The decision of the Netherlands' Ministry of Education to close down the world-renowned Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM)has resulted in hundreds of petitioners writing to Education Minister Ronald Plasterk to reconsider his decision (see also the post of 22 December 2008).
In its most recent issue, a Dutch-language magazine on the Middle East, North Africa and Islam, Zemzem, reports that options are under consideration to continue ISIM's activities in one form or another. The article provides also interesting background information on the decision-making process leading to the institute's closure.
Annelies Moors, incumbent of the ISIM Chair at the University of Amsterdam, published an edgy 'letter to the editor' in the reputable Dutch Newspaper NRC-Handelsblad, in which she expressed her irritation over the attitude of the Rector of Leiden University (one of the ISIM partners), who appeared to treat the whole issue as a political game. She was also very critical of the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University, who had been charged with developing a salvage plan for ISIM. Instead of presenting the minister with a financially viable plan to continue ISIM as semi-autonomous entity, he approached the ministry with an alternative Centre for Islamic Studies at Leiden University, staffed by university faculty working on 'things Islamic'. There would be no place for academic staff of the other ISIM universities - thereby effectively scrapping two-third of all ISIM-led research. In spite of Leiden's lobbying, the plan was not accepted.
Leiden Rector Van der Heijden, who is also chairman of the ISIM board, claims that his university has bent over backwards to salvage ISIM after it was abandonned by the other participating universities.
According to former deputy minister and current president of the University of Utrecht, Yvonne Van Rooij, the decision to stop funding for ISIM was taken about one and half year ago, when it became apparent that ISIM was financially no longer viable. But Professor Moors has a different reading: 'ISIM has no priority for the ministry or presidents of the universities involved. Because of its outstanding reputation, all parties assumed that others would come up with the financial means required to keep the institute alive'.
In November, Niek Biegman*, a former diplomat serving as a member of the ISIM advisory board, lashed out in the annual lecture on occasion of the institute's tenth anniversary, stating that 'If The Netherlands 'Inc' pulls the plug now, then this strikes me as unreasonable, absurd and outrageous'. Confronted with a statement from Leiden university that there were insufficient financial means to sustain ISIM, Biegman concluded that it was Leiden who pulled the plug, and that any alternative worthy of the name ISIM should not be reduced to an entity within Leiden University.
Martin van Bruinessen, ISIM professor in Utrecht, has his own analysis. According to his interpretation the first troubles started two years ago when his colleague in Nijmegen, Abdulkader Tayob, accepted a position in his native South Africa. For Nijmegen this seemed the right moment to leave ISIM by not appointing a successor. Moreover, 'ISIM was an initiative of the predecessors of the current presidents of the boards at the participating universities. Just like politicians, these university administrators are concerned with profiling themselves by introducing their own plans. Sustaining the initiatives of their predecessors is much less of a priority'.
According to Van Bruinessen the current heads of the universities attach only secondary importance to ISIM's international reputation, 'none of them has shown any interest in the social significance of ISIM's research, or the international appreciation for the institute's activities'. They have failed to see that ISIM is a nexus in the worldwide networks of researchers and has contributed significantly to setting new international research agendas for Islamic Studies as a field of scholarly inquiry.
Allegedly the ISIM partners were also critical of the fact that ISIM academics were not very visible in the media. Van Bruinessen: 'apparently they would like to see me every week in a talkshow' -- that seems to impress university presidents more than scholarly publications. He also adds that ISIM has contributed a great deal to bringing contemporary Islam and Muslim intellectuals to the attention of the public. ISIM was instrumental in introducing Tariq Ramadan, Olivier Roy and Abdolkarim Soroush to wider audiences. The institute also facilitated courses for special focus groups, and was frequently consulted by other ministeries and civil society organisations.
Because ISIM headquarters were located in Leiden, the institute always had a 'Leiden image', which may also have been a reason for the other universities to stop funding. 'They rather spend the money in-house', says van Bruinessen. Biegman too notes that Nijmegen, Utrecht and Amsterdam felt a bit 'invisible' within ISIM. Unfortunately this now means the end of ten years of very high standard research. In its latest international assessment ISIM received an 'A+'.
According to Van der Heijden the Education Ministry is now willing to make funding available for a national research school or some sort of research cooperation in the field of Islamic Studies. Apart from the 'ISIM universities, also the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and the Free University in Amsterdam have expressed an interest. The ball is now in the corner of Utrecht's Yvonne Van Rooij, who confirms she is currently investigating the possibilities of a 'interuniversitary research school'. Van Bruinessen, however, is sceptical: 'ISIM had an integrated research programme and a physical location where researchers could meet and interact'. He thinks the plan is just an attempt to resuscitate an earlier failed initiative for an in-house research school at Leiden University.
Advisor Niek Biegman has suggested contacting Louk de la Rive Box, rector of the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in the Hague, which is since January part of Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. In De la Rive Box's view ISIM's disappearance would be a ‘bloody shame’ and he confirmes that he is happy to assist in exploring alternatives.'ISIM has an excellent reputation abroad and too little has been done to save the institute. But the blame cannot be solely put with Leiden; the other universities are responsible as well and the minister should have acted much earlier'.
Annelies Moors has her own ideas: ‘ISIM could become part of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences [KNAW], which fits also with the recommendations of the assessment commission'. She finds it mind-boggling that the minister first asks for an assessment, which rendered a positive outcome, and then claims there is insufficient money for a restart.
To be continued?
* Biegman,a former ambassador to Egypt and Permanent Representative with United Nations, has produced some interesting (photo) books on Sufism and other aspects of the Muslim world, among others Living Sufis and Oil Wrestlers
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Saturday, 24 January 2009
CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Over the last two months or so, a fortunate coincidence of circumstances has allowed me to educate myself about developments in contemporary arts in relation to both the Muslim World and Muslims in the 'Diaspora'. My impressions of Infrastructures and Ideas: Contemporary Art in the Middle East, a two-day symposium jointly hosted by the Tate Britain and Tate Modern on 22 and 23 January 2009, will -- for now -- be the last panel in a triptych on art (see also the posts of 29 and 22 November).
