of disquieted unrest.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Pavilion, Arsenale, Venice, Italy, 6 Jun 2011
The Black Arch
Title : The Black Arch, installation view Credit : Courtesy Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Pavilion
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Press Release Abdulaziz Alsebail, Commissioner, is pleased to announce that Shadia and Raja Alem will represent the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its inaugural pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, Mona Khazindar1 and Robin Start2 will curate The Black Arch, an installation by the two artists. The work of Shadia and Raja Alem can be read as a double narrative. Raja the writer, and Shadia the visual artist, have a non-traditional artist’s background. While having had a classical and literary education the sisters acquired knowledge through their encounters with pilgrims visiting Makkah. Their family had welcomed pilgrims into their home during the Hajj for generations. Since the mid 1980s, the sisters have travelled the world for exhibitions, lectures, and for the general exploration and appreciation of art and literature, and in some way seeking the origins of cultures and civilizations that sparked their imagination through the stories of the visitors to Makkah throughout their childhood. The Black Arch was created through a profound collaboration between Shadia and Raja Alem. It is very much about a meeting point of the two artists; of two visions of the world; from darkness to light, and of two cities – Makkah and Venice. The work is a stage, set to project the artists’ collective memory of Black – the monumental absence of colour – and physical representation of Black, referring to their past. The narrative is fuelled by the inspirational tales told by their aunts and grandmothers, and is anchored in Makkah, where the sisters grew up in the 1970s. The experience with the physical presence of Black, the first part of the installation, is striking for the artists; Raja explains, “I grew up aware of the physical presence of Black all around, the black silhouettes of Saudi women, the black cloth of the Al ka’ba3 and the black stone4 which is said to have enhanced our knowledge.” As a counter-point, the second part of the installation is a mirror image, reflecting the present. These are the aesthetic parameters of the work. The Black Arch is also about a journey, about transition; inspired by Marco Polo and fellow 13th century traveller Ibn Battuta5 – both examples of how to bridge cultures through travel. Shadia explains how she felt a desire to follow Marco Polo’s example and “to bring my city of Makkah to Venice, through objects brought from there: a Black Arch; a cubic city, and a handful of Muzdalifah pebbles.6” The artists focus on the similarities between the two cosmopolitan cities and their inspirational powers. The double vision of two women, two sisters, two artists unfolds in a world of ritual and tradition which, however, confronts the day-to-day reality of human behaviour with simplicity. “If the doors of perception were cleared, everything would appear to man as it really is, infinite.” William Blake.
Raja & Shadia Alem, The Black Arch, installation, Venice Biennial, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Raja & Shadia Alem, The Black Arch, installation, Venice Biennial, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Raja & Shadia Alem, The Black Arch, installation, Venice Biennial, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Raja & Shadia Alem, The Black Arch, installation, Venice Biennial, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Raja & Shadia Alem, The Black Arch, installation, Venice Biennial, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Raja & Shadia Alem, The Black Arch, installation, Venice Biennial, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Raja & Shadia Alem, The Black Arch, installation, Venice Biennial, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
The Pavilion of Iraq; my own impression
Introduction of the curator Mary Angela Shroth:
“These are extraordinary times for Iraq. The project to create an official country Pavilion for the 54. Biennale di Venezia is a multiple and participatory work in progress since 2004. It is historically coming at a period of great renewal after more than 30 years of war and conflict in that country.
The Pavilion of Iraq will feature six internationally-known contemporary Iraqi artists who are emblematic in their individual experimental artistic research, a result of both living inside and outside their country. These artists, studying Fine Arts in Baghdad, completed their arts studies in Europe and USA. They represent two generations: one, born in the early 1950′s, has experienced both the political instability and the cultural richness of that period in Iraq. Ali Assaf, Azad Nanakeli and Walid Siti came of age in the 1970′s during the period of the creation of political socialism that marked their background. The second generation, to include Adel Abidin, Ahmed Alsoudani and Halim Al Karim, grew up during the drama of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), the invasion of Kuwait, overwhelming UN economic sanctions and subsequent artistic isolation. This generation of artists exited the country before the 2003 invasion, finding refuge in Europe and USA by sheer fortune coupled with the artistic virtue of their work. All six artists thus have identities indubitably forged with contemporary artistic practice that unites the global situation with the Iraqi experience and they represent a sophisticated and experimental approach that is completely international in scope.
The six artists will execute works on site that are inspired by both the Gervasuti Foundation space and the thematic choice of water. This is a timely interpretation since the lack of water is a primary source of emergency in Iraq, more than civil war and terrorism. A documentary by Oday Rasheed curated by Rijin Sahakian will feature artists living and working in Iraq today.
The Pavilion of Iraq has been produced thanks to Shwan I. Taha and Reem Shather-Kubba/Patrons Committee, corporate and individual contributors, Embassy of the Republic of Iraq and generous grants from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Hussain Ali Al-Hariri, and Nemir & Nada Kirdar. Honorary Patron is the architect Zaha Hadid“.
Azad Nanakeli, Destnuej (purification), Video Installation, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
‘In my language Destnuej means ‘purification’, to cleanse the body from all sins. When I was a boy, water for daily use was extracted from wells for drinking, cooking and washing. Long ago the water from the wells was clear and pure, but already at that time, however, things had changed: my friends who lived in the same area suffered from illness linked to contaminated water. My nephew contracted malaria and died. Since then, much has changed and the wells no longer exist. As in most places they were replaced by aqueducts but the problem persists. Residues of every shape and substance are poured incessantly into the water, poisoning rivers and oceans.
Toxic waste, nuclear by-products, and various chemicals multiply inexorably, seeping into groundwater. Slowly, day after day, they enter into our bodies. For these reasons, the water is no longer pure. Drinking, cooking, washing. Purifying. Purification is an ancient ritual, disseminated in the four corners of the world.
The man who continues to drink this water contaminates his own body. The man who uses it to purify himself contaminates himself.
My work is based on and motivated by these themes, which are also linked to general degradation man causes to the environment around us’.
Azad Nanakeli, March 2011
From: Ali Assaf, Mary Angela Shroth, Acqua Ferita/Wounded Water; Six Iraqi artists interpret the theme of water, Gangemi editore, Venice Biennale, 2011, p. 52
Azad Nanakeli, Au (Water), Mixed Media Installation with audio, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
‘Au’ means water in Kurdish. It is present on our planet in enormous quantities. For the most part, however, it is not available for use: it is salt water that makes up our oceans and glaciers.
The remaining quantity, which we use for the needs of mankind, might be considered sufficient for the moment, but the resources are not unlimited. The need for water increases in an exponential way, with the rise of the world population, and in a few years time the supply might be in jeopardy.
Add to the man’s carelessness and irresponsibility. We waste and pollute water supplies in the name of progress, of consumerism and of economic interests.
It is estimated that within the next twenty years consumption is destined to increase by 40%. What’s more, already today a large part of the world’s population does not have access to clean water sources; among them are the people of the Middle East.
In ancient days and until a few decades ago, these sources existed throughout the territory. They were called oasis. Today after the building of dams by Turkey in the 70’s and by Syria in the 80’s, and the relentless draining of 15,000 square kilometers of Iraqi land (a decision by the regime) everything has changed: where there was once fertile land, there is now desert and desolation.
The World Bank estimates that, by 2035, only 90% of the population of Western Asia, including the Arab Peninsula, will be without water. The small quantity that will still be available will be directed to urban areas, while the countryside will drown in inescapable aridity.
The accumulation of refuse of large urban and industrial areas over the years had created further danger and damage to the integrity of its precious resource.
Underground water levels are polluted by toxic substances. Non-biodegradable materials from refuse dumps accumulate in canals and oceans.
This work emulates the disturbing images from the media of islands composed entirely of accumulated waste.
Azad Nanakeli, March, 2011
Acqua Ferita, p. 56
Halim Al Karim, Nations Laundry, video installation, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Nations Laundry
In this video (Nations Laundry), the idea and materials used to reflect the concepts of threat, apprehension, and survival in matters of our environment. Within this work, my aim is to create an awareness that may, in turn, help bring about positive changes to our failing environmental systems that came as a result of yours and our wars.
Halim Al-Karim, March 2011
Acqua Ferita, p. 58
Halim Al Karim, Hidden Love 3, fotograph lambda-print, 2010 (photo Floris Schreve)
My works dwell on the envolving mentality of urban society. I am concerned with ongoing and unresolved issues, particularly when they relate to violence. I search both through the layers of collective memory and my personal experience in that context.
In this process, the main challenge for me is to identify and stay clear of the historical and contemporary elements of brainwash.
Through these works I try to visualize an urban society free of violence. These out of focus images, sometimes rendered more mysterious under a veil of silk, imply uncertainty of context, time and place. These techniques, which have become the hallmark of my work, are a means to overcome the effects of politics of deception and, in turn, transform me and the camera into single truth seeking entity.
‘My deepest memories are central to my painting but it is often easier only to look at the surface; to see war, torture and violence and even to consider my art only in terms of the present Iraq war. My own approach is different from anything related to the first impression. I am interested in memory and history, and in the potent areas between the two that enable me to keep memories alive in the present. As an artist, it is important not to get obsessed with my subject matter. I need critical distance. Some of the events that inform my paintings are things I have personally experienced while others I have heard about from family or close friends. These events are refashioned in my imagination in such a way that I am able to look at them both very personally and with some distance. If I were too personal and too literal about these subjects I would be overly emotional and that would negatively affect the work, I would take it into a place which is something other than art. In order for these works to survive as art I need the distance my interior process of distilling my subject matter affords me. In terms of Iraq, I care deeply about the country and the people there. My work is not intended to be a first person account on war, atrocity or the effect of totalitarianism in Iraq in the last twenty years; in fact I think there are universal and common aspects to these things throughout history and different parts of the world and I hope viewers will see this in my paintings in Venice’.
Ahmed Alsoudani, New York, april, 2011 (from Ali Assaf, Mary Angela Shroth, Acqua Ferita/Wounded Water; Six Iraqi artists interpret the theme of water, Gangemi editore, Venice Biennale, 2011)
The Gali Ali Breg (Gorge of Ali Beg) waterfall is part of Hamilton Road, built in 1932 under the guidance of New Zealand engineer Sir Archibald Milne Hamilton to link Erbil with the Iranian border. The waterfall had long been a tourist destination, featured in Iraqi publications and on the current 5000 Iraqi Dinar note.
Two years ago a drought afflicted the region, and left the waterfall dry in the summer seasons. This prompted the Kurdish government to hire a Lebanese company to divert water to the falls, which involved pumping 250 cubic meters of water per second. The imagery on the note thus remained intact.
Walid Siti, Meso (detail), Mylar mirror, twill tape, nylon fishing line and wood, 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Meso 2011
From the air, the Great Zab River near Erbil forms a snaking, green body of water in a dry, golden landscape. Though beautiful, the sight also reveals the skeletons of dried out rivers and streams that once contributed to its flow. This piece exposes the fragility of the Great Zab (one of the main tributaries to the Tigris River), now exposed to the lurking threats of drought, rapid development and political tugs-of-war.
