The Dirty Post

Another couple of days with many subject matters to talk and write about. 

Burj Khalifa, Ali, Magdi and Deniz

On Sunday Ali, Magdi and I went to the Pavillion Downtown Dubai, very near to Burj Khalifa, to attend one of the education series of Art Dubai. Our journey to the pavillion was remarkable in terms of the juxtaposition of opposite architectural styles, the sophisticated ambiance of the old town intertwined with the vast amount of labourers occupying the area. 

The Pavillion Downtown is an amazing art space, similar to Tramway in Glasgow.  The seminar was very informative about three relatively young and very professional Dubai based contemporary art galleries called “The Third Line”,  “Lawrie Shabibi” and “thejamjar”. The founders of those galleries were all females who obviously had very good education abroad.  There was a very interesting fact that Magdi, Ali and I agreed about the spectators, when we first entered the room: Despite the minority of the female population in Dubai, a very big majority of the artists or art viewers in the seminar room were females. This was such an intruiging fact, when we consider the majority of Western art community until the late 60s, which was mainly composed of male artists. Then I found myself contemplating on the reason for this discrepancy in the gender distribution of the Emirati artists. At that very moment, Sunny Rahbar, the co-founder of The Third Line stated that two of her female Emirati artists she represented, gave up working with her and stopped producing work as soon as they got married. I was a little bit surprised, but upset and really frustrated after I heard a similar story at the opening I have been to, that night.  What was the main reason for this, despite the big support that girls get from their well-respected families? Was it considered as a temporary occupation that keeps the girls busy, contemporary and social until they start building up their own families? Khawla, a very strong character and a successful Emirati artist, fortunately is on my side with this issue, and she embraces her practice as the life she lives, rather than a habit or a hobby to give up when time arrives.

While my mind was engaged with all these subject matters, very good and curious questions raised from the spectators. Some of them were about how to promote Emirati artists, and some were about the importance of getting feedback and forming collectives. Artists were advised to get together more often to discuss their works and consider producing projects at a ‘non’ gallery venue such as a car park, or an unoccupied shop front. Overall, I was very pleased and impressed with the talks and looking forward to the next one.

After the talks, Zeinab was very kind to drive us to the Art Nights @ Gate Village. Everyone, including the speakers of the seminar was looking forward to this event. Nine galleries were having openings at the same time, at the same area. It was such a splendid night! I have never seen New York, but felt like I was invited to a Guggenheim opening! Not all the works were my cup of tea, but really enjoyed the show at The Empty Quarter. There were some retro futuristic photographs, videos, and other images where for the first time I was introduced with the Yugoslavian War Memorials, by Ali at The Empty Quarter.

Ali, Magdi, Khalil and Zeinab at the Art Nights @ Gate Village

Empty Quarter Gallery and Yugoslav War Memorials

Empty Quarter Gallery

These memorials were commissioned by Tito, a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, in the 1960s and 70s dedicated to the World War II, and the concentration camps. After Tito's death, the monuments were popular visitor attractions in the 1980s as patriotic sites, and since the Yugoslav Wars and the dissolution of the country, the sites are abandoned and have become ghostly structures evoking ‘new’ but ‘old’ space stations. I think they are the most spectacular constructions I have seen in the last few years. You can see the images of some of the memorials from the link below: (They say Soviet for the monuments in the link, but it’s not correct.)

 http://www.cracktwo.com/2011/04/25-abandoned-soviet-monuments-that-look.html

Apart from those mentioned above, the majority of the works exhibited were especially Pop Art inspired paintings, photographs or other wall-based works. As far as I understand, most galleries are interested in ‘digital cleanliness’, demanding a finished and pure look.

Cleanliness, beauty and orderliness, not just in arts, but also as culture or civilization, relate to the idea of modernity. As an artist who favours works that do not have a pure or clean finish, I would like to introduce the idea of dirt, an excellent tool to blur the boundaries.

Order, according to Bauman is “defining and moreover enforcing a rule about how, when and where something is done in order to set people free from indecision and hesitance.” Beauty, purity, and order are thus powerful attributes, which we cannot abandon without regretting. People have to compensate to gain such benefits. As Bauman states, there is nothing congenital in human nature about preserving cleanliness, searching for beauty, or obeying routine rules. People have to be constrained to revere harmony, purity and regularity.

       

Purity is an ideal to be created and preserved from real or imaginary abnormalities. Otherwise, there would be no distinction between purity and impurity; in this way the concept of purity would have no meaning.

   

On the other hand, dirt and filth, the opposite of cleanliness, are things out of place. Namely, it is not their inner quality, which makes them “unclean” but their locations. Thus, in one context, impure things can become clean just because they were put in another place, and vice versa. For example, shoes can be considered clean in front of the door, whereas they are absolutely dirty when placed on the pillow. Consequently, if uncleanliness is matter out of place, we should approach it by means of order. Order ensures everything put in their exact places.

       

However, there are things, which never have a “right place” in any fragment of man-made order. Namely, these things are inappropriate everywhere the model of purity is valid. It is also inadequate to move these things to another place, because they control their own location. The problem with such objects is that they will cross boundaries whether invited or not. This kind of impurity and their transgression of boundaries are what I am very much interested in, during the process of making a work.

I met amazing Emirati artists here with a great potential, they are very ambitious and clever. My very first recommendation to them would be to get hands dirty. The demands of the galleries for a specific type of work should not be the strongest factor while shaping practices. More sculptures should be built, construction techniques should be taught. I think female artists should be directed to maybe more ‘hardware-based’ ways of producing work, and the types of artworks should be degendered. 

The most amazing Lebanese food we had at the end of that night.