The event was kicked off by Professor Derek Gregory, a British-born geographer now teaching in Vancouver who has done important work on political and cultural geographies of late modern war -- a topic that seems to present itself almost automatically when dealing with a highly volatile region like the Middle East, and which for that reason is very illustrative of what Gregory called the 'Project of Cartographic Reason'. He used his presentation to problematise the designation 'Middle East', not only as a topographic term referring to a concrete place as such, but also as a less tangible concept with important cultural-political connotations. The significance of this point became clear throughout the conference, as participants struggled to come to terms with the subject area; using 'Middle East' interchangeably with 'Arab', or even 'Islamic World' demonstrated the widespread tendency to conflate these designations of evermore expansive regions. (Art historian Nada Shabout, author of Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics
, rightly noted that sorting out such inaccuracies is crucial for the proper contextualisation of art).
Gregory referred to Juan Cole's Napoleon's Egypt
, the subtitle of which, 'Invading the Middle East', points up the time in European history when the term began to receive currency. Later in the nineteenth century, 'Middle East' was used by the British Indian Office to refer to Persia and its surrounding areas, which were considered of strategic importance to the security of the colonies in the Subcontinent. During the First World War, Sir Mark Sykes -- intent on 'cutting out the cancer' that was the faltering Ottoman Empire and thus release those suffering under the Turkish yoke -- advocated the use of 'Middle East'. According to Gregory this was done in an attempt to undercut Lloyd George's persistent reference to a 'Near East', which implied a continued recognition of Istanbul as a centre of political gravity. Winston Churchill literally put the region on the map through the abrasive interventions of his recently established 'Middle East Department' (within the Colonial Office), which was basically responsible for the political geography as we still know it today.
Topography becomes connected with the politics of culture when the Eurocentric gaze projects the Middle East as an alien space, a 'tableau of queerness' (Edward Said in Orientalism
,p. 103) that must be disciplined. The persistence of the imagery associated with such a designation is affirmed by Robert Kaplan's description of the Middle East as a region where 'Instead of bold lines on a map we have a child’s messy finger painting'. Another articulate international affairs commentator close to the American foreign policy making establishment, Fareed Zakaria, opined that 'when you get to this region, you see in lurid color all the dysfunctions that people conjure up when they think of Islam'. This, argues Gregory, evinces how 'geography is therefore the art of war' (again quoting Said, this time from The Politics of Dispossession
).
London-based architect Eyal Weizman agreed with Gregory's observations, recalling the cartographic projections of Israel as a tiny blue spot in the surrounding red mass of the Middle East. Israeli perceptions of space see the Middle East not only as surrounding the Jewish Homeland; it is also 'inside' -- the Palestinians resident on its territory. For Weizman this affirms that the cartographic representations used in topography and geography are political subjectivities, which not only 'shape' the world, but also affect the way you act in it. To him this only underscores the importance of coming up with counter strategies for these campaigns of geographic warfare.
Issa Touma, an autodidact photographer who runs Le Pont Gallery in Aleppo, used the features of the Arab house as a metaphor for the challenges artists established in places like his native Syria face. Grim-looking exteriors hide often well-decorated interiors. Big walls discourage communication with the outside world, high windows are there to 'spy' on 'the street'. To an extent these residences are jails, as their design assists the familial patriarchs to exercise control. The same applies to many Middle Eastern societies at large, as Touma experienced himself: his gallery was repeated closed by the government. Because so much remains out of sight, Touma agrees that media images of anger, flag-burning, and violence, on the one hand, and the projection of a dreamy 'Arabian nights' utopia, on the other, will not be challenged easily. He believes therefore in the importance of contemporary art for showing reality -- which should also include people's dreams.
Aside from 'space' -- including its slippage into a variety interpretations -- other buzzwords circulating throughout these two days were 'diaspora' and 'movement'. The fluidity of these interpretations is reflected in events such as Homeworks in Beirut, and The Flying House initiative of Abu Dhabi art collector Abdul-Raheem Sharif, which showcases the work of Emirati artists since the 1970s (including those of his brother Hassan Sharif).
The inherent hybridity of such notions conjure up associations with fields like cultural studies and postcolonial theory, while the production and function of contemporary art outside the 'metropoles' of Berlin, London, Paris, and New York is indicative of the collapse of the West vs 'the rest' dichotomy. In his talk about the relationship between 'Tradition and Modernity', Cornell art historian and Africanist Salah Hassan invoked Stuart Hall's claim that the binaries of West/Non-West and Centre/Periphery are increasingly challenged by the creative ideas germinating in the spaces 'in-between'.
Panelists like photographer and video artist Zineb Sedira spoke of diaspora as an almost sine qua non condition for cutting-edge artists originating from the Middle East and North Africa. Paris-born but of Mauritanian extraction, now residing in London though holding dual French-Algerian nationality, her own biography appears to confirm this.
In a similar vein, Tangiers-based Yto Barrada noted the importance for MENA (Middle Eastern & North African) artists to be able to move around, because the local cultural environments are often still bleak and barren. However, with all the travel obstacles they currently find in their way, it proves difficult to establish contacts with fellow artists, curators and other culture brokers.
This issue of 'brokerage' was addressed in a panel session on Writing and Translation, opened by the renowned Palestinian poet and author of I Saw Ramallah
,Mourid Barghouti. Challenging the postmodernist doctrine that the author loses ownership of his work after its introduction into the public space, Barghouti showed his dismay over a close-reading of his poem 'It's also Fine' by Linda Sue Grimes, in which it is claimed that he does not close the door on 'Islamofascist Jihadism'. According to Barghouti, Grimes is listening to her own voice rather than the poet's. Apparently, in her view, being a Palestinian it cannot be otherwise than that Barghouti 'must be writing as a jihadist addressing another jihadist'. That 'it's also fine' to die of old age or infirmity thus becomes an unattainable privilege for Palestinians if credence is given to such interpretations.