Walid Siti, 2011
Acqua Ferita, p. 64
Adel Abidin, Consumptions of War, Video Projection and amorphic installation (photo Floris Schreve- see here a compilation)
Adel Abidin, Consumptions of War, Video Projection and amorphic installation (photo Floris Schreve- see here a compilation)
Adel Abidin, Consumptions of War, Video Projection and amorphic installation (photo Floris Schreve- see here a compilation)
Adel Abidin, Consumptions of War, Video Projection and amorphic installation (photo Floris Schreve- see here a compilation)
Adel Abidin, Consumptions of War, Video Projection and amorphic installation (photo Floris Schreve- see here a compilation)
‘Consumption of War explores the environmental crisis through the participatory crisis and spectator culture of profit driven bodies. Today, global corporate entities encourage consumption on a massive scale for maximum profit, disregarding the obscene amounts of water needed to produce ‘necessities’ such as a pair of jeans or cup of coffee. In Iraq, major corporations have signed the largest free oil exploration deals in history. Yet while every barrel of oil extracted requires 1.5 barrels of water, 1 out of every 4 citizens has no access to clean drinking water.
In a corporate office, two men compete in a childish battle inspired by Star Wars, using fluorescent lights as swords. Each light is consumed until the darkened room marks the game’s abrupt end. Alternating between lush and dry, attractive and foolish, this is a landscape of false promises and restricted power’
Ali Assaf, still from Narciso (photo Floris Schreve)
For the 2011 Biennale I have conceived two works. Between them, they approach several aspects following my recent visit to my hometown, Al Basrah, where I lived till the age of 18 and where the majority of my gamily still resides.
Narciso
In my parents’ house in Al Basrah, I found myself turning the pages of an old schoolbook on Caravaggio (1571-1610). Before an illustration of his ‘Narciso’, these questions came to mind:
‘What would happen today if Narcissus saw himself in the water?’
‘Would he be able to see his image in today’s polluted water?’
‘And myself? If I was able to see my image in the waters of Al Basrah, what would I see?’
In this manner my return to Al Basrah had the meaning of reflecting myself in my own history and in its own in-depth and intimate personal identity. But it was impossible to do, because I found this identity led astray and darkened.
Ali Assaf, al-Basrah, the Venice of the East (installation), 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Ali Assaf, al-Basrah, the Venice of the East (installation), 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Ali Assaf, al-Basrah, the Venice of the East (installation), 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Ali Assaf, al-Basrah, the Venice of the East (installation), 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Ali Assaf, al-Basrah, the Venice of the East (detail), 2011 (photo Floris Schreve)
Al Basrah, the Venice of the East
My arrival at the border between Kuwait and Iraq was a shock.
A profound sense of frustration when confronted with this reality.
‘ There was nothing left from those memories that were so important to my survival. Only destruction and ugliness. The surviving friends and family had aged, the Shatt al-Arab River had become saline.
The canals had dried up and were a deposit for refuse and garbage, the historic buildings destroyed or substituted by illegal constructions, the dates were contaminated.
The Shenashil built of wood (with their Indo-English balconies) were abandoned to their own devices, to the sun and rain, they had lost their charm and characteristic beauty. These places were corroded by humidity and lack of care, marked by war and the embargo.
The Iraqi Pavilion at the Venice Bienial/Het Paviljoen van Irak op de Biënnale van Venetië/ الجناح العراقي في بينالي البندقية
After an absence of thirty-five years, Iraq finally again is represented at the Venice Biennial. Although the situation in Iraq is far from favorable for artists and the circumstances are still very difficult (albeit in a different way than under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein), the Iraqi pavilion at the Biennale is probably something hopeful. Probably because it seemed not have been easy to achieve this. Ali Assaf, the in Italy living Iraqi artist who is the main initiator of this project (earlier I spent on this blog some attention on his work in this article in Dutch and see this clip with a compilation of older work), had initially planned an exhibition of artists who are living and working inside Iraq. Because of the insecure circumstances in Iraq (still no government and no guarantees for substantial support) ultimately this plan ended up impossible to realise and the project became an exhibition of six artists from the Iraqi diaspora.
The participating artists are Adel Abidin (Helsinki, born 1973 in Baghdad), Ahmed Alsoudani (New York, born in 1975 in Baghdad), Ali Assaf (Rome, born in 1950 in Basra), Azad Nanakeli (Florence, born 1951 in Arbil , Kurdistan), Halim Al Karim (Denver, born in 1963 in Najaf) and Walid Siti (London, born in 1954 in Dohuk, Kurdistan). The exhibition is curated by Mary Angela Schroth (curator), Vittorio Urbani (co-commisioner) and Rijin Sahakian (Projects Assistant). Honorary President is the world-renowned Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid.
The only one of these artists I’ve once personally met is Halim Al Karim (Ali Assaf I once interviewed by phone about his performance Feet of Sand of 1996, see here). After his escape from Iraq Halim Al Karim spent some time in the Netherlands ( he studied at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam). I met him early summer 2000, when he exhibited in the no longer existing gallery Fi Beiti (which was specialized in artists from the Middle East) in Amsterdam. At that time he made ceramic objects (see this example). Although at that time he was barely known in the Dutch artscene (in the Middle East he already had a great career), I found his ceramic work had a very special quality. His breakthrough in the West came when he had moved to the United States. This was especially with his photographic work, as shown below. Today, his work is represented in the Saatchi Collection among others (see here)
Anyhow it’s special that this pavilion was created. Here will follow some of the official documentation, supplemented with information and images of the participating artists. In a later context, I will publish an article in English in which I will discuss more extensively some of these artists.
Floris Schreve, Amsterdam
فلوريس سحرافا
(أمستردام، هولندا)
Click here for the essay of Mary Angela Shroth, curator of the Pavilion of Iraq
Ali Assaf, Al Basrah, the Venice of the East, Mixed Media Installation, 2011 (photo http://jungeblodt.com )
Adel Abidin, Consumptions of War, Video Projection and amorphic installation (photo http://jungeblodt.com )
Na een afwezigheid van vijfendertig jaar is Irak weer vertegenwoordigd op de Biënnale van Venetië. Hoewel de situatie in Irak allerminst gunstig is en kunstenaars het daar nog altijd bijzonder zwaar hebben (zij het op een andere manier dan onder de dictatuur van Saddam Hoessein), stemt het Iraakse paviljoen op de Biënnale enigszins hoopvol. Enigszins want het schijnt niet makkelijk geweest te zijn om dit te realiseren. Ali Assaf, de in Italië wonende Iraakse kunstenaar die de belangrijkste initiator van dit project was (eerder besteedde ik op dit blog aandacht zijn werk in dit artikel en zie hier een filmpje met een compilatie van wat ouder werk) was oorspronkelijk van plan om een tentoonstelling samen te stellen van kunstenaars uit Irak zelf. Uiteindelijk bleek dit niet realiseerbaar en werd het een expositie van zes Iraakse kunstenaars uit de Diaspora.
De particperende kunstenaars zijn Adel Abidin (Helsinki, geb. 1973 in Bagdad), Ahmed Alsoudani (New York, geboren in 1975 in Bagdad), Ali Assaf (Rome, geboren in 1950 in Basra), Azad Nanakeli (Florence, geboren 1951 in Arbil, Koerdistan), Halim Al Karim (Denver, geboren in 1963 in Najaf) en Walid Siti (Londen, geboren in 1954 in Dohuk, Koerdistan). De tentoonstelling werd samengesteld door, naast Ali Assaf, Mary Angela Schroth (curator), Vittorio Urbani (co-commisioner) en Rijin Sahakian (adjunct Projects). Erevoorzitter is de inmiddels wereldwijd befaamde Iraakse architecte Zaha Hadid.
De enige van deze kunstenaars die ik zelf een keer heb ontmoet is Halim Al Karim (Ali Assaf heb ik een keer telefonisch geïnterviewd over zijn performance Feet of Sand uit 1996, zie hier). Na zijn vlucht uit Irak verbleef Halim Al Karim een tijd in Nederland (hij studeerde oa aan de Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam). Ik heb hem ontmoet begin zomer 2000, toen hij exposeerde in de niet meer bestaande gallerie Fi Beiti (gespecialiseerd in kunstenaars uit het Midden Oosten), aan de Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. In die tijd maakte hij keramische objecten (zie dit voorbeeld). Toen was hij nog nauwelijks bekend. Ten onrechte vond ik toen al, want zijn keramische werk had een bijzondere kwaliteit. Zijn grote doorbraak kwam toen hij naar Denver was verhuisd. Dat was vooral met zijn fotografische werk, zoals hieronder te zien is. Tegenwoordig prijkt zijn werk in oa de Saatchi Collectie (zie hier)
Hoe dan ook is het bijzonder dat dit paviljoen tot stand is gekomen. In dit verband geef ik wat van de officiële documentatie weer, aangevuld met informatie en beeldmateriaal van de participerende kunstenaars. In een later verband zal ik in een nog te verschijnen Engelstalige bijdrage veel dieper ingaan op het werk van oa een aantal van deze kunstenaars.
Floris Schreve, Amsterdam
فلوريس سحرافا
(أمستردام، هولندا)
Pavilion of Iraq
54th International Art Exhibition
la Biennale di Venezia
Iraq’s experimental contemporary artists have never had a chance to present their work for an Iraq Pavilion at the Venice Biennale; the first and last major appearance in 1976 outlined only some of their “modern” artists. The Iraq Pavilion for 2011 will indeed show the world an exciting professionally-curated selection of 6 Iraqi artists from two generations, including various artistic media (painting, performance, video, photography, sculpture/installation).
Ali Assaf, Commissioner for the Pavilion of Iraq 2011
Acqua Ferita / Wounded Water Six Iraqi Artists interpret the theme of water
Site:
Gervasuti Foundation, Fondamenta S. Ana (Via Garibaldi) Castello 995, between Giardini and Arsenale
Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Italy, Iraq UN Representation in Rome, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, corporate and individual patrons and the Iraq Pavilion Patrons Committee
These are extraordinary times for Iraq. The project to create an official country Pavilion for the 54. Biennale di Venezia is a multiple and participatory work in progress since 2004. It is historically coming at a period of great renewal after more than 30 years of war and conflict in that country.
The Pavilion of Iraq will feature six internationally-known contemporary Iraqi artists who are emblematic in their individual experimental artistic research, a result of both living inside and outside their country. These artists, studying Fine Arts in Baghdad, completed their arts studies in Europe and USA. They represent two generations: one, born in the early 1950’s, has experienced both the political instability and the cultural richness of that period in Iraq. Ali Assaf, Azad Nanakeli and Walid Siti came of age in the 1970’s during the period of the creation of political socialism that marked their background. The second generation, to include Adel Abidin, Ahmed Alsoudani and Halim Al Karim, grew up during the drama of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), the invasion of Kuwait, overwhelming UN economic sanctions and subsequent artistic isolation. This generation of artists exited the country before the 2003 invasion, finding refuge in Europe and USA by sheer fortune coupled with the artistic virtue of their work. All six artists thus have identities indubitably forged with contemporary artistic practice that unites the global situation with the Iraqi experience and they represent a sophisticated and experimental approach that is completely international in scope.
The six artists will execute works on site that are inspired by both the Gervasuti Foundation space and the thematic choice of water. This is a timely interpretation since the lack of water is a primary source of emergency in Iraq, more than civil war and terrorism. A documentary by Oday Rasheed curated by Rijin Sahakian will feature artists living and working in Iraq today.
