Singing Cymbales in the Jardin des Tuileries

For the duration of the Fiac art fair, sculptural work by renowned international artists was shown in the Tuileries gardens. Under a Parisian sky heavy with clouds, a varied crowd strolled down the alleys of the Jardin des Tuileries on the Sunday afternoon I visited. In the furthest westward basin was installed a piece by Kader Attia entitled Cymbales. Around the pond tourists and Parisians alike sat on the green metal chairs which permanently furniture the gardens. A sense of leisurely quiet and familial innocence pervaded.
As its name entails, the installation comprised cymbals, that on thin bamboo rods, floated above the large expanse of water. The copper coloured cymbals appeared at once foreign and yet imbibed with the natural world. They had the appearance of morphed water lilies. With Cymbales, Attia wanted to indeed represent the natural transcending the cultural. He intended the cymbals to resonate with the sound of the wind, or raindrops. He goes further in stating: “Ce qui m'intéresse ici, c'est d'interroger et de transcender la problématique de la règle et de l'ordre, à travers une œuvre qui crée un lien avec les spectateurs par la voie de l'air et de l'esprit.» (What interests me here is to interrogate and to transcend the question of law and order through a piece that creates a link with its audience via the ways of air and thought.)
Paradoxically, the spirited Sunday audience took to throwing small pebbles across the water, hitting the resonating cymbals every so often depending on the skill of the thrower. A joyous cacophony of clanging sounds echoed around the basin, attracting ever more passers by. As I sat with a friend smoking a cigarette and enjoying the scene, a small park maintenance vehicle came weaving its way up the main park path and started to circle the large octagonal basin. Whenever someone threw a pebble unawares the driver gathered speed and aimed for the culprit. Fathers, kids, old ladies were scowled without discrimination. The scene took on a gleeful (on my part) comic twist when it became clear that most were not conscious of the vehicle, and would therefore continue to throw pebbles. The park warden seemed to be destined to endlessly circle the pond as wave after wave of spirited spectators become participants replaced those sheepish ones that had been told off, and made the most of Kader Attia’s inspiring piece. Unbeknown to the artist perhaps, Attia’s piece indeed brought to light the question of law and order as the brief he set himself states, Cymbales also demonstrated on the one hand the playful nature of Parisians and tourists on a grey Sunday afternoon and on the other, the committed and retarded authoritarianism of the law and order’s acting hand.

Hobb, Zoulikha Bouabdellah at La Bank Galerie, Paris

I was nervous, upon entering the gallery showing Zoulikha Bouabdellah’s new work, that I would not like it - perhaps because I admire the artist herself as well as her previous work. In fact, Hobb, Bouabdellah’s second solo show at la Bank, demonstrated an aesthetic refinement and artistic maturity worthy of the complex themes the work purports to explore and represent.
In the upper level of the gallery hang enlarged Arabic letters rendered in glossy and stark black and red paint. Red unequivocally suggests passion. The black and coarse volcanic texture of the few large canvases on which bleed red letters, on the other hand, suggests tragedy and brutality. Plexiglass sheets depict an unusual, ambiguous couple, a blond bikini clad woman and a dark shadow-like man.
The slideshow showing in the lower level of the gallery brings to the fore the subtle and convoluted narratives of romance at play in the Arabic writing exhibited in the upper gallery that unfortunately remain unreadable to much of the public. Black and white images taken from the Kama Sutra are projected onto the wall of the gallery. Superimposed on the grainy soft toned images, Arabic letters espouse the lines of the interlaced bodies of two lovers. The lines of the letters and that of the bodies meet up approximately. The fusing of the two therefore seems accidental rather than calculated. Hobb, or love, is what they read.
That the Arabic letters form a language of love is only clear upon reading the translation. Once understood, Zoulikha’s work therefore works towards confounding the usual associations between the Arabic language and that of terrorism and religious extremism that together flood the web, television, airwaves and the printed news. Instead, Arabic is portrayed as a language of incredible poetic depth, like it becomes over and over under the hand of its many gifted writers, poets and lyricists. A poetic heritage that influences the daily life of many an Arabic speaker but that nonetheless, is often condoned by the regimes of Arabic speaking countries in association with carnal or human love - rather than in its pious and mystical form.