The understanding of non-Western literatures is not only hampered by a lack of nuance or unfamiliarity with local languages, but the absence of translations in European languages of writings on philosophy and history by Middle Eastern intellectuals. Arabs and others remain caught in the dichotomy of demonisation vs romantisation, which continues to oscillate between the images of Caliban and those emerging 'fresh from the hands of the Gods'. While Asians, Africans and Latin Americans are expected to acquaint themselves with the Western canon -- and should realise the rare privilege conferred upon by the provision of translations in their own vernaculars -- the reverse traffic is a still a mere trickle, an occasional favour bestowed on only a few select cultural giants.
Aside from the question of what gets lost in translation, or -- in the case above -- what is read into it, moderator Salah Hassan also amplified the role of other 'culture brokers' than literary translators. Laudable initiatives such as Bidoun, which provides a forum for discussing arts and culture in the Middle East, or the online journal Nafas, dedicated to promoting 'contemporary art from Islamic influenced countries and regions', are indicative of the artistic vibrancy in the Middle East/Arab World/Dar al-Islam.
Published in New York, Bidoun is presently run by founder Lisa Farjam and editor-in-chief Negar Azimi, who was previously associated with the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo and the Beirut-based Fondation Arabe pour l'Image. Supported by IFA, the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Nafas is part of the wider Universes-in-Universe platform, founded as far back as 1997 by Gerhard Haupt and Pat Binder and providing a forum (in English, German, Arabic and Spanish) for discussions on art from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. As someone with a vivid interest in all things Southeast Asia, I was particularly pleased with Haupt's report on a recent six-week presentation tour to Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, introducing the 'East' to the 'further East'. Although 'dedicated to contemporary art from the Maghreb to Southeast Asia, from Central Asia to the Middle East', the name 'nafas' -- from the Arabic for 'breath' -- was a deliberate choice to emphasis the individuality of the artists and steer away from presenting 'the' Muslim world as a monolithic whole.
This clarification touches on an important observation made by Salah Hassan, that aside from the interesting things evidently fermenting under the surface,there is currently also something of a 'hype' going on. In the wake of the post-9/11 surge in demand for information on all 'things Islamic', there was also an eruption of presentations, exhibitions, etc. on cultural developments, while prices of Middle Eastern art skyrocketed. Although this may be potentially good news for artists from the region, there is also a tendency on the part of museum directors and event curators to invite the same faces over and over again. Prince Claus Award recipient Christine Tohme showed her frustration over the fact that, sixteen years after launching the Askhal Alwan initiative, she is still one of the first calling points for anyone with the intention of organising something on Middle Eastern art. It made her wonder to what extent the contemporary art establishment in the West is aware of the dynamism and ongoing development of the arts in the field.
Also symptomatic of this state of affairs is the undeniable trend towards large-scale, and therefore expensive, undertakings, especially in the Gulf states. A number of conference presenters and discussants are themselves in one way or another 'implicated' in this (although the degree in which they were comfortable with this varied). Aside from Christine Tohme, Jack Persekian, founder of Jerusalem's Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art and Artistic director of the Sharjah Biennial, and Townhouse Gallery founding director William Wells, serve on the curatorial advisory committee of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project, which envisages the construction of a behemoth museum complex for contemporary arts on an island off the coast of this oil-rich emirate.
For this tremendously ambitious -- and money-swallowing -- plan, the initiator, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayid al-Nahyan, called on now former Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens and the Louvre in Paris, while renowned architect Frank Gehry was commissioned with the design.
The ambivalence surrounding such money-driven projects were also addressed by Shumon Basar's eloquent and humorous closing presentation on 'The Politics of Space'.* Inspired by Italo Calvino's festina lente, he captured the question whether the UAE art scene is held hostage in a political hijacking by a mixture of petrodollar grandeur, royal megalomania and parvenu Nouveau Riche in the catchphrase 'speed of forms, slowness of contents'.
* Somewhat ironically, Basar, co-editor of the acclaimed anthology of Middle Eastern architecture With/Without
, used to work for Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born deconstructivist architect (former student of Rem Coolhaas), whose company designed the performing arts centre for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
Although, as one of the delegates noted, also in the Middle East (the) art (world) appears to follow the money, it evinces also there is a degree of self-reflection and questioning of such practices among those involved. In that respect, politics could take an example from the art world.
The event was kicked off by Professor Derek Gregory, a British-born geographer now teaching in Vancouver who has done important work on political and cultural geographies of late modern war -- a topic that seems to present itself almost automatically when dealing with a highly volatile region like the Middle East, and which for that reason is very illustrative of what Gregory called the 'Project of Cartographic Reason'. He used his presentation to problematise the designation 'Middle East', not only as a topographic term referring to a concrete place as such, but also as a less tangible concept with important cultural-political connotations. The significance of this point became clear throughout the conference, as participants struggled to come to terms with the subject area; using 'Middle East' interchangeably with 'Arab', or even 'Islamic World' demonstrated the widespread tendency to conflate these designations of evermore expansive regions. (Art historian Nada Shabout, author of Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics
, rightly noted that sorting out such inaccuracies is crucial for the proper contextualisation of art).Gregory referred to Juan Cole's Napoleon's Egypt
, the subtitle of which, 'Invading the Middle East', points up the time in European history when the term began to receive currency. Later in the nineteenth century, 'Middle East' was used by the British Indian Office to refer to Persia and its surrounding areas, which were considered of strategic importance to the security of the colonies in the Subcontinent. During the First World War, Sir Mark Sykes -- intent on 'cutting out the cancer' that was the faltering Ottoman Empire and thus release those suffering under the Turkish yoke -- advocated the use of 'Middle East'. According to Gregory this was done in an attempt to undercut Lloyd George's persistent reference to a 'Near East', which implied a continued recognition of Istanbul as a centre of political gravity. Winston Churchill literally put the region on the map through the abrasive interventions of his recently established 'Middle East Department' (within the Colonial Office), which was basically responsible for the political geography as we still know it today.Topography becomes connected with the politics of culture when the Eurocentric gaze projects the Middle East as an alien space, a 'tableau of queerness' (Edward Said in Orientalism
,p. 103) that must be disciplined. The persistence of the imagery associated with such a designation is affirmed by Robert Kaplan's description of the Middle East as a region where 'Instead of bold lines on a map we have a child’s messy finger painting'. Another articulate international affairs commentator close to the American foreign policy making establishment, Fareed Zakaria, opined that 'when you get to this region, you see in lurid color all the dysfunctions that people conjure up when they think of Islam'. This, argues Gregory, evinces how 'geography is therefore the art of war' (again quoting Said, this time from The Politics of Dispossession).London-based architect Eyal Weizman agreed with Gregory's observations, recalling the cartographic projections of Israel as a tiny blue spot in the surrounding red mass of the Middle East. Israeli perceptions of space see the Middle East not only as surrounding the Jewish Homeland; it is also 'inside' -- the Palestinians resident on its territory. For Weizman this affirms that the cartographic representations used in topography and geography are political subjectivities, which not only 'shape' the world, but also affect the way you act in it. To him this only underscores the importance of coming up with counter strategies for these campaigns of geographic warfare.