The Pavilion of Iraq has been produced thanks to Shwan I. Taha and Reem Shather-Kubba/Patrons Committee, corporate and individual contributors, Embassy of the Republic of Iraq and generous grants from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Hussain Ali Al-Hariri, and Nemir & Nada Kirdar.
Honorary Patron is the architect Zaha Hadid.
Links en rechts: Adel Abidin, Consumptions of War, Video Projection and amorphic installation
Links: Ahmed Alsoudani, Untitled, Charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 2010. Rechts: Ahmed Alsoudani, Untitled, Charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 2011
Links: Ali Assaf, Narciso, video installation, 2010. Rechts:Ali Assaf, Al Basrah, the Venice of the East, Mixed Media Installation, 2011
Links: Azad Nanakeli, Destnuej (purification), Video Installation, 2011. Rechts: Azad Nanakeli, Au (Water), Mixed Media Installation with audio, 2011
Links: Halim al Karim, Hidden Love 1, photograph Lambda Print, 2010. Rechts: Halim Al Karim, Hidden Revolution, video still, 2010
Links: Walid Siti, Beauty Spot, Mixed Media Installation, 2011. Rechts: Walid Siti, Mesa, Mylar mirror, twill tape, nylon fishing line and wood, 2011
Courtesy of Robert Goff GalleryAHMED ALSOUDANI | The Baghdad-born, New York-based painter (‘Untitled,’ 2007, pictured here) will be among six artists showing work at the Venice Biennale’s Iraq pavilion opening in June.
Walking a provocative tightrope is what American contemporary-art curator Mary Angela Schroth does best. In 1993, with memories of apartheid still fresh, Schroth staged Italy’s first exhibition of South African art, and during the days of glasnost and a collapsing Soviet Union, she presented its first show of perestroika-era Russian artists. And in a move that some might interpret as the ultimate in cultural and political overtures, Schroth is now preparing the return of the Iraq pavilion to the 2011 Venice Biennale after a 35-year hiatus.
Photograph by Danilo ScarpatiCurator Mary Angela Schroth, photographed at mixed-media artist Ali Assaf’s studio in Rome.
Artists and curators who have worked with Schroth throughout her career, which includes running Rome’s first nonprofit art space, Sala 1 (pronounced “Sala Uno,” Italian for “Room One”), say it’s the native Virginian’s tenacity and inquisitiveness that have shaped her vision since she entered the art world back in 1977.
“With anyone else it would have been impossible,” says Basra-born, Italy-based artist Ali Assaf, who is the commissioner and one of six Iraqi artists presenting work in the pavilion. Bringing his native country back to Venice was a cause he championed for years, but decades of unrest prevented its materialization. “At first it couldn’t be done because of Saddam, but then it became impossible because of the severe fighting and confusion,” he explains.
In 2009, Assaf approached Schroth to curate the pavilion in hopes that the combination of his passion and her trademark ambition would lead Iraq back into the Venice Biennale limelight. “The pavilion, through its artists and collaboration with the new government, is one small, but significant step,” Schroth says. “It is an important symbol for change.”
Courtesy of Azad NanakeliAZAD NANAKELI | Stills from the Florence-based artist’s video installation ‘Destnuej’ (2011)
In the two years since, Schroth, 61, has worked with Assaf to select artists who represent a cross-section of intergenerational talent from the Arab nation. But with the exodus of much of the country’s creative class, as well as today’s fragile security situation, choosing artists currently residing in Iraq proved unfeasible.
“Getting Iraqi artists [who live in Iraq] is not an easy job,” says Iraq’s ambassador to the U.N. agencies in Rome, Hassan Janabi. “It could be tedious and possibly create friction. Instead, they sought out artists living on the outside who could truly reflect what constitutes an Iraqi artist.” The list includes New York–based Ahmed Alsoudani, who will simultaneously show several paintings inside the nearby Palazzo Grassi, and the London-based Kurdish artist Walid Siti.
Courtesy of Walid SitiWALID SITI | ‘Family Ties’ (April 2009), an installation in Dubai by the London-based artist
The title of the pavilion, “Acqua Ferita”—or “wounded water” in Italian—was selected to shift the Iraq conversation away from war and onto one many view as equally significant. “Terrorism is a theme people are fed up with,” Assaf says. “There are other problems, such as water loss in the region, that no one thinks about.” The concept drew support from Janabi, who was at the time an official adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources. “Vast areas once covered with water are now desert,” Janabi says. “Water is life and this life has been taken away. This is critical and it’s now diminishing.”
Although some might chafe at the idea of an American curating the Iraq pavilion, contentious nationality issues have always remained far outside Schroth’s purview. “My nomadic life means I have more in common with these artists than a normal curator,” she says.
Indeed, it has been more than three decades since Schroth lived in the U.S. Her departure for Europe came on the heels of a five-year stretch working as an assistant at CBS under the helm of Walter Cronkite, covering events like Watergate, the end of the Vietnam War and the election of Jimmy Carter.
Courtesy of Halim al-KarimHALIM AL-KARIM | ‘Hidden War’ (1985), a triptych by the U.S.-based photographer.
Her first destination was Normandy, France. Although Schroth had no formal art training, her enthusiasm led her to some of the country’s most off-the-map art happenings—the most fruitful of which was a collaboration with French contemporary artist Joël Hubaut. Together they established the independent art space Nouveau Mixage, hedged inside an abandoned garage in the center of Caen. It was there Schroth learned how to become an “artist’s producer,” or someone, she explains, “who could translate their projects into reality.”
While living in France, Schroth met the commissioner of the U.S. pavilion at the 50th Venice Biennale, Kathleen Goncharov, and the two have since traveled to remote biennials and art events around the world. “My investigations to countries outside the Eurocentric context have been a big part of my identity in my work with contemporary art,” Schroth says.
With the impending closure of Nouveau Mixage, Schroth relocated to Rome. She arrived in a city replete with sweeping, historic charm, but a flatlining contemporary art scene. “Rome was a backwater,” Schroth says. “It didn’t have in the early 1980s what it has today. It just wasn’t interested in international contemporary art.”
Courtesy of Adel AbidinADEL ABIDIN | Still from ‘Three Love Songs’ (2010-11), a video installation at Mathaf, the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar.
A lack of galleries and independent spaces forced Schroth to spend her first year scouring the city for artists and setting her sights on transforming disused spaces into art hubs. One of the first such shows exhibited the work of Italian and British artists in abandoned, underground bathroom stalls in a central Roman piazza. The event, which still retains a kind of cult status in Italy today, proved to be one of the most pivotal in Schroth’s career, as it facilitated her introduction to sculptor and Passionist priest Tito Amodei.
Amodei’s art studio was housed inside a vaulted, former basilica compound owned by the Vatican. Inside the complex was also the 800-square-foot Sala 1 gallery that he used for sculptural exhibitions. He had for some time been on a desperate hunt for a director to take over the space. “Back then it wasn’t cool to be connected to the Catholic Church,” Schroth says. “Many didn’t think it could be a viable art space, but it just needed a curatorial jumpstart. Like any place, it was just a container unless you had a vision.” And so in 1985, Schroth assumed the role of director at Sala 1. The only rules for running the space, explains the now 85-year-old Amodei, were: “No politics. No religion. No Vatican. Only culture.”
Keeping their distance from their landlord, which meant never asking for financial assistance, has enabled Sala 1 to maintain a large degree of creative freedom—best exemplified in a succession of groundbreaking exhibitions. These include the 1995 “Halal” show, the first display of contemporary Israeli artists in Italy, and collaborating with the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2006 to present the U.S.’s first show of comic books hailing from Africa.
Courtesy of Ali AssafALI ASSAF | ‘Waters!’ (2009), an installation at Sette Sale in Rome.
Now with the 2002 opening of MACRO, the contemporary art museum and galleries, including an outpost from powerhouse dealer Larry Gagosian, Rome is beginning to take hold as a serious contemporary-art center. “At a time when Rome had mostly sleepy institutions, she was one of the only people working with emerging talent,” says Viktor Misiano, former contemporary-art curator at the Pushkin Museum and co-curator of “Mosca: Terza Roma,” Schroth’s 1988 exhibition of Russian art. “She is one of the few that had the courage to do something unusual.”
As if to underscore Schroth’s unremitting energy, she is also curating the first-ever Bangladesh pavilion for this summer’s Venice Biennale, which coincides with the country’s 40th anniversary. Both Bangladesh and Iraq will be housed in the Gervasuti Foundation, an artisan’s workshop in a construction zone in central Venice.
“For me being with the artist is as good as it gets,” says Schroth in a still-thick Southern accent. “And although sometimes it’s not perfect, in the end, they give you what I call illumination.”
“Which,” she adds, “just so happens to be the theme of this year’s Biennale.”
—The 54th Venice Biennale will run from June 4 to November 27, 2011.
Azad Nanakeli’s Acqua ferita/ Wounded Water at the Iraqi pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Photograph: Christian Jungeblodt
“I want to create, I want to show the world what I am capable of, but I cannot.” So says a 16-year-old Iraqi photographer, as Iraq fields its first pavilion for 34 years at the Venice Biennale.
The words of Ayman Haider Kadhm are part of a short documentary that looks at the experiences of three young Iraqi artists struggling to find a voice in a war-ravaged country.
He talks of his camera being confiscated by the security forces. “Do I look like a terrorist? I am only a photographer who wants to record life.”
In fact the main installation of the Iraq pavilion contains work only by members of the Iraqi diaspora, most of whom left in the 1970s to study abroad before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war.
According to Rijin Sahakian, the Iraqi-born, American head of the Echo cultural foundation, another supporter of the pavilion: “There has been a severance of training, and an isolation for decades compounded by a newfound violence.
“That’s why all the artists here are part of the diaspora. It’s been fractured for years, and the last 10 years have been the final blow.”
The biennale may be a critical event for visual arts, but – with its national pavilions – it also has inescapable overtones of soft diplomacy. Iraq’s presence is also about trying to change perceptions of a dictatorship-scarred and war-wounded country.
Azad Nanakeli left his home city of Arbil in Kurdistan aged 23 to study in Baghdad and then Florence – and stayed in Italy. He has created a film work and a sculptural installation exploring the pavilion’s water theme.
It is, he says, “a great thing to have a space here. In 1976 Iraq was present at the biennale but it was more political and belonged to the regime”.
The curator, Mary Angela Schroth, agrees. “I want people to see the work of these artists and see that there are some untold stories. And I want people to see Iraq not as a 30-year conflict zone but like any other country.
“We have deliberately got away from the war – we want to give it an identity, an identity that it has lost since the Saddam dictatorship.
“In two years it could be more than a reality to show Iraqi work made in Iraq. But at the moment young Iraqis can’t leave the country. It is very difficult for artistic practice – the country is essentially destroyed.”
The pavilion is funded by the Iraq government and a handful of private sponsors including Total, the oil company. Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-British architect, is its patron.
The artists argue that culture is necessary as a means of expression after a traumatic period in its history.
According to Nanakeli, after the war: “We thought we’d get freedom. Now we have a big problem when we speak about contemporary culture. The government doesn’t give a lot of space for art, theatre, cinema and that is terrible for Iraqis.
“If we are to grow as a country we need to think about all areas of life. My hope is that there will be a future for artists, poets and writers.”
Sahakian adds: “People have been silenced for so long. Art is a crucial tool for talking about what’s happened, for self-expression, for the documenting of personal experience.”
