Right just got through looking at the Middle East exhibition presently at the Saatchi and was really interesting to see areas of the world's thoughts expressed that have been really hidden from us before or not focused on anyway.In a way it was also very refreshing and inspiring to see different cultural expressions and opinions together with style and skill. What struck me the most in fact which put a different spin on the viewers experience was how strong the presence and impact the metaphysical played in producing and in the end designing or developing these works. It made it clear how important it is to have a multiplicity of cultural influence in our lives and also to be witness to the process of cultural 'creolisation' and translation as Bourriard would say. To see how different people and cultures deal with their situations and struggles together with the development of our interactive global world at present is really fascinating. I kept reflecting back to reading 'A World History of Art' and thinking how beautiful some of the intricacy of Umayyad palaces are, the Great Mosque, Cordoba and then later Moors influence of Alhambra and such. But what was missed out on here was the presence of figures, banned from using holy images or visual symbols focusing on inscriptions if anything.Still with such abscence such beauty was produced in their work.But how great it is to see now Middle Eastern images and figures together with opinions which have somehow escaped the shadow of religious control.
It's obviously interesting that the show starts with 'Unveiled' in it's title, 'Unveiled:New Art From the Middle East' referencing obviously the presence of the female veils worn within Islamic culture together with a long awaited exposure of Middle Eastern cultural expression for so long 'veiled' beneath dedication to Allah. Diana Al-Hadid's works undoubtedly highlight the presence still however of the influence of older Middle Eastern art and its focus on intricate forms and patterns to create beauty over the use of images. Her sculptures or 'Towers of Infinite Problems' play metaphor to many interpretations but rest between a mystical and yet very realistic interpretation of the present context. In 'Self-Melt' the towers are not finished solid wholes but are instead in a process of morphosis, its funny but Bourriards reference to the 'AlterModern' and creolisation versus deconstruction as a state of affairs at present seems to fit well with what these sculptures express. You could say they are 'time-specific', in a process or state of metamorphosis yet while resting within a magical, mystical parallel.The towers look as if they are melting, turned upside into egg-timer like forms not quite sure what their outcome is.There are many references that can be made here to housing regeneration, development, deonstruction and renewal via war, destruction of historical land, culture and really a change in the spirituality of homeland as destruction through war takes place. In 'The Tower of Infinite Problems' she creates more solid sculptures yet they are still fractured broken into pictures and rearranged like jigsaws to create spiral type structures with many layers and jagged edges. References to global capital developments, the effect of capitalism, etc. can all be made. Al-Hadid reanimates the ordered, coldness or brick of many a tower and reinterprets it in a metaphysical sense with infinite possibilities that affect the global and spiritual world.
The theme of the 'unveiled' plays throughout this whole exhibition in an almost cathartic process.Halim Al-Karim's works leaves a very haunting imprint in which the presence of the metaphysical plays a huge part. His photographs all bare titles wrapped around a 'hidden' theme: 'Hidden Prisoner','Hidden Victims', 'Hidden Themes'. The photographs take on a intended blurry feel or vision in which interpretation is denied reflecting the way some would interpret Middle Eastern culture and you could say the masked veils worn by women.What's fascinating is how this cultural aspect filtrates into the artists actual presentations formatically, for example in some works the photographs are presented beneath a tightly bound white silk fabric, humanising the work almost. Al-Karim's work reflects almost directly personal experience during the Gulf War in which he fled and hid in a hole. He gives metaphysial statues the same priority as human presence using both as 'hidden' themes or presences behind the blurry veil. Sufi tradition and reference occurring here, still it seems hard to pin down exactly his spiritual path or opinion on Islam tradition. The 'blurry' indeterminate' style of his photographs brings photographs of ancient statues to life, the lack of detail diminishing the reality of their stone/clay structure and instead animating them onto a level of the other human prisoners he uses. There becomes a conflict with spirituality as it is involved in the 'hidden' aspect of human 'oppression' yet its presence is still very powerful and important to some.Nadia Ayari takes a simalar approach yet with a different medium of painting, her works are a lot more direct or simple yet powerful in message.Large paintings of eyes behind prison fences or over the top of womens veils highlight lost vision or voices behind the veil. When this exhibition gets interesting is when you get a simple yet ingenious idea by Kader Attia to convert perception of the veil via the use of a fittingly domestically used product as foil. There are so many connotations that can arise from this usage, as said the domestic reference is there for one.There is also the fact that dark veils suppress light where as foil reflects it, projects it, expresses it. Theres also the fact it's usually used to contain and cook an animal which an be interpreted anyway you like.What's most interesting to me though again is the 'metaphysical' presence that is created by using foil.For me seeing so many of the figures which are made to appear a lot more squatted and smaller than human versions brings up links to an almost 'alien' or E.T. type theme, 'foreign entity' or masses, foreign to this world. From here so many links can be made, women feeling alien beneath the veil or 'outsiders', then there is the fact Americans call immigrant or those of non-American entity or anti-American 'aliens' in visa application.This is no direct statement obviously but creates a very interesting outlook.Ahmad Morshedloo's works possess the haunting emotional draw of Al-Karim's work with a near perfect rendering of foreshortening and artistic skill. The haunting picture head first of a women laid out flat on a table appearing inhumane, non-present and dainty and presented in an almost monotone palette creates a daunting effect. We are left wondering what she's doing there, it almost feels like she's on a butchers table but I don't want to go too far with that. Her face is hidden almost no real visible features can be determined and she seems determinate of her fate almost.
The mixing of ancient traditions with modern mediums becomes expressed in Ramin Haerizadeh's, 'Men of Allah'. The reference to ancient Persian style is present in the intricacy and detail/style of his figures however he fuses this within the CGI age using graphic effects to bring it into the here and now. Doing this helps with the projection of the regeneration of issues of gender, sexuality and ancient attitudes that he challenges by re-enacting the historical theatre of the Qajar Dynasty.For one he brings theatre into digital age through graphic effects but he also casts himself as every part in the play which raises issues surrounding this male-dominated theatrical past in which female roles were also played by men. It's interesting how the organic forms of Persian art become graphic or flatter, 2-dimensional in a way, not sure how good a move forward this is though as some quality/depth is lost in intricacy.Exposure of tradition is unveiled in the work of Rokni Haerizadeh who exposes to the world aspects of the Iranian wedding. Again the intricate, organic style of ancient Islamic or Persian work seeps through in her style of painting which contains many different forms which weave and melt into each other, creating really the 'wedding' dynamacy. Shes highlights to the outside world the rituals of Iranian weddings though in which women and men are divided and the male experience seems a lot more pleasured or spoilted in constrast to the more stagnant women.It's interesting again how Middle Eastern culture is projected more by formal arrangement via the use of a diptych in which the female interpretation is on one and the mens experience at the wedding on another.Men and women not even united in art, producing fragmented art forms.