Issa Touma, an autodidact photographer who runs Le Pont Gallery in Aleppo, used the features of the Arab house as a metaphor for the challenges artists established in places like his native Syria face. Grim-looking exteriors hide often well-decorated interiors. Big walls discourage communication with the outside world, high windows are there to 'spy' on 'the street'. To an extent these residences are jails, as their design assists the familial patriarchs to exercise control. The same applies to many Middle Eastern societies at large, as Touma experienced himself: his gallery was repeated closed by the government. Because so much remains out of sight, Touma agrees that media images of anger, flag-burning, and violence, on the one hand, and the projection of a dreamy 'Arabian nights' utopia, on the other, will not be challenged easily. He believes therefore in the importance of contemporary art for showing reality -- which should also include people's dreams.
Aside from 'space' -- including its slippage into a variety interpretations -- other buzzwords circulating throughout these two days were 'diaspora' and 'movement'. The fluidity of these interpretations is reflected in events such as Homeworks in Beirut, and The Flying House initiative of Abu Dhabi art collector Abdul-Raheem Sharif, which showcases the work of Emirati artists since the 1970s (including those of his brother Hassan Sharif).
The inherent hybridity of such notions conjure up associations with fields like cultural studies and postcolonial theory, while the production and function of contemporary art outside the 'metropoles' of Berlin, London, Paris, and New York is indicative of the collapse of the West vs 'the rest' dichotomy. In his talk about the relationship between 'Tradition and Modernity', Cornell art historian and Africanist Salah Hassan invoked Stuart Hall's claim that the binaries of West/Non-West and Centre/Periphery are increasingly challenged by the creative ideas germinating in the spaces 'in-between'.
Panelists like photographer and video artist Zineb Sedira spoke of diaspora as an almost sine qua non condition for cutting-edge artists originating from the Middle East and North Africa. Paris-born but of Mauritanian extraction, now residing in London though holding dual French-Algerian nationality, her own biography appears to confirm this.
In a similar vein, Tangiers-based Yto Barrada noted the importance for MENA (Middle Eastern & North African) artists to be able to move around, because the local cultural environments are often still bleak and barren. However, with all the travel obstacles they currently find in their way, it proves difficult to establish contacts with fellow artists, curators and other culture brokers.
This issue of 'brokerage' was addressed in a panel session on Writing and Translation, opened by the renowned Palestinian poet and author of I Saw Ramallah
,Mourid Barghouti. Challenging the postmodernist doctrine that the author loses ownership of his work after its introduction into the public space, Barghouti showed his dismay over a close-reading of his poem 'It's also Fine' by Linda Sue Grimes, in which it is claimed that he does not close the door on 'Islamofascist Jihadism'. According to Barghouti, Grimes is listening to her own voice rather than the poet's. Apparently, in her view, being a Palestinian it cannot be otherwise than that Barghouti 'must be writing as a jihadist addressing another jihadist'. That 'it's also fine' to die of old age or infirmity thus becomes an unattainable privilege for Palestinians if credence is given to such interpretations.The understanding of non-Western literatures is not only hampered by a lack of nuance or unfamiliarity with local languages, but the absence of translations in European languages of writings on philosophy and history by Middle Eastern intellectuals. Arabs and others remain caught in the dichotomy of demonisation vs romantisation, which continues to oscillate between the images of Caliban and those emerging 'fresh from the hands of the Gods'. While Asians, Africans and Latin Americans are expected to acquaint themselves with the Western canon -- and should realise the rare privilege conferred upon by the provision of translations in their own vernaculars -- the reverse traffic is a still a mere trickle, an occasional favour bestowed on only a few select cultural giants.
Aside from the question of what gets lost in translation, or -- in the case above -- what is read into it, moderator Salah Hassan also amplified the role of other 'culture brokers' than literary translators. Laudable initiatives such as Bidoun, which provides a forum for discussing arts and culture in the Middle East, or the online journal Nafas, dedicated to promoting 'contemporary art from Islamic influenced countries and regions', are indicative of the artistic vibrancy in the Middle East/Arab World/Dar al-Islam.
Published in New York, Bidoun is presently run by founder Lisa Farjam and editor-in-chief Negar Azimi, who was previously associated with the Townhouse Gallery in Cairo and the Beirut-based Fondation Arabe pour l'Image. Supported by IFA, the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Nafas is part of the wider Universes-in-Universe platform, founded as far back as 1997 by Gerhard Haupt and Pat Binder and providing a forum (in English, German, Arabic and Spanish) for discussions on art from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. As someone with a vivid interest in all things Southeast Asia, I was particularly pleased with Haupt's report on a recent six-week presentation tour to Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, introducing the 'East' to the 'further East'. Although 'dedicated to contemporary art from the Maghreb to Southeast Asia, from Central Asia to the Middle East', the name 'nafas' -- from the Arabic for 'breath' -- was a deliberate choice to emphasis the individuality of the artists and steer away from presenting 'the' Muslim world as a monolithic whole.