The London-based Walid Siti, who left his native Duhok in 1976 to study in Baghdad and then Ljubljana in Slovenia, has created a pair of linked sculptural installations which look at the rivers of Iraq.
“To have a show in Venice is important – to say that there is something positive. The water metaphor, it can bring us together.”
He talks about the subject of one of his pieces: the river Azab, which rises in Turkey, flows through Kurdistan and then flows “like a vein – a kind of symbol of life and continuity” to the Tigris.
“In Iraq it is very hard for artists. Religious groups are pressurising the government to close to close down art, theatre, dance organisations.
“But people are coming up with ideas. For better or worse, what Iraq has been through is a source of ideas.”
The Iraq pavilion is at Gervasuti Foundation, Castello 995, Venice, from Saturday until 27 November
Ahmed Alsoudani talks about his participation in ‘Wounded Water’, the Pavilion of Iraq, at the 54th Venice Biennale.
After a 35-year hiatus, 2011 marks Iraq’s triumphant return to the Venice Biennale. In an exhibition curated by Mary Angela Schroth, the 2011 Iraq Pavilion will present to the world six internationally celebrated Iraqi artists, including Haunch of Venison’s Ahmed Alsoudani (b.1975), an emerging artist whose paintings of war and human conflict have garnered him international attention and broad critical applause. The artists in the exhibition span two generations: Ali Assaf, Azad Nanakli, and Walid Siti were born in the 1950s and experienced periods of vast cultural richness and creativity in the country despite political turmoil; Ahmed Alsoudani, Abel Abidin and Halim Al Karim grew up during the Iran-Iraq War, the Invasion of Kuwait and daily life under intense UN sanctions and the tyrannical Ba’athist regime. The exhibition, entitled Acqua Ferita/Wounded Water, revolves around the six artists’ interpretations on the theme of water loss in the region through diverse mediums including painting, performance, video, photography, sculpture and installation art. According to Schroth, “The pavilion, through its artists and collaboration with the new government, is one small, but significant step.” The Iraq Pavilion will open on 2 June 2011 and is located at the Gervasuti Foundation, Fondamenta S. Ana (Via Garibaldi), Castello 995, between Giardini and Arsenale.
Adel Abidin and Ahmed Alsoudani, the young artists who represent Iraq at the 54th Venice Biennale, were sitting on the terrace of the Bauer Hotel here at dusk on Wednesday, studying their elaborately hand-written invitations to a private dinner given by François Pinault, the French billionaire. How would they cross the water to San Giorgio Maggiore Island?
NETWORKING Ahmed Alsoudani, left, with Isabelle de La Bruyère at a Venice Biennale party.
It is the first time since 1976 that Iraq has participated in the prestigious art gathering. With Egypt, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia all showing there (a first for Saudi Arabia), Middle Eastern art was Topic A among the gaggle of oligarchs, aristocrats and movie stars who gathered for three days of frantic partying and private viewings before the fair’s official opening on Saturday.
So it wasn’t surprising when Yvonne Force Villareal, a founder of the Art Production Fund in New York, offered them a ride on her private water taxi, along with the photographer Todd Eberle, the socialite Anne McNally, and Bruno Frisoni, the shoe designer. They piled in, a tangle of gowns and glitter, and sped across the choppy waterways, which were clogged with other party commuter craft.
When they docked at the Cini Foundation, an opulent former Benedictine monastery, Mr. Pinault himself stood at the arched entrance shaking hands with a long line of about 1,000 guests that included Anna Wintour, Charlotte Casiraghi, Jeff Koons and Dasha Zhukova.
Mr. Abidin, 38, is the less active networker of the two artists. He seemed to defy Mr. Pinault’s cocktail-attire dress code, wearing Vans, striped ankle socks and a scarf over a pink button-up shirt. He was coming from a scrappy, laid-back party for a pan-Arabian exhibition, held in a sprawling old salt storage facility, and was eager to return to his friends there.
Mr. Alsoudani, 36, on the other hand, was in his element, and seemed to know every other curator and collector. His abstract paintings, which touch on themes of violence and war, are collected by Charles Saatchi and Mr. Pinault, a frequent visitor to his studio. “François said he liked my pants,” said Mr. Alsoudani, who wore a pair of snug-fitting Dior trousers, a white vest and a hat.
The two — the youngest of six artists who represent the Iraq Pavilion’s exhibition, “Wounded Water” — came of age during the Iran-Iraq war, the invasion of Kuwait and the rule of Saddam Hussein. Both now live in the West (Mr. Abidin in Helsinki and Mr. Alsoudani in New York City), but their works reference a collective memory of strife and hardship — in Mr. Abidin’s case, with a touch of humor. They had met for the first time that evening and seemed to inhabit opposite spectrums of the art world, one bling, the other purist, although they agreed about the changing Middle East.
“The revolution in the Middle East has made me believe that we still have the capacity for believing in our dreams,” Mr. Abidin said, referring to the Arab Spring. “Change is beautiful.”
The two artists had been sought after in Venice, receiving invitations to palazzo dinners and a decadent reception hosted by Ms. Zhukova, Neville Wakefield and Alex Dellal at the Bauer.
Inside the monastery, Mr. Pinault’s party was in high gear, extravagant even by Biennale standards: more candles than a Sting video, banquet tables piled with basil risotto and sparkling rosé, and long tables stacked with exotic cheeses.
Young aristos flitted about the gardens in Balenciaga and Lanvin. Seated at one table were Isabelle de La Bruyère, a regional specialist from Christie’s, and Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi from the Emirate of Sharjah. “Come sit with us!” they called to Mr. Alsoudani and Mr. Abidin, who was chatting with Lisa Phillips, the director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.
“Middle East art is definitely trendy right now,” Mr. Alsoudani said. “But the truth is there is no Chinese art scene, or Indian art scene or Middle East. It’s easier to categorize it that way. The world is getting smaller and all art is judged by the same international standard.”
By 11 p.m., about two hours in, the crowd had mellowed and the BlackBerry typing began. Maurizio Cattelan was hosting a party for his magazine Toilet Paper on San Servolo Island. Others were heading to the Bungalow 8 pop-up club at Hotel Palazzina Grassi and others back to the Bauer.
Mr. Abidin refilled on red wine but seemed disillusioned by all the glitz. “I don’t like Venice,” he said. “I got divorced here and then had two breakups.” He returned to the pan-Arabian party on a boat with a D.J. and no dress code.
Mr. Alsoudani stayed behind. He hit the cheese table and his dealer, from Haunch of Venison, invited him to a party on a yacht hosted by the French collectors Steve and Chiara Rosenblum. “Isn’t Venice fantastic?” he said, contemplating all his choices.
A version of this article appeared in print on June 5, 2011, on page ST1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Art World’s New Darlings.
An exhibition of Halim al Karim in the Darat al-Funun, Amman, 2010
May 2010
Halim Al Karim’s work is a response to the artist’s own unimaginable experiences and his ongoing observation of the turmoil in Baghdad. Al Karim’s artistic approach is as an outward projection of his inner-consciousness and an expression of spiritual awakening. This exhibition presents a series of triptychs with blurred faces. Some are well known figures; others are film stills, artworks, or artifacts from his homeland. The identities of the figures seem immaterial with Al Karim’s out of focus photography technique; blurring their identities to emphasize the un-kept promises of freedom. In the series Witness from Baghdad, the artist highlights the non existence of a passive witness in times of war. Their striking, life-like eyes which reference Sumerian sculptures are proof that these quiet intangible faces are alive and well aware of what is happening around them. The works on show witness the evolving mentality of urban society in present day Iraq
Iraqi artist Halim Al-Karim underwent a harrowing experience
during the first Gulf War. Opposing Saddam’s regime and its compulsory military
service he took to hiding in the desert, living for almost 3 years in a hole in
the ground covered by a pile of rocks. He survived only through the assistance
of a Bedouin woman who brought him food and water and taught him about gypsy
customs and mysticism. Al-Karim has since emigrated to America, however, these
events have had a profound effect on his life and form the basis for his art
practice.
Halim
Al-Karim
Hidden Face
1995
Lambda print
138 x 300 cm
In this body of work, Al-Karim presents a series of triptychs,
each comprised of three faces. Some are well known figures, such as Saddam
Hussein in Hidden Face, others are film stills, artworks, or artifacts.
Presented as enlarged panels their distortion is compounded,
raising the
question not of what they represent but of their deeper meaning and
interconnectivity. Hidden Face was made in 1995, years before the
famous photo of Saddam in custody; the figure is in fact made up, based on how
Al-Karim imagined the dictator would look in the future. The two flanking out of
focus figures are suggestive of world leaders – still in power – whose support
of Saddam’s regime has been forgotten. Al-Karim has blurred their identities to
show the duplicity of their motives, scripting them as anonymous accomplices who
will never stand trial.
Halim
Al-Karim
Hidden Prisoner
1993
Lambda print
158 x 369 cm
In this series of work, photography is used for its
non-physical qualities: a medium which quite literally creates an image from
light, capturing the transient and interwoven nature of time and
memory. The
Sumerian artifacts featured in Al-Karim’s Hidden Prisoner and Hidden Goddess were photographed in the Louvreand the British Museum;
Al-Karim describes seeing them internedbehind glass, far away from their home,
as a painful reminder ofvisiting his friends and family who were held as
political prisonersat Abu Ghraib during Saddam’s
regime.
Halim
Al-Karim
Hidden Theme
1995
Lambda print
138 x 300 cm
Al-Karim’s Hidden series is a response to the artists
own unimaginable experiences and his ongoing observances of the turbulences in
his homeland. With pieces titled Hidden War, Hidden Victims, Hidden
Witnesses, Al-Karim raises the awareness of not only the devastating
effects of violence, but its many manifestations – both physical and
psychological – from the political to the economic and domestic. His works adopt
a skewed sense of scale and resolve to conceptually shift between the macro and
the micro, the societal and individual, physical and emotive, offering a
tranquil and meditative pause and space for reflection and
catharsis.
Halim
Al-Karim
Hidden Victims
2008
Lambda print
186 x 372 cm
Al-Karim merges aspects of Sufism – such as the belief in
Divine Unity – with obsolete traditions, especially those of ancient Sumer, the
grand empire which ruled in what is now Iraq from 6000-4000 BC. Sumerian symbols
often appear in his images, and his photographs
of women are in part
inspired by a ritual which could elevate girls to the status of
goddesses.
Halim
Al-Karim
Prisoner Goddess
1993
Lambda print
124 x 372 cm
Al-Karim’s approach to image-making is as an outward projection
of his inner-consciousness and a visual manifestation of spiritual awakening and
serenity. His evasive dream-like images evoke a range of instinctual emotive
responses, the ability of true perception existing as a preternatural power
within each of us, which can be understood and harnessed through the pursuit of
metaphysical enlightenment.
Halim
Al-Karim
Hidden Witnesses
2007
Lambda print
138 x 300 cm
Halim
Al-Karim
Hidden Doll
2008
Lambda print covered with white
silk
200 x 360 cm
In pieces such as Hidden Doll, Al-Karim presents his
photographs beneath a tautly stretched layer of white silk fabric that operates
as both a physical veil masking the portraits and a metaphorical filter or
screen. This ‘barrier’ between viewer and image can be conceived as a liminal
space, a transcendental portal between being and becoming, where the mystical
properties of change take place.
