Saatchi Middle East Exhibition

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.

Nicolas Bourriaud and the new 'Altermodernism'?

So I thought I would do my first post on Tate Britain's upcoming debate that will focus around Nicolas Bourriaud's 'Altermodernism'. It's a term that's entering the art consciousness as representative of the 'new age' in art or context. It was bound to happen soon the term postmodern and contemporary were starting to get old and don't really encapsulate the multidimensional interactive ways art is expanding and growing at present.
To understand 'Altermodernism', 'Postmodernism' can first be attempted to define? Thinking of Greenberg, Fried and TJ Clark there seem a lot more clear boundaries for an art historical critic of its former 'Modernism', starting some would say around the 1860s. For example you had those who focused on art for arts sake and development or expansion of the boundaries of different mediums in art i.e. Abstract Expressionists, Expressionism then you had those who believed art to be a socio-political tool with a clear societal role i.e. Constructivists, Realists/Social Realism, and of course there were those that both experimented with composition/style yet involved subject matter, sometimes with socio-functional message i.e. Futurists, Cubists, Surrealism, Pop Art. With 'Postmodernism' some say it's description is less defined due to a shift in ideology and interpretation of artwork compared to those of the 'Modernist' era. The majority seem to agree postmodernism begins around the 1980s with a focus on conceptual art taking control, although you could throw that back to Duchamp and Dada/Surrealist artists or even possibly the Land Art of the sixties, Smithson's, 'Spiral Jetty ' say, all involving conceptual experimentation and manipulation, with installation, intermedia, pastiche, or bricolage, etc. With the development of globalisation, the internet and cheaper travel  cultural fusion or interaction became a more complex, interactive and interpretive part of our lives. Identity becomes challenged, new cultural influences take hold and a wide variety of knowledge is made available via the interweb and so emotions change and develop. Frederic Jameson believes the postmodern rejects fixed, straight interpretation and instead pastiche and discontinuance become popular. A new hybrid type artwork develops, such as that of Louise Bourgeois becoming very multi-dimensional in terms of interpretation and message. However you could say that 'Modernism' is still present in some work of say Anish Kapoor in which medium is experimented with and expanded solely creating illusion, fantasy and escapism. There's definitely a sense of instability or insecurity that develops with global expansion however as nationalist borders open up in terms of cheap travel and the internet in particular. Rasheed Araeen's work particularly highlights the attempt to develop a 'hybridity' of East and West art. Really modernism as it's written about is the modernism of the Western world, in some ways postmodernism expresses a more global artworld formation, expression and influence.Developments in technology and an increase in availability of technology increases experimentation with a variety of media, even though others have experimented in the past, photography developing at the start of modernism, the increased access to it and development of the media world increases its importance to context.
There is also the development of art theory, the disintegration of the influence of Barr's direct timeline of art, one movement influencing and developing the next in linear progression has been replaced by looking at all movements as interactive really, old art being regenerated into again new hybrids, for example Grayson Perry's ceramics with contemporary subject-matter. Nicolas Serota for example puts different artworks from different periods into 'clusters' to encourage new multidimensional interpretations in the Tate Modern. In terms of ideology there could be said to have been a definite reduction in painting as popular artwork in the 'postmodernist' era, some theorists have talked of the 'anti-presence' as 'postmodern' in terms of conceptual art and in comparison to the 'god-like' presence of 'modernists' art such as Rothko and the importance placed on originality of hand with painting. Brit Art took hold and conceptual art has been popular since with a focus on the idea and theory, however rather than just the one painting as in 'modernism', artists such as Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois,Tracey Emin use many different objects in arrangement which create multiple meaning and interpretation. However many of the Dada performances could be said to have done this and Duchamp plus others and other cultures have used alternative mediums than painting with 'avant-garde' approaches. It's interesting to wonder how countries outside the Western world become integrated into 'modern/postmodern' art, for example the 'Nok' /Nigerian culture's sculptures could be read as abstract and conceptual yet are thousands of years earlier? With the development of media and a change in our perception or sense of time and space developing with globalisation video, photography and performance become great representative mediums. Bill Viola however could be seen to be quite 'modernist' in the way he slows down video to unseen speeds to produce new visual affects and perceptions. Others challenge the influence of metanarratives and issues such as gender, race, sexuality...you could say grand institutions and their theories are being challenged, questioned, researched and the power their hold has had. Artists changed your outlook on race in 'Victorian Dandy' say by Yinka Shonibare or approach to gender by Emin by challenging conventional visual representations or perceptions and institutional or metanarrative control and how it influenced such representations. Lyotard defines such challenges as essentially 'postmodern', for example Emin's 'Unmade Bed' changes the whole history of women's representation of art in books, galleries, etc . This can be combined with the idea that as nationalism is losing some hold and identity becomes expanded and cultures interact global society looks towards 'metanarratives' for a common challenge or areas to relate to. You could say therefore some modernism focused on challenging national ideology/politics i.e. Constructivism, Futurism, etc. whereas postmodernism might be seen more to challenge metanarrative ideologies and use a multitude of approaches to do this mixing/using many different mediums, particularly due to technological developments in media and moving 'outside' the art gallery. This then leading to multiple interpretations rather than one political stance say. Again however Dada and Constructivists could be said to do this.

So how does 'Altermodernism' fit into all this? Nicolas Bourriard believes theres a new art movement developing focusing on confronting standardisation and commercialism.It seems quite straight forward when approached like that however it comes across repetitive of 'postmodern/modern' artwork which has challenged materialism, commercialism and standardisation, for example Andy Warhol, Constructivists, etc. 'Altermodernism' also talks of new translations taking place in the new age, new interconnections of time with space, text with image, the affect of travel and interaction but as said a lot of it seems repetitive of 'postmodernism' and the effect of 'globalisation'.Where it starts to become clarified is when you consider postmodernism as having jumped a level towards what some are calling 'creolisation' of cultures in which there becomes a struggle for identity and autonomy or singularity.Bourriard talks of art as now 'time-specific' as the world interacts and artists try to translate the 'creolisation' taking place, new interactions of text and image taking place in a world under deconstructivism teamed with cultural relativism.It seems that Bourriard is saying that such a situation is producing a new age in which standardisation and commercialisation are being challenged via the many translations taking place in time and space due to 'creolisation', travel, cultural relativity combined with deconstruction. He believes new 'time-specific' works are expressed in 'trajectory' like forms or expressions, transitory and unfixed.Bourriard also associates 'Altermodernism' with the decreasing importance of a focused Western model of art.

Many believe Bourriard takes on simalar thoughts to some of Foucault. Foucault considers a switch from 'knowledge is power' to 'power is knowledge' involving the power the media has over our development of knowledge in society. Also considered by some is the loss of value in 'real experienced-developed/experimental knowledge' in exchange for increased accessibility and speed of knowledge attainable on the internet as such. When related to the power knowledge on the interweb you can see a development from postmodernism .Wrapped in this is the power the media has on imprinting knowledge in the psyche, is this not what Barbara Kruger approaches or Cindy Sherman as well as a multitude of others. It's hard to identify what the 'alter' is in altermodernism?
So it seems that there's a struggle for autonomy and singularity in the creolisation of cultures together with the power and influence the media has on new forms of knowledge being created, new ways to access this and new ways that knowledge is being interpreted via such as inter-web.The later could be labelled as standardisation and a focus on the commercial.