This clarification touches on an important observation made by Salah Hassan, that aside from the interesting things evidently fermenting under the surface,there is currently also something of a 'hype' going on. In the wake of the post-9/11 surge in demand for information on all 'things Islamic', there was also an eruption of presentations, exhibitions, etc. on cultural developments, while prices of Middle Eastern art skyrocketed. Although this may be potentially good news for artists from the region, there is also a tendency on the part of museum directors and event curators to invite the same faces over and over again. Prince Claus Award recipient Christine Tohme showed her frustration over the fact that, sixteen years after launching the Askhal Alwan initiative, she is still one of the first calling points for anyone with the intention of organising something on Middle Eastern art. It made her wonder to what extent the contemporary art establishment in the West is aware of the dynamism and ongoing development of the arts in the field.
Also symptomatic of this state of affairs is the undeniable trend towards large-scale, and therefore expensive, undertakings, especially in the Gulf states. A number of conference presenters and discussants are themselves in one way or another 'implicated' in this (although the degree in which they were comfortable with this varied). Aside from Christine Tohme, Jack Persekian, founder of Jerusalem's Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art and Artistic director of the Sharjah Biennial, and Townhouse Gallery founding director William Wells, serve on the curatorial advisory committee of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project, which envisages the construction of a behemoth museum complex for contemporary arts on an island off the coast of this oil-rich emirate.
For this tremendously ambitious -- and money-swallowing -- plan, the initiator, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayid al-Nahyan, called on now former Guggenheim Director Thomas Krens and the Louvre in Paris, while renowned architect Frank Gehry was commissioned with the design.
The ambivalence surrounding such money-driven projects were also addressed by Shumon Basar's eloquent and humorous closing presentation on 'The Politics of Space'.* Inspired by Italo Calvino's festina lente, he captured the question whether the UAE art scene is held hostage in a political hijacking by a mixture of petrodollar grandeur, royal megalomania and parvenu Nouveau Riche in the catchphrase 'speed of forms, slowness of contents'.
* Somewhat ironically, Basar, co-editor of the acclaimed anthology of Middle Eastern architecture With/Without
, used to work for Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born deconstructivist architect (former student of Rem Coolhaas), whose company designed the performing arts centre for the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.Although, as one of the delegates noted, also in the Middle East (the) art (world) appears to follow the money, it evinces also there is a degree of self-reflection and questioning of such practices among those involved. In that respect, politics could take an example from the art world.
Monday, 22 December 2008
International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) Closed?
Islamicists and other academics involved in studying the Muslim world are dumbfounded by the decision of the Netherlands government to close down the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM). The institute was founded ten years ago as a joint initiative of the universities of Amsterdam, Leiden, Nijmegen and Utrecht, which all host specially endowed ISIM chairs. Over the years ISIM developed an international reputation as one of the world's leading research centres on the contemporary Muslim World.
ISIM was founded in 1998 by the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam (UvA), Utrecht, Nijmegen en het Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. It is objective was to do research into social, political, cultural and intellectual developments in contemporary Islamic communities and societies worldwide. During the first five years each of the participating universities contributed 220,000 Euro to the Budgert, which was doubled by the Ministry to almost 2 Million Euro. Between 2003 and 2007, the Ministry provided an annual subsidy of 900,000 Euro, on condition that by 2007 ISIM should operate independently with financial support from the four participating universities. In 2008 the minister allocated another half a million in financial support.
In the course of the past decade interest in Islam and the Muslim World has increased tremendously (although often for all the wrong reasons). It is therefore difficult to comprehend why the present Dutch government has failed to make the necessary funding available to sustain ISIM. At no other point in time has there been a more acute and greater need for understanding Islam as a religious tradition and civilization, as well as developing informed insights into the complex dynamics of societies throughout the Islamic World and expatriate Muslim communities.
The Dutch government's stupefying decision flies also in the face of a report commissioned by the Scientific Council for Government Policy only two years ago. The outcome, Reformation of Islamic Thought: A Critical Historical Analysis, was hailed as 'a well-informed reflection of Islamic tradition', and a significant contribution 'towards creating a safe, open and critical intellectual environment in which Muslims and non-Muslims alike will be confident enough to move away from paralysing stereotypes and paradigms'. The author of the report, Professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (see the post of 11 September 2008), is himself an exponent of the critical Muslim intellectualism which the government's think tank says to support and which ISIM is tasked to research.
The closing down of ISIM appears to be symptomatic of a government lacking in vision and prone to ad hoc policies on an issue that is of critical importance to the country itself. Over the past few years The Netherlands has had to come to terms with serious shortcomings in integrating the resident Muslim communities into Dutch society at large. It has led to tragical incidents such as the assassination* of the columnist and TV-programme maker Theo van Gogh, the hype around self-promoting quasi-activists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the rise of unsavoury populist politicians like Geert Wilders, whose PVV (Party for Freedom) drives a one-issue (anti-immigration)agenda.
As one fellow-Islamicist familiar with the machinations in Dutch higher education observed:
'The country is micro-managed by bureaucrats who have no idea about the fields they decide about and make outright baffling moves to cut costs aimed at transforming the Netherlands into a cold, wet paradise on earth. One example none of us can comprehend is the firing of Jan-Just Witkamp; the polyglot who used to be in charge of the Middle Eastern collection of the library in Leiden. He was replaced by consultants and the fact that these "consultants" cost the state more than a well-trained expert in the field, does not seem to matter. And by the way, they also operate on the idea that moving to a "US model" will be more efficient and beneficial. As far as I can see, they have no idea what this "model" is and mostly apply it when it comes to closing programs and cutting costs.
The Dutch government does not think in terms of long-term policies for the field of Islamic Studies but is narrowly focused on training Dutch-minded imams and pastoral workers. Thus it has launched programs in Amsterdam and Leiden that without a doubt have used up ISIM money'.
In the meantime, the issue has come to the attention of the Islam section of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). In response to the dismay with which the news of the imminent disappearance of ISIM was received, a signature campaign is now underway, in a last-ditch attempt to save ISIM by trying to make Education Minister Ronald Plasterk change his mind.
If you want to support this initiative, send an e-mail to: isim2009@gmail.com (stating in the body of the message "I endorse the petition to the Dutch Minister of Education to save ISIM", including your name, position and institution, affiliation with ISIM, and a few lines of comment).