Halim
Al-Karim
Hidden War 2
2003
Lambda print covered with white
silk
200 x 330 cm
Themes of reconciliation are central to Al-Karim’s work, both
emotionally and in relation to Sufi tradition, where faith is inwardly focused
and strives for unity between consciousness and God.
Contradictions and
juxtapositions occur within his photos, but rather than creating tension, they
have harmonious effect. As faces line up: beautiful and garish, monstrous and
innocent, wizened and puerile, they form single conglomerate portraits, each
segment completing the next, contributing to the understanding of the whole. In Hidden War 2, Al-Karim has covered his images with a transparent layer
of cloth, urging the viewer to consider the hidden agendas behind the
legitimising rhetoric of those who support the war
Halim Al Karim, Ashbook, porcelain and ash, 1999 (made in the time he lived in Amsterdam)
PlanetK, The 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice
Board, emulsion paint, plaster, thread and nails.
Constellation is a large wall-based installation comprising the contours of a white mountain surrounded by constellations of black threads. The connections between the mountain and the black threads draw a parallel with an imagined cosmic world with many associations and metaphorical references to the memory of a physical landscape. The white mountain top in the centre of the work acts as a magnetic force that energises and coordinates the movements of the other elements, suggesting a network of dynamic links between the constituent parts. Constellation is an attempt to go beyond a superficial understanding of the physical elements of the work and to aspire towards an ideal landscape.
Constellation incorporates ideas and forms from ‘Precious Stones’ and ‘Family Ties’ – series of my drawings and paintings that preoccupied my work for over ten years. Both series focus on the significance of various symbols and forms such as stones, fire, cubes and circles, which both characterise the collective cultural identity of the Kurdish people and highlight the universal plight of the exile – physically distant though always emotionally close to home.
The work also plays metaphorically on the astrological meaning of constellation, allowing different readings and interpretations. The four arbitrary sets of constellations within the work are fragmented and incomplete, reflecting a state of contradiction and conflict in reality. This gives the work a new perspective and invites the viewer to contemplate and interpret it within a new context.
From the very beginning, mountains, rocks, and stones—in all their diverse forms and shapes—have been a constant source of inspiration for my work. I use them as metaphors, visual forms that convey my ideas about and associations with political, social, and cultural topics as well as issues of identity. These are the themes that concern me and that have shaped and influenced my art and my life.
During the first Gulf War, Ahmed Alsoudani fled to Syria
before claiming asylum in America. Through his paintings and drawings he
approaches the subject of war through aesthetics. Citing great artists of the
past such as Goya and George Grosz whose work has become the lasting
consciousness of the atrocities of the 19th and 20th centuries, Alsoudani’s
inspiration comes directly from his own experiences as a child, as well as his
concerns over contemporary global conflicts. In We Die Out Of Hand, the
earthy background sets the stage for dreary prison gloom, while hooded figures
are obliterated through mercilessly violent gestures, insinuating the horrors of
Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay with exquisite and torturous beauty.
Ahmed Alsoudani
You No Longer Have Hands
2007
Charcoal, pastel and acrylic on paper
213.4 x 274.3 cm
Alsoudani executes his works with a raw physicality, using
materials such as paint and charcoal in an unorthodox way, often painting over
drawing and vice versa. You No Longer Have Hands is spread over two
large pieces of paper, the seam down the middle operating literally as a divide.
Like many of Alsoudani’s images, there are no people in this work, rather the
concepts of violence are presented as something too large and abstract to
comprehend. Instead a graffiti strewn wall provides a hint of humanity against a
raging black mass, torrential, abject and bereft.
Ahmed Alsoudani
Untitled
2007
Oil, acrylic, ink, gesso on canvas
182.9 x 213.4 cm
Ahmed Alsoudani
Untitled
2008
Oil, acrylic, charcoal gesso on canvas
213 x 184 cm
Alsoudani’s Untitled is barely recognisable as a portrait.
Mixing charcoal with paint, the surface evolves as a dirty corporeal mass, as
pure colours become tinged by sooty dust and paint drips down the canvas in
contaminated streams. Describing what might be a head, Alsoudani offers up an
anguished abstraction combining organic textures with geometric forms. Rendering
carnage with an almost cartoon efficacy, Alsoudani summates the base instinct of
destruction as a volume of fleshy fields punctuated by industrial rubble;
hard-edged circles and arcs lend an absurd consumerist familiarity suggesting
windows and bullet holes in the cold pictograph motifs.
Ahmed Alsoudani
Baghdad I
2008
Acrylic on canvas
210 x 370 cm
“The falling statue of a despot in the centre of Baghdad
I recalls the toppling of the statue of Saddam. The rooster-like figure
symbolizes America. Here the rooster is not only a figure of control but is
injured as well and constrained. The basket of eggs to the left side of its neck
represents ideas – unhatched ideas in this case; an armory of fragile potential.
Alsoudani’s fascination with molecules and cellular references are apparent in
the central egg-shaped object in the center of the rooster’s belly. The flood
bursting through on the bottom center of the canvas carries Biblical
associations and references the fractured nature of daily life in Baghdad –
nothing works, pipes burst, the city is tacked together, evoked by the large
nails depicted in different parts of the canvas. A figure on the upper right of
the canvas bursts forth in a flourish of pageantry, representing the new Iraqi
government, sprung forth from the chaos, compromised, bandaged and standing
precariously on a teetering stool.” Robert
Goff
Ahmed Alsoudani
Baghdad II
2008
Acrylic on canvas
250 x 380 cm
“Baghdad II depicts a “typical” Baghdad scene: on
the left side of the canvas a car has crashed into an American-built security
wall – another suicide bombing attempt or an act of pure desperation. Stylized
licks of red flame come up from the ground, an eyeball has rolled to the center
of the painting on the bottom. The eyeball plays a role in terms of content and
form but also alludes to Lebanese poet Abbas Baythoon. On the lower right hand
side of the painting a head lies behind bars – this is a reference to a statue
in Baghdad, which here Alsoudani has decapitated and, ironically, brought to
life as an imprisoned figure. One way to read this is that under Saddam’s
dictatorship art was constricted and imprisoned and this idea of censorship is
continually evoked through a layered approach in this work. The female figure in
the center right side of the painting is deliberately drawn in as opposed to
painted, a martyr-figure both carrying and giving birth to change.” Robert
Goff
Ahmed Alsoudani
Untitled
2008
Charcoal, acrylic and pastel on paper
270 x 226 cm
Alsoudani’s Untitled mesmerizes with the power and chaos of
an explosion, combining artistic references with combustive force. Reminiscent
of cubist dynamics, Alsoudani approaches his theme of war from every angle,
broaching the incomprehensibility of combat and its repercussions through his
fragmented and turbulent composition. Drawn in charcoal and pastel Alsoudani’s
gestures convey raw passion and intensity with a rarefied elegance, his subtle
shading and ephemeral acrylic washes simultaneously evoking the detailed etching
in Goya’s Disasters of War and the hyper-violent media graphics of Manga
illustrations. Alsoudani negotiates these terrains with unwavering authority,
responding to current events with commanding hindsight to develop contemporary
history painting that’s both high-impact and enduring.
Earlier works of Adel Abidin
Cold Interrogation
Mixed media installation, 2004
A video installation dealing with the dilemma of being an Arab, Muslim and Iraqi individual living in a western society in this period of time.“Since I left my home country Iraq in 2000, I am dealing daily with different questions about my identity”.The work creates an interactive atmosphere, by inviting the viewer to take part in the interrogation.
Examples of the questions:
How did you end up in Finland?How is the situation in Iraq right now?What do you think of Osama bin Ladin?How does it feel to ride a camel?Are you with the war, do you support it?What do you think of the suicide bombers?What do you think of the Americans?And so on…
The viewer can hear to the loud audio of the questions coming from inside the fridge, and see the video through the security peephole fixed on the fridge.
Details:
Country of production: Finland 2004
Duration: 01’00’00 min. (Looping)
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Sound: Stereo
Original Format: mini dv
Screening format: DVD- all / Pal
Hopscotch is a game children play the world over. In Abidin’s work, the squares lead to a gate – into another, unknown world. Abidin associates the work with the Iraq he experienced as child: “In this game, the players are being watched by people who have the power to terminate much more than the game. In a police state, children are taught the ‘rules of the game’ very early on.”
Video details:
8 meters * 4 meters built gate in the museum/ consists of: wood and Plexiglas
duration : 00’02’00 (looping)
Shooting format: Mini DV
Screening format: DVD- all
Aspect ratio: 4:3 (round)
During a recent trip to the US, I met many people from different kinds of educational and social backgrounds. Yet, surprisingly, they all reacted in the same way when I mentioned that I was Iraqi”.
Details:
Country of production: Finland 2008
Sound installation including a light box
Computer programs the sync between the sound and the lights.
five Iraqi artists represent their homeland for first time in 35 years
By Lina Sergie AttarIn Consumption of War, the latest installation by Iraqi-Finnish artist Adel Abidin, one stands in a room, between projection and reality, watching an absurd “war” break out between two corporate figures. The film leaves us in physical and metaphoric darkness, questioning not only the artist’s intention but also our implication within the narrative. Throughout his work over the last decade, exploring issues of identity, memory, exile, violence, war and politics, Abidin has harnessed the power of ambiguity.
Iraqi-Finnish artist Adel AbidinThis year, Abidin is one of five Iraqi artists chosen to represent their homeland at the prestigious 54th annual Venice Biennale. It is the first time in 35 years that a pavilion has been dedicated to Iraq. He represented his “other” home, Finland, in 2007 at the Biennale with his acclaimed installation, Abidin Travels, a mock travel agency that advertised the pleasures of visiting war-torn Iraq. The “agency” was complete with all the materials needed to “sell” an exotic locale: glossy brochures with catchy tag lines, “Baghdad: much more than a holiday” and a brightly-colored faux booking website. In the promotional video, Abidin juxtaposes a cheery, female voice with an American accent describing idealized scenes of Iraq’s famous antiquities and architecture against the footage of looted museums and taped executions. Abidin challenges the typical “Western” tourist’s immunity to the images of war by framing the grim reality within the fake packaging of imagined perfection.
“Consumption of War”The Pavilion of Iraq’s theme is Wounded Water. Severe water shortages and pollution in Iraq compete with the ongoing war as the deadliest threat to civilian life. The local plight is also a universal one as global corporations encourage consumption on a massive scale for maximum profit, disregarding the obscene amounts of water needed to produce “necessities” such as a pair of jeans or cup of coffee. Abidin is concerned, “In Iraq, major corporations have signed the largest free oil exploration deals in history. Yet while every barrel of oil extracted requires 1.5 barrels of water, 1 out of every 4 citizens has no access to clean drinking water.” Consumption of War explores this environmental crisis from the perspective of the competitive corporate environment.
The work occupies two adjacent spaces, the first a decrepit room with broken plaster exposing a brick structure and unused fixtures jutting out of a tiled wall. We enter, facing a white, bare wall with a stopped office clock. The disorienting light flickers in bright flashes. Between the flickers, we see a filing cabinet and a large poster of a parched landscape. In the second space, we face an office with the same clock projected onto the back wall and a vivid, lush landscape in the background. Two men, almost identical in height, weight and coloring, as typically corporate as the room, begin a duel using the florescent lights as swords. The camera shots oscillate between the main view and extreme close-ups of feet crunching glass, of furniture sliding across the room, of fingers grasping the light tubes, and of mock menacing facial expressions, with fuzzy, black and white surveillance shots sliced between. Everything in the room becomes a prop for the fight, cabinets become platforms, lights become swords, at one point a binder is used as a shield. The childish battle is an exaggerated slow-motion dance, referencing pop culture movies such as Star Wars and The Matrix. The light dims darker as the “light sabers” are shattered one by one, until we are left in darkness.
