Review of The 30th Annual Exhibition of the
Emirates Fine Arts Society
The
30th Annual Exhibition of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, currently
showing at the Sharjah Art Museum, in Sharjah, U.A.E. is underwhelming at
best. The museum sits across a
quiet cobbled road from the Emirates Fine Arts Society, a historic, traditional
style Arabic villa, with open blue skies above and soft, romantic shadows and
narrow passageways. Upon entering
the museum, it is not obvious that the biggest and most highly acclaimed
exhibition of the year is taking place.
Walking into the entry way, one will see a few young beautiful women,
dressed in traditional black abayas covering their bodies and hair, with exotic
makeup painted on their faces making the ladies appear to be from a royal
family. Here you can find some assortment
of maps about the arts district in Sharjah and some small flyer about the
exhibition. Luckily I had local
artist and curator Mohammed Kazem with me as a guide, or I would not have
necessarily realized the exhibition begins up on the second level.
The
show begins with a floor installation outside of the main entrance to the
galleries. In the slaughterhouse of love, 2011 by Patricia Millns is spread
out on the floor, different artifacts of gestures of love or domestic
keepsakes, all in the color red, covered by what appear to be glass cake covers
organized in a circle. It is clear
the purpose is to demonstrate an idea about lost love, mistrust and holding
onto what was one passionate and fiery, but ends up communicating something
cliché and tired.
Without
knowing anything about the artists shown in this exhibition it is difficult to
understand why certain works were selected. There was no apparent theme and it seems to be open to any
artist who is making work in the U.A.E.
Upon reading the curator’s statement in the catalogue, that appears to
be the case. The show was intended
to be an overview of the various types of works being made in current day
Middle East. In this case, it is
questionable if a curator is really necessary at all.
As
I moved from one room to the next, in a long hall of evenly sized gallery
spaces divided by walls, like cells, it is clear that the understanding of
contemporary art is still developing in the U.A.E. The walls are all painted a sort of light yellow-cream
color, and the lighting seemed somewhat dim. A room of three large impressionistic style paintings may be
followed by a video piece, which is next followed by a large aluminum sculpture
criticizing the misuse of Arabic language. In general the show as a whole reminded me more of an
end-of-term undergraduate class at a university than a collection of the best
of the best artists from one of most rapidly developing and exotic places in
the world.
One
of the first rooms with perhaps the most compelling work, had the art of
Mohammed Ahmad Ibrahim. Mohammed’s
works Models is a series of mixed
media sculpture, made with plastic water bottles with lids, and colorful paper
maché. It is a quietly strong
selection of three pieces, all representing large pots which could be used to
transport water or grains, but within each ‘pot’ are empty plastic water
bottles, posing many questions to the viewer about the history and future of
water. The material was
familiar to me, as it is the exact same material I began working with last year
to build a sculpture of a memory of a motorbike from India. The playful colors used by Mohammed
resemble childlike toys such as Play Dough, making the work all the more
compelling when considering the concept behind it.
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Models, Mohammed Ahmad Ibrahim, 2011
Mixed
Media
Different
sizes
|
During the hour I spent in the museum viewing the works one
at a time, there were no other visitors or guards present. It was a bit of a shock to me, as I had
heard about this museum over the past year, and knew of classmates coming to
attend a highly acclaimed exhibition in which they all participated and showed
their art works.
As
the art scene in the Middle East finds its voice, it appears there is much room
for criticism and participation.
The artists I have met thus far are warm and open to conversation and
excited to have new voices within the movement. As I continue my work, questioning the objects and things we
are a species give value to, I find Dubai to be rich with clues and insight
into my research. This is a
blended and new culture, with a population of around 5 million, with only less
than 1 million native Emirate people.
The commonality between those who choose to live here is obviously
wealth and the idea of living a luxurious lifestyle. As artists who work to create objects for a variety of
reasons and different motivations, it is easy to see how artists may be led
down a path of making artwork purely as decorative objects in the hopes of
selling their works for obscene amounts of money.
Important
contemporary artist and critique in the Middle East, Hassan Sharif states in
his contributing essay in the exhibition catalogue: “Images of this age (are)
able to take over our emotions and consciousness to a point where our cultures
have turned into consumer cultures.
Just like we import various commercial products, we also import
different hybrid cultures and in turn different superimposed images that have
become an imitation of the present age.” (Sharif, 33) In this statement he is referring to Jean Baudrillard’s
observations about having emotional reaction to repeated and artificial imagery
such a having opinions about the aesthetic of a city one has never visited, but
seen images of on the internet.
This dangerous trend has already greatly impacted us as a species, and
will continue to shape the way the artist and viewer communicate ideas. No matter what, the UAE is a large
player in the world of art, and as a young artist and student, there is much to
see and learn from a country that is only 40 years old, and still working to
determine its place in the history of art.
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| Movement by Layla Juma |
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| Forest Bird by Abdulrahman Al Ma'aini |