* For a detailed description read Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance
ISIM was founded in 1998 by the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam (UvA), Utrecht, Nijmegen en het Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. It is objective was to do research into social, political, cultural and intellectual developments in contemporary Islamic communities and societies worldwide. During the first five years each of the participating universities contributed 220,000 Euro to the Budgert, which was doubled by the Ministry to almost 2 Million Euro. Between 2003 and 2007, the Ministry provided an annual subsidy of 900,000 Euro, on condition that by 2007 ISIM should operate independently with financial support from the four participating universities. In 2008 the minister allocated another half a million in financial support.
In the course of the past decade interest in Islam and the Muslim World has increased tremendously (although often for all the wrong reasons). It is therefore difficult to comprehend why the present Dutch government has failed to make the necessary funding available to sustain ISIM. At no other point in time has there been a more acute and greater need for understanding Islam as a religious tradition and civilization, as well as developing informed insights into the complex dynamics of societies throughout the Islamic World and expatriate Muslim communities.
The Dutch government's stupefying decision flies also in the face of a report commissioned by the Scientific Council for Government Policy only two years ago. The outcome, Reformation of Islamic Thought: A Critical Historical Analysis, was hailed as 'a well-informed reflection of Islamic tradition', and a significant contribution 'towards creating a safe, open and critical intellectual environment in which Muslims and non-Muslims alike will be confident enough to move away from paralysing stereotypes and paradigms'. The author of the report, Professor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (see the post of 11 September 2008), is himself an exponent of the critical Muslim intellectualism which the government's think tank says to support and which ISIM is tasked to research.
The closing down of ISIM appears to be symptomatic of a government lacking in vision and prone to ad hoc policies on an issue that is of critical importance to the country itself. Over the past few years The Netherlands has had to come to terms with serious shortcomings in integrating the resident Muslim communities into Dutch society at large. It has led to tragical incidents such as the assassination* of the columnist and TV-programme maker Theo van Gogh, the hype around self-promoting quasi-activists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and the rise of unsavoury populist politicians like Geert Wilders, whose PVV (Party for Freedom) drives a one-issue (anti-immigration)agenda.
As one fellow-Islamicist familiar with the machinations in Dutch higher education observed:
'The country is micro-managed by bureaucrats who have no idea about the fields they decide about and make outright baffling moves to cut costs aimed at transforming the Netherlands into a cold, wet paradise on earth. One example none of us can comprehend is the firing of Jan-Just Witkamp; the polyglot who used to be in charge of the Middle Eastern collection of the library in Leiden. He was replaced by consultants and the fact that these "consultants" cost the state more than a well-trained expert in the field, does not seem to matter. And by the way, they also operate on the idea that moving to a "US model" will be more efficient and beneficial. As far as I can see, they have no idea what this "model" is and mostly apply it when it comes to closing programs and cutting costs.
The Dutch government does not think in terms of long-term policies for the field of Islamic Studies but is narrowly focused on training Dutch-minded imams and pastoral workers. Thus it has launched programs in Amsterdam and Leiden that without a doubt have used up ISIM money'.
In the meantime, the issue has come to the attention of the Islam section of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). In response to the dismay with which the news of the imminent disappearance of ISIM was received, a signature campaign is now underway, in a last-ditch attempt to save ISIM by trying to make Education Minister Ronald Plasterk change his mind.
If you want to support this initiative, send an e-mail to: isim2009@gmail.com (stating in the body of the message "I endorse the petition to the Dutch Minister of Education to save ISIM", including your name, position and institution, affiliation with ISIM, and a few lines of comment).
* For a detailed description read Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Meanwhile on the Edge of Arabia
While the controversy surrounding the display of some works by Sarah Maple (see the post of 22 November 2008)could easily lead to pessimism regarding art's potential for breaking down cultural stereotypes, another exhibition elsewhere in London opens up more hopeful perspectives.
The Brunei Gallery at SOAS is host to a collection of artworks by contemporary artists from Saudi Arabia. Although not exactly a country invoking spontaneous associations with pushing the boundaries of cultural conventions through ground-breaking artistic expression, visitors to the Edge of Arabia Exhibition will certainly come away with a different impression of the oil-rich desert kingdom.
Featuring paintings, photographs, mixed media and graphics, sculptures, and installations by seventeen artists, the works shown are perhaps not as provocative as Sarah Maple's, but they certainly shed an unexpectedly light on the cultural atmosphere of a country with a reputation for religious intolerance, which translates also into cultural austerity. Edge of Arabia evinces not only the sea change that has transpired there in the course of the past decade, which -- having spent the better part of the 1990s in Saudi Arabia myself -- I would have deemed impossible and unimaginable at the time. It also affirms the tremendous paradoxes characteristic of societies in the process of reinventing themselves. Because alongside these remarkable signs of innovative artistic expression, other elements inside Saudi Arabia have become even more virulently anti-Western.
This event is not only important because of the exposure it gives to the state of affairs in the Gulf art scene (one of the exhibiting artists lives currently in neighbouring Bahrain); the fact that seven of the participants are women is significant too. And yet, old habits die hard: only one of the female artists, photographer Manal al-Dowayan, is herself recognizably shown in a picture.
But then she is from the Eastern Province, which since the start of oil production in the 1940s has been transformed into a Middle Eastern variant of Texas. Before seeking a 'rich and non-structured education' in photography in Saudi Arabia itself, as well as Dubai, Bahrain, and London, she grew up in Dhahran's ARAMCO compound, a company she currently works for herself. Manal's work is all the more exceptional, because it features images of other women as well -- still considered a bold thing when measured against Saudi standards of propriety (even when the women are veiled). An example is the photograph on the left, entitled 'I am a Petroleum Engineer'
More conventional in tone are fellow photographer and member of the Saudi royal family Reem al-Faisal's reportage-like portfolios from around the world. A granddaughter of the late King Faysal, she was educated in Saudi Arabia and France. When not traveling the world in pursuit of new images, she still divides her time between Jeddah and Paris. Her collections include impressions from Syria, Egypt, Turkey, China, and Saudi Arabia's western region of Hijaz. The exhibits at Edge of Arabia deal primarily with America's 'Nation of Islam'
Shadia and Raja Alem have embarked on a joint project called 'Jinniyah Lar' merging art and literature. Author Raja Alem composed a number of short stories based on medieval Arabic narrations matching the images created by her sister Shadia, which depict 'genies' featuring in this ancient story-telling tradition. Together with Tom Donough, Raja has also written a number of novels. These include Fatma: A Novel Of Arabia
and the experimental My Thousand & One Nights: A Novel of Mecca.