Abidin constructs a visual interpretation of a modern power struggle within the glorified corporate environment, its immaculate furnishings and model-like workers symbolize the pinnacle of global aspirations. Even the playful way they fight is idealized and sanitized. But these seemingly innocent actions are not without consequence; for every light bulb shattered in vain, resources are lost to the majority of people shut out of the power structure.
In Consumption of War, a room within a room changes scale to become a world within a world, representing the present and the absent, what is now and what will come in the future. Abidin strategically places the viewers in between an unclear future and a weary present. The viewers become participants in a game with no winners. As they leave the darkness back into the flashing alarms of light, the lush landscape dissolves into an illusion, a dream, replaced with the reality of a parched, depleted world. He leaves them with a choice: to idly watch as precious resources are sucked dry or to play a different game and stop the madness.
The Pavilion of Iraq opened as part of the 54th Venice Biennale on June 2nd, 2011 and runs until November 2011. Other artists presented in the pavilion are Halim Al Karim, Ahmed Alsoudani, Ali Assaf, Azad Nanakeli and Walid Siti. Info here.
Lina Sergie Attar is an architect educated in Aleppo, Syria, with graduate degrees from RISD and MIT. She has taught architecture, interior architecture and art history courses in Boston and Chicago. Lina is co-founder of Karam Foundation, NFP, a charity based in Chicago. She blogs at tooarab.com. This is her second article for the Levantine Review.
Ali Assaf, Belsem, installation (mixed media and sound), San Marino, 1991
Ali Assaf, Feet of Sand, performance, 1996
Ali Assaf, I wonder if your barber would agree, object of rubber, glue and human hair (translation of the German text: ‘A Dutch hairdresser once told me the hair of the Europeans has become more and more thin since the last thirty years, but if they mix with migrants of the south of the earth, (their hair) certainly will become strong again’
Ali Assaf, Mujaheed, cibachrome on foamcore, plastified, 1997
Ali Assaf, The obscure object of desire, installation, 2002 (details, click on picture to enlarge)
Ali Assaf, The obscure object of desire, installation, 2002 (overview)
Ali Assaf, Greetings from Baghdad, 2004
Ali Assaf, I am her, I am him, video, 2008
Floris Schreve, Amsterdam
فلوريس سحرافا
(أمستردام، هولندا
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alle kunstenaars die op dit blog ter sprake zijn gekomen of om wat voor reden dan ook worden genoemd, aangevuld met kunstenaars die ik ken of die ik interessant vind (van grote namen tot onbekend)
The Syrian People know their Way
الشعب السوري عارف طريقه Syrisch kunstenaarscollectief (grotendeels anoniem) die zich bezighouden met geëngageerde kunst
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Wafaa Bilal,
zie ook http://iearresidencies.wikispaces.com/file/view/WafaaBilalText.pdf of http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2007/wafaa_bilal
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Factor (IKON)
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On Global/Local Art
my articles on contemporary international art in English
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Out of Mesopotamia; Iraakse kunstenaars in ballingschap
artikel in Leidschrift, vakgroep geschiedenis, Universiteit Leiden, Van Mozart tot Saddam; de maatschappij verbeeld in de kunst, Jaargang 17, nummer 3, december 2002
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'Zijn we op weg naar een Wereldkunst?'
een nog altijd relevante introductie op deze thematiek door Sebastian Lopez en Paul Faber uit 1989 (bij de tentoonstelling Double Dutch)
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Al Galidi
website van de Nederlandse/Iraakse dichter, schrijver en columnist Al Galidi
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al-Sabah al-Jedid (English page)
de Engelse pagina van de Iraakse krant al-Sabah al-Jedid (De Nieuwe Morgen) van hoofdredacteur Ismael Zayer, die lange tijd in Nederland verbleef, en de Nederlandse journaliste Anneke van Ammelrooy
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Bagdad in Amsterdam
een mooi initiatief van de in Nederland wonende kunstenaar Amjad Kawish Alfrajje, om een aantal collega’s van hem uit Irak hier te exposeren en aandacht te vragen voor de situatie voor kunstenaars in Irak, na de Amerikaanse inval
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Baghdad Out
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Belgische Iraakse Vriendschaps Vereniging
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Control Room al-Jazeera
een documentaire over de werkwijze van al-Jazeera, dat wat mij betreft op een bewonderenswaardige wijze laveert tussen de ondemocratische Arabische regimes enerzijds en de Amerikaanse pressie anderzijds
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Factor (IKON)
uitzending over Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederland en hun verhaal over het voormalige Iraakse regime
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Festival Farida & Mohamed Gomar
korte film rond het concert van de beroemde Iraakse zangeres Farida Mohamed Ali en het Iraqi Maqam Ensemble in het Concertgebouw dat ik ook bijwoonde in 2011. Ook een paar interviews met Iraakse vrienden van mij.
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Gilles Kepel, The Middle East in Crisis
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Iraqi LGTB
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MetaMap Saddam Hussein 1937-2007
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Michael Brooks, Saddam's brain
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Modern Art Iraq Archive
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No End in Sight; the occupation of Iraq
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On Global/Local Art
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Rendez-vous in Bagdad
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Modern Art Iraq Archive
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Nafas Art Magazine
Contemporary art from Islamic influenced countries and regions
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Suze in the City
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Al Haq
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From occupied Palestine
veel zinvolle artikelen uit en over de bezette gebieden van diverse auteurs (waaronder de beroemde correspondente van de Haáretz in Gaza, Amira Hass)
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Gate 48
Platform voor kritische Israëli’s in Nederland
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Gaza, een jaar later
documentaire over Gaza (17-01-2010, NIO), een jaar na de Israëlische aanval
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Geert Wilders very own two state solution
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Hard Crossings
We follow Palestinians as they navigate the Israeli checkpoints that have become a frustrating feature of daily life (Al Jazeera)
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Hasbara Handbook
Een interessant inkijkje in de Israëlische propaganda-machine (de basiscursus voor pro-Israël propagandisten)
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Het ontstaan van Israël volgens The New Historians
interessant artikel uit het Historisch Nieuwsblad over ‘the New Historians’ (Pappé, Morris, Schlaim ea) die de ontstaansmythe van Israël ter discussie stellen
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In de Ban van Israël (Tegenlicht, VPRO, 17-10-2011)-
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Iran Comité
actiegroep met meer (of vooral andere) agendapunten dan mensenrechten in Iran. Een blik op lijst bestuursleden en de agenda van activiteiten zegt genoeg.
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Ironcomb
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Israel Facts
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Israel-Palestina Info
een ‘objectieve’ site van het duo Ratna Pelle & Wouter Brassé, zo’n beetje de meest overijverige pro-Israël activisten/propagandisten/bloggers/ingezonden brievenschrijvers van Nederland
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Khamakarpress.com
Nieuws over Islam, moslims, Arabische lente en Palestina
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Krantenonderzoek NRC
Een krankzinnig ‘onderzoek’ van de radicale pro-Israël activiste Ratna Pelle, ism de ‘Stichting W.A.A.R.’ naar de vermeende subjectiviteit van NRC Handelsblad inzake het Israëlisch Palestijnse conflict.
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MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Insitute)
Amerikaanse pro-Israëlische organisatie, die zoveel mogelijk de Arabische wereld tracht zwart te maken, door de extreemste artikelen in het Engels te vertalen en ze als ‘mainstream’ te presenteren
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Mohammed Othman
de weblog van de Palestijnse mensenrechtenactivist Mohammed Othman met veel confronterend materiaal over de bezette gebieden
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Mondoweiss
Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective
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Mustafa Barghouthi
site van de Palestijnse mensenrechtenactivist Mustafa Barghouthi
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Nir Baram
een hoopgevend geluid uit Israël zelf, van schrijver Nir Baram (toespraak op een Israélische vredesdemonstratie nav de kwestie Gaza Flotilla)
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Palestine Link
Palestine Link is an initiative by Palestinians in the Netherlands. It is a genuine independent voice and a professional resource and service center.
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Stan van Houcke, 'Autisme in Nederland'
Een zeer tot nadenken stemmend artikel van Stan van Houcke over ‘onze’ worsteling en ‘ons’ onbegrip van wat er onder moslims en in de islamitische wereld speelt
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Stan van Houcke, De Oneindige Oorlog
serie interviews met spraakmakende (vooral Joodse en Arabische) intellectuelen over het eindeloze Midden Oostenconflict
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Stop de Verdraaiing
Een wat klunzige ‘Hasbara’ blog van de radicale Pro-Israël activist/reaguurder Mike Bing, die verwoede pogingen doet allerlei ‘feitelijke onjuistheden’ ten nadele van Israël op te sporen en aan de schandpaal te nagelen. En hij gebruikt speciale apparaat
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The Iron Wall
documentaire van Mohammed Alatatar over de bezetting en de muur
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The Israel advocacy Handbook
een variant op het Hasbara-Handboek, van Ami Isseroff, de goeroe van enkele op dit blog besproken extremistische pro-Israël activisten in Nederland
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The Israel Project’s Secret Hasbara Handbook Exposed
een interessante kijk op de Israëlische Hasbara (uitleg) propganda-machine op Tikun Olam, de site van de kritische Zionist Richard Silverstein (VS) -een verstandig geluid, aanrader!
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The Israel's Project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary
een recenter, oorspronkelijk geheim, maar sinds enige tijd openbaar Hasbara Handboek, waarin met pakkende sjablonen wordt uitgelegd hoe je een bezetting moet verkopen.
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Tora Yeshua
Blog van de islamofobe, godsdienstwaanzinnige, extreemrechtse en volgens mij schizofrene ‘Joods Christelijke Pastor’ Ben Kok, tevens beroepsreaguurder op Hoeiboei, het Vrije Volk, etc.
