Art in Dubai - February Reviews |
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 First of all DO NOT MISS THIS BAND!
127 Concert at the XVA (Bastakia) on the 29th of February. 127 is a band with Iranian melody and jazz roots but an alternative sound which made them one of Iran's hottest underground rock bands. You will probably never get this opportunity again and besides just look at the wacky picture ... how could you not want to see this band?? EXHIBITIONS
XVA Gallery until February 21st Noah Alireza The work of Saudi photographer Noah Alireza is on at the main XVA space. Bringing in elements of cinematography and a little bit of computer geekiness, the photos are very diverse and sometimes quite captivating. One large colour print ‘Cola Hut' is just great in every way really - subject, composition and the range of reactions it evokes. Of the black and white prints ‘In the market for salvation' is so real it's almost like being there and the portraits are good too. As well as the straight photographic work there is also a series of transparencies behind glass with a slight double image. This creates a 3D effect that seems to give the image movement. In the case of ‘The Future' a rather hesitant movement! The last section contains a few Dubai skyline pics, only not quite like you're seen it before. ‘Sitting on the dock' is particularly thought provoking, the dock presumably being on some kind of extra-terrestrial craft rather than the bay! Ave Gallery (XVB) Shahla Barzi Next door at the (new and improved) Ave space is the work of the reclusive Shahla Barzi born in 1954 in Tehran. The work is divided into two of the lower rooms of the Ave space, the first contains the paler colour works and the second the bright ones. A division is appropriate given that most of the work is constructed around a central internal dividing line. This is achieved mostly by using two separate canvases to form a single work with different kinds of connecting medium. The most interesting of these looks like the old, brick, wood and plaster work of a decaying wall and some of the pieces use symbols and script which also evoke old walls.
Most of these works are symmetrical which creates an atmosphere of extreme order and calm especially in the first room. So if your life and head are filled with chaos sitting in this room for a while should sort you out!
Rafael Mahdavi At that time Mahdavi was painting on large-scale photos printed on canvas, something I thought was a relatively contemporary innovation so pretty amazing really. The six big monochromatic images are quite imposing and brooding and you sense that there is probably a story of two behind them that would be fascinating to know. As a consequence this causes a lot of questions in your mind setting up a nice tension with Shahla Barzi's work, which seems to be more about answers. All of the above are on until February 21st Halim Al Karim Taking us into March here but opening on 23 February, is an exhibition of work by Halim Al Karim. Born in Iraq, Halim is one of the resident artists at the XVA and this show ‘Coma in Paradise" is an attempt to deal symbolically with the disastrous violence that has rarely been absent from contemporary life, particularly in this region. More on that later.
There are also a lot of artist stalls down by the creek until February 24tth as part of the Shopping Festival so if you haven't been yet, get going. It gets pretty hectic down there in the evening especially at weekends so there is some very entertaining people watching to be done as well. However, if you want a relaxed stroll go on a weekday! 2. Al Quoz I haven't been to any of these shows but will hopefully get there before they end and review them later. Shezad Dawood ‘Until the end of the world' is an exploration of the beginnings and endings of cosmological truths and universal systems. Working from the final sections of the Qu'ran, Dawood presents an interdisciplinary installation comprised of paintings, neon lights and tumble weeds, which call into question the convergence of design, formalism and mysticism (rather lazily cut and pasted from their website.J) Not sure what's happening here. Keeping websites up to date is not always a priority in these parts! There don't seem to be any upcoming events but its opposite the Thirdline so worth looking in if you are in the area. The current show at the Courtyard ends on February 19th and not sure what is happening after that. There are often things to see there which have not been publicised much if at all so is worth a visit anyway. The Courtyard is a lovely space and just down the road from the Thirdline and a street that has three galleries within spitting distance of each other is never a wasted journey!! Unfortunately the Meem Gallery is not on the same street even though it's in the same area. Meem launched last year with an exhibition of one of the greatest contemporary Middle Eastern artists, Ali Omar Ermes, but according to their website that's the only thing that's ever happened! I know for a fact that this was followed by two other stunning exhibitions including another of the greats, Nja Mahdaoui. I am reliably informed that Meem's current show is one of Turkey's greats, namely Ismail Acar. I am not joking about the ‘greats' - Meem gets them all! So taking the opportunity to see artists who really are considered to be the contemporary best is not a bad way to spend your time. In General.... There is always LOADS on at the galleries in Dubai and if you get on the mailing list via their websites you get invites to the opening nights. This means you get to see the work before everyone else and get to check out the artists, the collectors, the circuit regulars, the assorted hangers on and other riff raff possibly like yourself!