Zineb Sedira: Seafaring at the John Hansard Gallery

Within the darkened, low ceilinged gallery, MiddleSea appears that much more mesmerising. This single screen projection from 2008, later companion piece to Saphir which also features in the exhibition Zineb Sedira: Seascapes at the John Hansard Gallery, traces the enigmatic voyage of a ferry across the Mediterranean. In the eerily quiet setting of endless seascape, empty corridors and abandoned passenger lounges, ambulates a lone traveller, inscrutable, pythian, distant. The title MiddleSea and the North African appearance of the man are the only clues to situate the sequence in time and place. The camera focuses at times on his face in close up, on the distant horizon, or rests languidly on details of sea and ship. The attention given to editing and photography is evident. The pace is measured, images tantalising and poetic. The soundscape by Mikhail Karikis accentuates certain sounds or becomes suddenly silent as spumes of water froth along the side of the ship. The pride of position is given to MiddleSea but the exhibition also features three other works: Remnants of a Scattered Vessel (2009), Saphir (2006) and Beyond the Sea (2008). Zineb Sedira: Seafaring thus offers the opportunity to view these four connected works in the one space. The John Hansard is large enough to accommodate all the artworks allowing each to stand out, and thanks to a free-flowing and paired down approach to the curating of the show, without lessening the clarity of the connection between the one or the other.
The exhibition features a piece commissioned by the John Hansard gallery, an installation of photographic lightboxes entitled Remnants of a Scattered Vessel similar in subject matter and approach to that exhibited recently at the Rivington Space. Beyond the Sea, an earlier lightbox installation proves to be an interesting counterpart. It mirrors the propensity for photographic detail and specific iconography found in MiddleSea, whilst illustrating by comparison to what extent the other photographic installation is staged in an emulation of its subject matter. Indeed, whilst Beyond the Sea is conventionally hung and represents apparently disconnected images, Remnants of a Scattered Vessel fragments the image of a vessel itself in fragments. The installation is comprised of a crowded and unruly group of lightboxes spewing forth trails of cable. The installation features the wreck of a vessel that, aggressed by an implacable sun and cauterised by saline waters, is little more than twisted rusting metal. The ship graveyard pictured is near Nouadhibou, Mauritania’s economic hub and a site of passage for migrants. The hulls of the ships washed up on shore seem to echo the desperate eventuality of some journeys. Sharing themes of migration, of mobility and voyage, MiddleSea and Saphir display rather a sense of longing, of sythian waiting, however.
There is a stillness throughout all four pieces which seem to echo with the absence of any human presence, save for a man and a woman in Saphir, waiting for something unknown, paths crossing but never meeting. The passport control on the boat in MiddleSea is closed and barred, and the crowds that on any passage normally mill in front of the window-counters are not to be seen. A dream like state or space disconnected to any sense of time is created.

The Comedy of Change, Rambert Dance Company

At the premiere of The Comedy of Change two interests of mine converged, the Ballet Rambert and the work of Kader Attia, who worked on the production design. I was excited and had little idea of what to expect. Created to tie in with the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, however, I was apprehensive that The Comedy of Change would turn out to be a pantomime of evolution. Instead, I witnessed a sleek production worthy of Rambert dance company’s tradition of mesmerising, poetic and inspired creations.

As the curtains rose in the Plymouth theatre the audience was faced with a sight of peaceful but disquieting beauty. Under diffuse lighting a small number of chrysalis like forms seemed to be swimming on a sea of liquid as viscous as petroleum. Their white translucent shapes reflected in the shiny black surface covering the stage. As the dancers unfurled their bodies from within the fabric cocoons they had been enclosed in to the rhythm of Julian Anderson’s striking yet convoluted music, they revealed stark costumes of black and white. Black behind, white in front. The dancers at turns thus concealed and revealed against the black backdrop.
Conceal/reveal is but one of the Darwinian theories used as inspiration for all elements of the production - the others being same/different and past/future. What The Comedy of Change was able to put across is that these opposites, which logic purports to make mutually exclusive, are in fact tightly correlated. The mating dances of birds proved to be another inspiration reads the programme notes, and the choreographer Mark Baldwin speaking during a post-performance talk, admitted to be so taken with certain species’ complex dances of seduction to have used them movement for movement. The Comedy of Change reflects Diaghilev’s triangular principle of creation, a triumvirate of music, choreography and art. However, whilst Diaghilev’s creations for the Ballet Russe demonstrated a harmonious dialogue between the three disciplines, the various elements of The Comedy of Change formed a disappointingly discordant whole.
Kader Attia’s ‘chrysalides’ were unceremoniously pushed to the back of the stage and soon disappeared behind a second black backdrop dropped soon in the performance. In the opening moments, however, organic and soft forms offered a striking contrast to the harsh shapes of the dancers moving across the stage, falling in and out of precise formations. A contrast that did not endure and the performance, I feel, was weaker for it. Later, two male dancers wrap a third in aluminium foil creating an empty fossil-like shape of the kneeling dancer, a recurrent image of Kader Attia’s work. The foil caused a hardly perceptible rustle, unexplained, until the audience’s attention locked onto the flimsy structure. The dancers then exit. On the blackened stage the aluminium structure caught the light in a spellbinding halo tinted with red. Standing alone backstage centre, it seemingly projected a velvety light across the stage. The meeting of choreography and set, nevertheless, was awkward. The choreography unfortunately echoed in no way the shape of the idol-like form sharing the stage with the dancers. The dissonance created made it complicated for the viewer to concentrate either on the dance, or on the lighting, music or art, and certainly did not allow for all to be appreciated in one fail holistic sweep.
The closing sequence, however, seemed to indicate the possibility for magic encapsulated in the triumvirate Marc Balwin, Julian Anderson, Kader Attia. Two dancers mummified in full white body suits surround the sculpture in a tight halo of light coming from above. The scene framed by the floury forms of the dancers, light bouncing off the aluminium figure. As the last note disappears in the time of 6 beats, the three dancers suddenly collapse the sculpture with an easy rapid movement. A sequence that seems to have finished before it even started. As the light goes out the image is again imprinted upon the retina, an impossible and poetic mark.
for tour dates see www.rambert.org.uk

Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, the Saatchi Gallery

‘Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East’ at the Saatchi Gallery confirms expectations: it is both exciting and utterly disappointing. It does to a certain extent bring emerging artists to a new audience and features a few works of exception such as Diane Al Hadid’s apocalyptic and futurist, yet coral-like sculpture The Tower of Infinite Problems (2008) and Shadi Ghadirian’s tongue in cheek reordering of female representation, veiling household utensils, in Everyday life series (2000-2001). Nonetheless, beyond the fact that Saatchi was naturally castigated by critics, as all prominent figures invariably are, the show still falls flat on its face with all the bravado of a slapstick comedian demonstrating a new trick. Whilst the myriad crowd flocking to the palatial temple-like gallery as the rabble to the sermon reveals the following that Saatchi has inspired - only the priggish observer cannot celebrate that fact- the show remains a poorly curated clumpy whole that stops short of instituting any real discussion with current creative practices from the Middle-East.
The title is in itself emblematic of the show’s paradoxical failure to shed light on contemporary art from the region as it apparently sets out to do. ‘Unveiled’ jumps headlong into the trap it intends to flag-post. Lisa Farjam writes - intelligently and convincingly - of dismissing pre-conceived ideas of the Middle-East and of surpassing the ‘magic’ of the fetish, yet the veil remains a poignant and obtuse, often misused symbol, that obfuscates any other aspect of Middle Eastern culture. Why then, this very title? The perplexing title is indeed unoriginal and ignorant if not shameful and borderline colonialist. Art from the Middle East, has, in fact, already been ‘unveiled’ – if unveiled it ever needed to be - and has been the subject of very interesting curatorial endeavours both within and beyond the Middle East such as ‘The Iraqi Equation’ and ‘Tamáss’, both curated by Catherine David.
‘Unveiled’ predominantly features tedious painting that over-estimates it’s own potential. A lot of the work is dependent on the exotic allure of the Middle East to sustain any interest, such as Shirin Fakhim’s unoriginal Tehran prostitute figures of stuffed tights, leather boots and provocative underwear. From the disappointing selection of work on display, Kader Attia’s Ghost (2007) is one of the few works of interest. Row upon careful row of cavernous figures modelled out of a skin or shroud of aluminium foil kneel as if in prayer. As an Algerian artist living in Paris, Kader Attia’s work hinges on a complex interplay of nationalism, identity and religion. Islam in post-independence Algeria came to be synonymous with nationalist fervour directed against the Western ideals of its former colonial oppressor, whilst the dirty civil war from which the country is today emerging is rooted in such ideology. Exhibited in the limiting space of a corridor-like room the work looses its poetic poignancy instead becoming mere spectacle. Spectre (2006-2008), Marwan Rechmaoui’s replica of a now evacuated apartment building in which the Lebanese artist resided, speaks in volumes of twisting, haunting desolation consequence of a bloody war. Her work echoes with Jalal Touffic and Walid Raad’s idea of the ‘surpassing disaster’. Spectre indeed responds to intellectual and physical realities specific to Beirut and Lebanon whilst echoing nonetheless with wider aesthetic concerns such as that of Brutalist architecture.
To focus on 19 artists from different Middle Eastern countries is to suppose an affinity between their diverging experiences. However, in a pluralized global world with an ever-widening art market it is difficult to sustain such an argument unless the exhibition is thematic. It is perhaps rather our keyhole perspective as Westerners that is the common denominator. The unfortunate reality is that the common visitor to ‘Unveiled’ is starved of information concerning the subtleties of Middle Eastern society and culture, and let alone its contemporary art scene, as Said demonstrates in ‘Covering Islam’. In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed rule.