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W.A.A.R. net
Pro-Israëlisch lobbyclubje, van oa Ratna Pelle, dat de media ‘kritisch’ volgt. Staat voor precies het tegenovergestelde van wat de naam doet suggereren
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West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
een orkest, opgericht door Edward Said en de wereldberoemde Israëlische dirigent Daniel Barenboim (ook actief in de Israëlische vredesbeweging), voor jonge Palestijnse en Israëlische musici
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10 jaar na 9/11
In deze tweede reeks van de serie LUX met internationale denkers & doeners overstijgen we de zwartgalligheid en het maatschappelijk onbehagen in de zompige polder en bieden we uitzicht op nieuwe kansen en zelfverzekerd optimisme. In LUX geen fact free
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Afshin Ellian in NRC
geldt weer hetzelfde voor als wat ik opmerkte bij zijn duo-column met Leon de Winter. Eigenlijk nooit mee eens, maar ik volg het wel
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali weblog
Niet eens van Ayaan zelf, maar van allerlei ‘fans’ die deze site gebruiken om ‘de islam’ en ‘asielzoekers’ (was Ayaan er zelf niet een?) stevig onder vuur te nemen. Ook vaak erg enthousiast over Rita Verdonk (en dat uit Ayaans naam! ;)
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‘Islamofobie heeft overeenkomsten met vooroorlogs antisemitisme’
Ineke van der Valk doet al jarenlang onderzoek naar racisme en etnische diversiteit. Ze was werkzaam bij de Anne Frank Stichting en de Universiteit van Amsterdam en werkte mee aan de Monitor Racisme & Extremisme, een onderzoeksproject van de Anne Fran
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Bang voor Eurabië
een goed en nuchter artikel van Binnert de Beaufort over de Eurabië-theorie van Bat Ye ‘or
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Bart Jan Sruyt, 'Wilders, de PVV, de Apocalyps en Breivik'
een bespiegeling van Bart Jan Spruyt over een mogelijke (indirecte) relatie tussen de opvattingen en uitingen van Wilders en de daden van Anders Breivik, die naar eigen zeggen door Wilders geïnspireerd zou zijn
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Bernard Lewis, The Roots of the Muslim Rage
The Atlantic Monthly, september 1990. Het beroemde/beruchte artikel van de oriëntalist Bernard Lewis, dat de belangrijkste inspiratiebron was voor Huntingtons Clash of Civilizations
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Bijbel/Koran
een hele leuke en inhoudelijk goede site van de Wereldomroep en de Ikon waar het mogelijk is om op verschillende thema’s de Bijbel en de Koran met elkaar te vergelijken
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De Edmund Burke Stichting
(conservatieve denktank) Hoewel niet beperkt tot het issue multiculturalisme, toch een belangrijke speler in het Nederlandse debat
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Dhimmitude.org
website van de, inmiddels ook in Nederland invloedrijke (zie Wilders, Hans Jansen en sites als Hoeiboei) anti-islamcomplotdenkster Bat Ye’or (van de Eurabië-theorie)
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discussie tussen Tariq Ramadan en Paul Scheffer
een constructief gesprek op niveau tussen twee markante denkers over de multiculturele samenleving, georganiseerd door de Iraanse kunstenares Soheila Najand (Interlab). Zelf zat ik in het publiek en heb dit toen als een buitengewoon zinnige discussie erv
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Eurabië blog
Blog rond het paranoïde gedachtegoed van de anti-islam activiste Bat Ye’or (Giselle Littman)
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Eurabië punt nl
extreemrechtse website waarop Bat Ye’or, Robert Spencer, columns van Afshin Ellian, Hans Jansen en veel pro-Israël moeiteloos worden gecombineerd met de Wodansknoop van de Heel-Nederlandse Delta Stichting.
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Ex Ponto
ex Ponto is een journalistiek magazine dat op internet verschijnt. Het merendeel van de artikelen wordt door vluchteling-journalisten en andere migranten geschreven. Met Nederlandse journalisten als gast
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Factsheed Fitna
doorlichting van Fitna door de islamdeskundigen Fred Leemhuis, Ruud Peeters, ea.
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Faith Freedom International (maar niet voor iedereen ;)
islambashingsite, in eigen woorden: FAITH FREEDOM INTERNATIONAL is de stem van de waarheid. We hebben slechts één doel : de haat stoppen, de leugens van Islam blootleggen en het moslimexpansionisme aan banden leggen
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Fitna ontleed
een analyse van Fitna beeld voor beeld van de Volkskrant
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Geert Wilders very own two state solution
de Israëlische kwaliteitskrant Ha’aretz over Geert Wilders- Laat meteen zien hoe Wilders, zg een grote vriend van de Joodse staat, zich ook in Israël positioneert
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Gilles Kepel, The Middle East in Crisis
Lecture of the famous French scholar in Middle Eastern Studies Gilles Kepel at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2010
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Hans Jansen (arabist)
Zo langzamerhand een beetje de ‘rechtsbuiten’ onder de Nederlandse arabisten. Niet vaak (meer) mee eens, maar toch interessant om te volgen
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Hans Jansen vs Joris Luyendijk
een onthullend en memorabel debat tussen Hans Jansen en Joris Luyendijk bij Pauw & Witteman op 17 november 2010 (fragment). Volledig debat hier: http://ra.2see.nl/hans-jansen-ontmaskert-zichzelf
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Hans Jansen, Anton Constandse lezing- deel 1 (totaal 5 delen)
een alarmitisch betoog tegen ‘het gevaar van de islam’- totaal niet mee eens, maar wel een retorisch meesterwerkje (en vaak erg geestig). Daarom interessant om aan te tonen wat er niet aan deugt
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Het Vrije Woord
Rechts populistische onzinwebsite, waar, in naam van Pim Fortuyn, oa Human Rights Watch een ‘dubieuze organisatie’ wordt genoemd en Likoed Nederland het forum vult
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International Free Press Society
een genootschap van ‘islamcritici’ die vinden dat hun vrijheid van meningsuiting onder druk staat. Vooral interessant om de who is who van de internationale coterie waar Wilders nu ook toe behoort goed door te spitten
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Krapuul.nl
Krapuul is een podium waarop sinds juni 2009 artikelen worden gepubliceerd die een bijdrage kunnen leveren aan de inhoudelijke discussie over normen en waarden, de sociale cohesie en de fundamentele rechten en vrijheden van alle Nederlanders en mensen die
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Leon Heuts, Osama Bin Ladens filosoof
Filosofie Magazine (over Sayyid Qutb, een van de grondleggers van het hedendaagse moslimfundamentaisme/islamisme)
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Naema Tahir, Geloof en de rechtsstaat
kraakheldere Buitenhofcolumn van Naema Tahir. Eigenlijk volkomen voor de hand liggend, maar toch noodzakelijk in het nogal vertroebelde debat
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Sayyid Qutb, Milestones/Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq/معالم في الطريق
Sayyid Qutbs belangrijkste geschrift uit 1965 online (Engels). Milestones is een van de belangrijkste manifesten van de milante islamistische beweging en inspiratiebron voor bijv. Bin Laden
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Selefie Nederland
Uitgesproken orthodoxe Islamitische site. Voor wie het wil weten, dit is ongeveer wat ‘ze’ vinden (zeer informatief). Vooral veel vroomheid, geen extremisme
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Sjoerd de Jong, Gelijker dan de rest
Cultuurrelativisme en de ware westerse normen, NRC Handelsblad 04-10-2002 (met oa een kritische bespreking van Paul Cliteurs ‘Moderne Papoea’s’)
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Stan van Houcke, 'Autisme in Nederland'
Een zeer tot nadenken stemmend artikel van Stan van Houcke over ‘onze’ worsteling en ‘ons’ onbegrip van wat er onder moslims en in de islamitische wereld speelt
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Stan Verdult
interessante boekrecensies mbt de islam en Midden Oosten
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The Brussels Journal-The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
bonte verzameling van oa ook hier veel besproken rechtse auteurs, zoals de antroposoof Jos Verhulst (met een voorliefde voor Holocaustontkenners), de homofobe PVV adviseur Paul Belien en de Noorse anti-islamblogger Fjordman
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The real Geert Wilders
exposes his essentialist and manichean views in a speech for The International Free Press Society/David Horowitz Freedom Center in Beverly Hills, April 4, 2009
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Tora Yeshua
Blog van de islamofobe, godsdienstwaanzinnige, extreemrechtse en volgens mij schizofrene ‘Joods Christelijke Pastor’ Ben Kok, tevens beroepsreaguurder op Hoeiboei, het Vrije Volk, etc.
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Wilders, the Movie
Onderhoudende documentaire van Joost van der Valk (VPRO 2010) over Wilders. Zeker aardig om te bekijken, al is de film niet heel onthullend.
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Wilders; profeet van de angst
Zembla, 25-04-2010. Terwijl de integratieproblemen van moslims in Nederland juist afnemen radicaliseert Geert Wilders steeds verder in zijn uitspraken over de islam. Zijn donkere angstfantasieën over de oprukkende islam en zijn dromen over oorlog en depo
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Worst of Wilders; Provoking Extremities
een Engelsetalige compilatie van de handel en wandel van onze meest besproken en controversiële volksvertegenwoordiger, ook in het buitenland (14 delen)
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On Global/Local Art
my articles on contemporary international art in English
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nieuwe ontwikkelingen en initiatieven voor democratisering in de Arabische wereld en het Midden Oosten
'I have lost my son, but I am proud of what he did'
Interview met de moeder van Mohamed Bouazizi (in The Guardian), wiens zelfmoord uiteindelijk leidde tot de val van het regime Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in Tunesië
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'Zenga zenga'
eerste half uur van de krankzinnige speech van Muammar al-Qadhafi, op Al Jazeera (met simultaanvertaling in het Engels)
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Blogging on the Nile
Inmiddels legendarische documentaire van Al-Jazeera English uit 2007 over het activisme voor meer democratie in de Arabische wereld via facebook, twitter en blogs
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De Libische PR en Westerse intellectuelen (Tegenlicht)
een ontluisterend interview met de, ook door mij bewonderde, beroemde politicoloog Benjamin Barber over zijn activiteiten voor de Monitor Group van Saif Qadhafi (BBC)
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Interview met Wael Ghonim
een medewerker van google en (tegen wil en dank) door zijn internetactiviteiten de motor achter de Egyptische jongerenbeweging die leidden tot de demonstraties op het Tahrir-plein
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Jadaliyya Interview with Ali Ahmida (Libië)
One of the most interesting sites with updates and backgrounds on the revolts in the Arab world is Jadaliyya.com. Today they published their first interview conducted by Jadaliyya Co-Editor Noura Erakat with one of the leaders of the Libyan uprising: Ali
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Jadaliyya.com
Jadaliyya is an independent Ezine produced by ASI (Arab Studies Institute), a network of writers associated with the Arab Studies Journal (www.ArabStudiesJournal.org).
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Marathoninterview met Koos van Dam, VPRO, donderdag 29 december 2011 20:00 Radio 1
De Nederlandse topdiplomaat Nikolaos (Koos) van Dam (1945) is de afgelopen 22 jaar ambassadeur geweest op vijf posten: Irak, Egypte, Turkije, Duitsland en Indonesië. Daarvoor werkte hij al als diplomaat in Libanon en Libië. Hij studeerde politieke en so
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Mona Eltahawy
website van de Egyptische/Amerikaanse journaliste Mona Eltahawy, een van de meest spraakmakende rapporteurs van de nieuwe democratische opleving
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Mondoweiss
Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective
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Suze in the City
blog van Suze Morayef over street art en gaffiti in Cairo, Beirut, Tripoli en andere Arabische hoofdsteden tijdens en na de revoluties
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Tariq Ali (Al Jazeera)
Een gesprek met de beroemde Pakistaanse historicus Tariq Ali over de recente gebeurtenissen in het Midden Oosten. Daarna een gesprek met Zalmay Khalilzad, vmlg US ambassadeur bij de VN, in Irak en Afghanistan
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The political power of literature (Al Jazeera)
een gesprek met de schrijvers Ahdaf Soueif (Egypte) en Hisham Matar (Libië) over de gebeurtenissen in hun land. De beroemde Chileense schrijver Ariel Dorfman (van Death and the Maiden) blikt terug op de situatie onder het bewind van Pinochet
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The Power of literature (Al Jazeera)
over de rol van literatuur- een gesprek met de schrijvers Ahdaf Soueif (Egypte), Hisham Matar (Libië) en het commentaar van een veteraan uit een andere tijd Ariel Dorfman (Chili)
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The Syrian People know their Way
الشعب السوري عارف طريقه Syrisch kunstenaarscollectief (grotendeels anoniem) die zich bezighouden met geëngageerde kunst
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Witness: Little Dictator (Al Jazeera)
Mooie documentaire over de dilemma’s van de makers van Top Goon, het clandestiene satirische programma dat het regime van Assad op de hak neemt
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Antroposofie en Apocalypse
weblog van Kees Kromme (onder pseud. Cheese Curve), die vaak op deze site heeft gereageerd. Bijzonder Ahrimanvrezend! Maar ja, de ‘Apocalypse’ is nakende ;)
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antroposofie in de pers
weblog van Michel Gastkemper (oa van de nieuwe Rudolf Steinervertalingen, die onze discussies regelmatig volgt en heeft besproken)
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De Hokjesman (VPRO)
Gefascineerd door de heersende hokjesgeest gaat programmamaker Michael Schaap op veldonderzoek binnen de leefwereld van aansprekende Nederlandse subculturen.