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST...This should probably have come first but all the little reviews are for those of you with short attention spans. What follows is the BIG REVIEW, which is WORD INTO ART! This special show is on until April 30th at DIFC and it's FREE so you have absolutely no excuse not to see it! Word into Art focuses on how script has been used in Middle Eastern art from the calligraphic traditions of Quranic and poetic verse, through to more innovative and modern manifestations. In the process it demonstrates how script is used to convey a diversity of symbolic, political or purely aesthetic meanings. The exhibition is in four sections the first of which is ‘Sacred Script'. Given that the Arabic script used today is the same as that in which the Quran was originally revealed there is an inherent religious association with the script. In turn the Quranic text itself then prompted a major development of the written language into a structured system. Perhaps because of this there is a common assumption that all Arabic calligraphy constitutes verses from the Quran. However, this completely overlooks the rich poetic tradition in the Arabic speaking world and much of the calligraphic representation in this show was from classical poetry. Interestingly there are a number of different calligraphic styles that developed at different periods of Arabic history. One of them the Nasta'liq was designed by a 15th Century calligrapher, inspired by the sight of geese flying across the sky. The most common is thuluth in which part of each letter slopes, making it more cursive than the block or kufic text, which preceded it. The letter Kun (Be) by Nassar Mansour on the left is very stylised kufic while Ghani Alani's verses from the pre-Islamic poet Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma on the right are thuluth. The last line of this poem reads: ‘Half of man is his tongue, and the other half is his heart: the rest is only an image composed of blood and flesh'. There are a number of other styles too and this is quite a contrast to the modern problem of very limited Arabic fonts - most newspapers, websites and software use just one. This problem was the subject of a presentation by the founder of the Khatt Foundation, which initiated a collaborative design project in Holland resulting in the creation of 5 new Arabic fonts (see http://www.khtt.net/) Section 2 explored the theme of ‘Literature and Art' and included Farhad Moshiri's paintings of pots, which are among the most striking images to have come out of Iran in recent years. Inscribing poetry on urns or pots goes back to the medieval Islamic period when a trend developed for uniting material and literary culture. The poem here is by Omar Khayyam and is called Drunken Lover. Intoxication is a common theme in classical poetry but is ambiguous as it also refers to the emotional or spiritual ecstasy of love and faith rather than straight substance abuse. I think Khayyam probably played with this ambiguity more than most, however! The third section ‘Deconstructing the Word' featured images made from words or based on letters. This included poetry in three different languages painted onto strips of silk and delicate script painted on bricks! However, I was struck by one particular piece in this section by Lassaad Metoui because of its similarity to Chinese and Japanese calligraphy. The medium was black ink on paper and the choice of word was the Arabic for ‘path', also a key philosophical concept in the far east and frequently the subject of calligraphic works. The fourth and final section was ‘History, Politics and Identity' and used a huge variety of mediums and images. One of these was the dafatir meaning ‘notebook' in Arabic. The dafatir is an experimental medium of artist books that have emerged from Iraqi artists over the past few years. Hana Malallah's book is based on the ancient poem ‘The conference of the birds' by Farid al-Din Attar. This is a mystic tale of enlightenment but in this modern manifestation the book is ripped and the text illegible. Others contain scraps of newspaper, clothing and assorted debris from the street. Some have been partially burned and are displayed open with scorched covers and pages containing only some of the original artist content. What they represent is the profound loss of Iraqi heritage and culture as museums and libraries have been destroyed over the course of the war. Carleton College in Minnesota actually held an exhibition devoted entirely to these kinds of works by Iraqi artists in 2006 (see http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/gallery/dafatir/about/). Other interesting pieces in this section included Chant Avedissian's homage to Egypt's most famous and revered singer, Umm Kalthoum, and prints from Shada Ghadrian interpreting our modern and perhaps merging identities with Ctrl-Alt-Del.
For many more images and info from this show see the BZU Virtual Gallery site: http://virtualgallery.birzeit.edu/tour/exhibition?id=128633
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