The composition of this ensemble of artists is also geographically balanced, with representatives not only from the country's mega-cities Riyadh and Jeddah, the urban centres of the Eastern Province, or the holy city of Mecca, but also three graphic artists originating from the Southwestern Asir province, on the borders with Yemen. Abdulnasser Gharem, Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad Aseeri, and Mohammed Farea were all contected with the Miftaha Arts Village in Abha, capital of the Asir, although Farea later joined the Riyadh Fine Art Group, to which fellow exhibitors Ali Ruzaiza and Sameer al-Daham belong as well.
Conventional molds are most evidently broken in the work of Abdulnasser Gharem and Ahmed Mater al-Ziad Aseeri. Gharem's work, which has also been on display at the Saatchi Gallery, straddles the media of painting, photography, typographic and installation art. The art of Ahmed Mater al-Ziad Aseeri, who co-curated the exhibition, betrays signs of his other profession. An established GP, he uses X-ray images in his compositions. Bahrain-based Faisal Samra's triptychs in 'Distorted Reality' are combinations of performance and installation. 'In a formal sense they are reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s legendary triptychs. Each performance is unscripted, with no contrived start or finish, and together they form part of Samra’s polemic against what he calls the ‘made-up images’ of advertising and globalised news media. His desire throughout is to present the viewer with images that are rigorously unmediated.'
EDGE OF ARABIA runs until 13 December 2008. An exhibition catalogue by Henry Hemming is for sale at the SOAS bookshop and online
The Brunei Gallery at SOAS is host to a collection of artworks by contemporary artists from Saudi Arabia. Although not exactly a country invoking spontaneous associations with pushing the boundaries of cultural conventions through ground-breaking artistic expression, visitors to the Edge of Arabia Exhibition will certainly come away with a different impression of the oil-rich desert kingdom.
Featuring paintings, photographs, mixed media and graphics, sculptures, and installations by seventeen artists, the works shown are perhaps not as provocative as Sarah Maple's, but they certainly shed an unexpectedly light on the cultural atmosphere of a country with a reputation for religious intolerance, which translates also into cultural austerity. Edge of Arabia evinces not only the sea change that has transpired there in the course of the past decade, which -- having spent the better part of the 1990s in Saudi Arabia myself -- I would have deemed impossible and unimaginable at the time. It also affirms the tremendous paradoxes characteristic of societies in the process of reinventing themselves. Because alongside these remarkable signs of innovative artistic expression, other elements inside Saudi Arabia have become even more virulently anti-Western.
This event is not only important because of the exposure it gives to the state of affairs in the Gulf art scene (one of the exhibiting artists lives currently in neighbouring Bahrain); the fact that seven of the participants are women is significant too. And yet, old habits die hard: only one of the female artists, photographer Manal al-Dowayan, is herself recognizably shown in a picture.
But then she is from the Eastern Province, which since the start of oil production in the 1940s has been transformed into a Middle Eastern variant of Texas. Before seeking a 'rich and non-structured education' in photography in Saudi Arabia itself, as well as Dubai, Bahrain, and London, she grew up in Dhahran's ARAMCO compound, a company she currently works for herself. Manal's work is all the more exceptional, because it features images of other women as well -- still considered a bold thing when measured against Saudi standards of propriety (even when the women are veiled). An example is the photograph on the left, entitled 'I am a Petroleum Engineer'
More conventional in tone are fellow photographer and member of the Saudi royal family Reem al-Faisal's reportage-like portfolios from around the world. A granddaughter of the late King Faysal, she was educated in Saudi Arabia and France. When not traveling the world in pursuit of new images, she still divides her time between Jeddah and Paris. Her collections include impressions from Syria, Egypt, Turkey, China, and Saudi Arabia's western region of Hijaz. The exhibits at Edge of Arabia deal primarily with America's 'Nation of Islam'
Shadia and Raja Alem have embarked on a joint project called 'Jinniyah Lar' merging art and literature. Author Raja Alem composed a number of short stories based on medieval Arabic narrations matching the images created by her sister Shadia, which depict 'genies' featuring in this ancient story-telling tradition. Together with Tom Donough, Raja has also written a number of novels. These include Fatma: A Novel Of Arabia
and the experimental My Thousand & One Nights: A Novel of Mecca.The composition of this ensemble of artists is also geographically balanced, with representatives not only from the country's mega-cities Riyadh and Jeddah, the urban centres of the Eastern Province, or the holy city of Mecca, but also three graphic artists originating from the Southwestern Asir province, on the borders with Yemen. Abdulnasser Gharem, Ahmed Mater Al-Ziad Aseeri, and Mohammed Farea were all contected with the Miftaha Arts Village in Abha, capital of the Asir, although Farea later joined the Riyadh Fine Art Group, to which fellow exhibitors Ali Ruzaiza and Sameer al-Daham belong as well.
Conventional molds are most evidently broken in the work of Abdulnasser Gharem and Ahmed Mater al-Ziad Aseeri. Gharem's work, which has also been on display at the Saatchi Gallery, straddles the media of painting, photography, typographic and installation art. The art of Ahmed Mater al-Ziad Aseeri, who co-curated the exhibition, betrays signs of his other profession. An established GP, he uses X-ray images in his compositions. Bahrain-based Faisal Samra's triptychs in 'Distorted Reality' are combinations of performance and installation. 'In a formal sense they are reminiscent of Francis Bacon’s legendary triptychs. Each performance is unscripted, with no contrived start or finish, and together they form part of Samra’s polemic against what he calls the ‘made-up images’ of advertising and globalised news media. His desire throughout is to present the viewer with images that are rigorously unmediated.'
EDGE OF ARABIA runs until 13 December 2008. An exhibition catalogue by Henry Hemming is for sale at the SOAS bookshop and online
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Another 'Culture War'?