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Geen sprake van
pamflet van de ‘rechtzinnige’ antroposofen Willem Frederik Veltman, Mees Meeussen, Walter Heijder en Robert Jan Kelder, die vonden dat de van Baarda-commissie te ver ging
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Gie ten Berghe, De uitbuiting van de Holocaust
Omdat op dit blog antroposofen die de Holocaust ontkennen ter sprake komen, hier een uitstekende weerlegging van hun argumenten (met dank aan Michel Gastkemper, die dit verhaal eerder in stelling bracht tegen Jos Verhulst en companen)
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Guns, Germs and Steel
documentaire over de gelijknamige studie van Jared Diamond. De van Baarda-commissie meent in zijn werk een rechtvaardiging voor Steiners rassentheoriën te vinden (p. 422-423). Diamond zegt: ‘any assumption based on race is absurd’. Maar oordeel zelf.
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KRO Heb ik genoeg; Karin leeft als antroposoof
Karin de Groot duikt in de antroposofie en laat zich onderdompelen. Vooral heel empathisch (en daardoor informatief), maar totaal niet kritisch. Antroposofie van de zonnige kant
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Loek Dullaart, De wereldregering in wording.
niet racistisch maar wel typische antroposofische paranoia van hetzelfde soort als de Brug. Alle 9/11 claims uit dit stuk zijn overigens eerder overtuigend weerlegd (zie bijv. Zembla Het complot van 11 september).
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Ramon de Jonghe
Blog van de Belgische auteur en kritische ‘Steinerschoolwatcher’ Ramon de Jonghe (zie ook www.steinerscholen.com )
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Ramon de Jonghe
blog van Ramon de Jonghe (België, ook van Steinerscholen.com), met wie ik veel ben opgetrokken in de racisme-kwestie in de antroposofie
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Ridzerd van Dijk
(pro)antroposofisch weblog met oa de Grote Rudolf Steiner Citaten Encyclopedie
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Robert Jan Kelder: Het Nieuwe Voorzittersschap.blogspot
Van de zeer orthodoxe antroposoof Robert jan Kelder, die het, net als ik, zeer oneens is met het van Baarda-rapport, alleen om precies de tegenovergestelde reden. Volgens hem is er qua racisme in het werk van Steiner niets aan de hand, volgens het rapport
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Rudolf Steiner, De Volkszielen (4 & 6)
de vierde en de zesde voordracht in de Nederlandse vertaling van Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen, GA 121 (vert. van J. Jonker-Driessen, uitgave Vrij Geestesleven, 1983)
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Schwarz-Weiß-Konstruktionen im Rassebild Rudolf Steiners
von Jana Husmann-Kastein, M.A. Kulturwissenschaft und Gender Studies, ist assoziiertes Mitglied des Graduiertenkollegs “Geschlecht als Wissenskategorie” der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
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Steinerscholen.be (Ramon de Jonghe)
website van Ramon de Jonghe (België), waar ik de nodige bijdragen heb geleverd aan de discussie over antroposofie en racisme
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The Brussels Journal-The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
bonte verzameling van oa ook hier veel besproken rechtse auteurs, zoals de antroposoof Jos Verhulst (met een voorliefde voor Holocaustontkenners), de homofobe PVV adviseur Paul Belien en de Noorse anti-islamblogger Fjordman
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tijdschrift 'de Brug'
Het meest extreme voorbeeld van antroposofie en racisme (Holocaust negationisme) dat ik ken, door mij vaak onder vuur genomen. Zie ook www.vrijgeestesleven.be
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Vrij Geestesleven.be
Belgische antroposofische website met openlijk Neo-Nazi materiaal en met vele verwijzingen naar (illegale) downloads van Holocaust-ontkennings lectuur.
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Sayyid Qutb, Milestones/Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq/معالم في الطريق
Sayyid Qutbs belangrijkste geschrift uit 1965 online (Engels). Milestones is een van de belangrijkste manifesten van de milante islamistische beweging en inspiratiebron voor bijv. Bin Laden
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sites mbt homoseksualiteit, van emancipatie, belangenorganisaties tot ongecompliceerd uitgaan, die mijn sympathie/instemming/ voorkeur hebben
Secret Garden
Secret Garden is een Stichting van homo-/bi-seksuelen/lesbische/transgender moslims en sympathisanten, gevestigd in Amsterdam
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Strijders voor de liefde
Documentaire in het kader van de Gay Pride waarin Sipke Jan Bousema in binnen- en buitenland op zoek gaat naar de mannen en vrouwen die een dagelijkse strijd moeten leveren om hun liefde openlijk en veilig te mogen uiten.
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The Celluloid Closet
documentaire van Rob Epstein en Jeffrey Friedman (1995) over de representatie van homoseksualiteit en homoseksuelen in Hollywoodfilms door de jaren heen
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ABC Tree House
De expositieruimte van de American Book Center in Amsterdam, waar wat mij betreft vaak zeer interessante en sympathieke tentoonstellingen worden georganiseerd. Ook een goed platform voor kunstenaars uit het Midden Oosten in Nederland!
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Art above all
tentoonstelling uit 2004 van kunstenaars uit het Midden Oosten (zowel Iran, verschillende Arabische landen als Israël) in ABC Treehouse. Een aantal van deze kunstenaars zijn op dit blog uitgebreid ter sprake gekomen
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Ayaan Hisrsi Ali vs Tariq Ramadan
‘schreeuwdebat’ tussen Ayaan Hirsi Ali en Tariq Ramadan op CNN, olv Christiane Ananpour (op de VK blog van Lucas Lay)
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Checkpoint
Israeli Documentary Directed by Yoav Shamir (over de Israëlische bezetting van Palestijns land)
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Control Room al-Jazeera
een documentaire over de werkwijze van al-Jazeera, dat wat mij betreft op een bewonderenswaardige wijze laveert tussen de ondemocratische Arabische regimes enerzijds en de Amerikaanse pressie anderzijds
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De Avonden (VPRO)
over Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederlandse ballingschap (met mijzelf en de Iraakse Koerdische kunstenaar Aras Kareem)
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Een oud spotje van de CD van Janmaat
Vergelijk met Wilders of zelfs een deel van de mainstream nu! Terwijl Janmaats partij nog voortkwam uit de echt Neo Nazistische Nederlandse Volks Unie
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Esther Schreuder
blog van curator/kunsthistorica Esther Schreuder
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EUMAN
European Union Migrant Artists Network (Helsinki)- veel Iraakse kunstenaars
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Ex Ponto
ex Ponto is een journalistiek magazine dat op internet verschijnt. Het merendeel van de artikelen wordt door vluchteling-journalisten en andere migranten geschreven. Met Nederlandse journalisten als gast
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Factor (IKON)
uitzending over Iraakse kunstenaars in Nederland en hun verhaal over het voormalige Iraakse regime
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Gilles Kepel, The Middle East in Crisis
Lecture of the famous French scholar in Middle Eastern Studies Gilles Kepel at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2010
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Jadaliyya.com
Jadaliyya is an independent Ezine produced by ASI (Arab Studies Institute), a network of writers associated with the Arab Studies Journal (www.ArabStudiesJournal.org).
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Jesus Camp
documentaire van Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing 2008. Over de Christenfundamentalisten in Amerika
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recensie Edward Saids 'Orientalism'
een buitengewoon genuanceerde en zinnige bespreking van Edward Saids Orientalism, door Stan Verdult. Zie zeker ook zijn andere besprekingen van aanverwante werken (links in de linkerkantlijn)
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Sayyid Qutb, Milestones/Ma'alim fi'l-tareeq/معالم في الطريق
Sayyid Qutbs belangrijkste geschrift uit 1965 online (Engels). Milestones is een van de belangrijkste manifesten van de milante islamistische beweging en inspiratiebron voor bijv. Bin Laden
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streamtime.org
veel interessant nieuws uit het Midden Oosten, vooral Irak
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The Brussels Journal-The Voice of Conservatism in Europe
bonte verzameling van oa ook hier veel besproken rechtse auteurs, zoals de antroposoof Jos Verhulst (met een voorliefde voor Holocaustontkenners), de homofobe PVV adviseur Paul Belien en de Noorse anti-islamblogger Fjordman
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Wilders; profeet van de angst
Zembla, 25-04-2010. Terwijl de integratieproblemen van moslims in Nederland juist afnemen radicaliseert Geert Wilders steeds verder in zijn uitspraken over de islam. Zijn donkere angstfantasieën over de oprukkende islam en zijn dromen over oorlog en depo
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Wonderland deel 1
driedelige documentaire over de opkomst en de neergang van het ‘politieke correcte denken’ in Nederland van Robert Oey. Mooi gemaakt en nog altijd onthullend.
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![[mag411_schroth1]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NC276_mag411_G_20110317181346.jpg)
Courtesy of Robert Goff GalleryAHMED ALSOUDANI | The Baghdad-born, New York-based painter (‘Untitled,’ 2007, pictured here) will be among six artists showing work at the Venice Biennale’s Iraq pavilion opening in June.![[mag411_schroth2]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NC278_mag411_DV_20110317181511.jpg)
Photograph by Danilo ScarpatiCurator Mary Angela Schroth, photographed at mixed-media artist Ali Assaf’s studio in Rome.![[mag411_schroth3]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NC279_mag411_D_20110317181604.jpg)
Courtesy of Azad NanakeliAZAD NANAKELI | Stills from the Florence-based artist’s video installation ‘Destnuej’ (2011)![[mag411_schroth4]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NC280_mag411_DV_20110317181718.jpg)
Courtesy of Walid SitiWALID SITI | ‘Family Ties’ (April 2009), an installation in Dubai by the London-based artist![[0411Karim]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NE170_0411Ka_F_20110322172410.jpg)
Courtesy of Halim al-KarimHALIM AL-KARIM | ‘Hidden War’ (1985), a triptych by the U.S.-based photographer.![[mag411_schroth6]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NC283_mag411_D_20110317182209.jpg)
Courtesy of Adel AbidinADEL ABIDIN | Still from ‘Three Love Songs’ (2010-11), a video installation at Mathaf, the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar.![[mag411_schroth7]](https://i0.wp.com/si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NC284_mag411_D_20110317182429.jpg)
Courtesy of Ali AssafALI ASSAF | ‘Waters!’ (2009), an installation at Sette Sale in Rome.
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