Last Thursday, I participated in a panel discussion on the reactions to the first solo exhibition by budding artist Sarah Maple. Of British-Kenyan (Muslim) extraction, she is the recipient of the 2007 4 Sensations Prize awarded by London's Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4. Both the exhibition, entitled This Artist Blows, and the panel discussion were hosted by SaLon Gallery, run by Samir Ceric, a London-based art dealer of Bosnian Muslim origin. The debate was moderated by art critic and journalist Tom Flynn, who has covered the 'Sarah Maple affair' on his own blog.
Unfortunately, but also predictably, cynical media manipulation turned the exhibition into yet another incident in a series of controversies, which can be traced back to Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses
. Since then, it seems that any artistic and cultural issue involving Muslims becomes an inevitable hostage of the undeniably increased political antagonism between 'the Muslim world' and 'the West'.
This time it all started on 10 October, with an article in The Telegraph, which insinuated that the vice-president of The Muslim Association of Britain had demanded the removal of the offending pieces. It has since turned out that no such demand was made. However, by then the issue had already snowballed into a full-blown scandal. Other self-proclaimed spokespersons of the Muslim community, as well as individuals, added their voices to an increasingly acrimonious media hype. The issue received even coverage in the BBC's Arabic language programme. Eventually, SaLon Gallery was subjected to an act of vandalism in which the windowpane was smashed, while both the artist and gallery staff received a substantial volume of hate mail.
Some of Sarah Maple's pieces can certainly be considered controversial, designed to provoke a reaction, but not -- as the artist repeatedly assured herself -- intended to mock or insult. Moreover, many of her paintings and photo collages also evince a sense of humour -- a quality sorely missing from any discussion on issues involving Islam, but which is actually eminently suited to take the edge of things -- a point recognized by several of the panelists, including the writer of this blog.
To put the issue into perspective, the moderator also noted that intolerance towards controversial artistic expression is not a Muslim monopoly, reminding the audience of the cancellation of last year's exhibition of the artwork 'My Sweet Lord' at New York gallery the Lab. In that case, Catholic civic rights organization The Catholic League was successful in having the 'chocolate Jesus' by Italian-Canadian artist Cosimo Cavallaro taken down. On the other hand, as panelist and media commentator Peter Whittle rightly observed, nobody was physically hurt, while in a number of occasions in which Muslims took offense people were killed.
There seemed to be also a general agreement among the participants regarding art's potential for building bridges between divergent cultures, because it can -- as Tom Flynn put it -- 'fly under the radar' of political disagreements or conflicts, and appeal to a shared humanity. However, at the same time, part of the way in which the debate unfolded appeared to affirm once again the very issue under discussion: namely how media-savvy interlocutors succeed time and again in turning such events into a tool serving their own agendas.
Peter Whittle, who with his New Culture Forum has jumped on the bandwagon of The Right, joining its 'Culture Wars' against the Liberal Left, was challenged by former BBC producer Najma Kazi. Although both clearly agreed that freedom of expression was an inalienable democratic right that must be upheld without compromise, they staged a polemical display which steered away from a substantive discussion on the role of art in a multicultural world. Subsequently, Peter Whittle's rendition of the debate on his own website, presents him as the only one in the forum who realized the gravity of the issues at stake. Thus he succeeded in exploiting the panel for waging another battle in the new Kulturkampf, which is turning Samuel Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' thesis into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Unfortunately, but also predictably, cynical media manipulation turned the exhibition into yet another incident in a series of controversies, which can be traced back to Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses
. Since then, it seems that any artistic and cultural issue involving Muslims becomes an inevitable hostage of the undeniably increased political antagonism between 'the Muslim world' and 'the West'.This time it all started on 10 October, with an article in The Telegraph, which insinuated that the vice-president of The Muslim Association of Britain had demanded the removal of the offending pieces. It has since turned out that no such demand was made. However, by then the issue had already snowballed into a full-blown scandal. Other self-proclaimed spokespersons of the Muslim community, as well as individuals, added their voices to an increasingly acrimonious media hype. The issue received even coverage in the BBC's Arabic language programme. Eventually, SaLon Gallery was subjected to an act of vandalism in which the windowpane was smashed, while both the artist and gallery staff received a substantial volume of hate mail.
Some of Sarah Maple's pieces can certainly be considered controversial, designed to provoke a reaction, but not -- as the artist repeatedly assured herself -- intended to mock or insult. Moreover, many of her paintings and photo collages also evince a sense of humour -- a quality sorely missing from any discussion on issues involving Islam, but which is actually eminently suited to take the edge of things -- a point recognized by several of the panelists, including the writer of this blog.
To put the issue into perspective, the moderator also noted that intolerance towards controversial artistic expression is not a Muslim monopoly, reminding the audience of the cancellation of last year's exhibition of the artwork 'My Sweet Lord' at New York gallery the Lab. In that case, Catholic civic rights organization The Catholic League was successful in having the 'chocolate Jesus' by Italian-Canadian artist Cosimo Cavallaro taken down. On the other hand, as panelist and media commentator Peter Whittle rightly observed, nobody was physically hurt, while in a number of occasions in which Muslims took offense people were killed.
There seemed to be also a general agreement among the participants regarding art's potential for building bridges between divergent cultures, because it can -- as Tom Flynn put it -- 'fly under the radar' of political disagreements or conflicts, and appeal to a shared humanity. However, at the same time, part of the way in which the debate unfolded appeared to affirm once again the very issue under discussion: namely how media-savvy interlocutors succeed time and again in turning such events into a tool serving their own agendas.
Peter Whittle, who with his New Culture Forum has jumped on the bandwagon of The Right, joining its 'Culture Wars' against the Liberal Left, was challenged by former BBC producer Najma Kazi. Although both clearly agreed that freedom of expression was an inalienable democratic right that must be upheld without compromise, they staged a polemical display which steered away from a substantive discussion on the role of art in a multicultural world. Subsequently, Peter Whittle's rendition of the debate on his own website, presents him as the only one in the forum who realized the gravity of the issues at stake. Thus he succeeded in exploiting the panel for waging another battle in the new Kulturkampf, which is turning Samuel Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' thesis into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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