April 05, 2008

Artists and galleries in Pakistan need to shed their insularity and avail of the change of perspective and spotlight on our region with the intention of establishing a more pronounced international presence, writes Salwat Ali.

Art Dubai is UAE’s quantum leap into the heart of contemporary art. An art initiative that has hit fertile ground — Art Dubai 2008 has emerged as the Middle East’s premiere art fair — in only its second year.

The Emirates positioned to become a possible art rival to Hong Kong, the world’s third most important art auction hub behind New York and London may have seemed unbelievable a few years ago but Art Dubai 2008 has proved that the potential is very much there. London gallery owner John Martin long imagined bringing an annual contemporary art fair to Dubai. Having already successfully founded contemporary art fair, Art London in 1998 he set out to develop something similar in Dubai. Emerging from the success of last year’s Gulf Art Fair, the annual event renamed Art Dubai had a successful run at the sprawling Madinat Jumeirah resort recently.

Courtesy a formal invitation, contemporary art from Pakistan received a high profile showing in a designated pavilion on the water terraces of the Madinat Jumeirah. The show entitled ‘Desperately Seeking Paradise’ curated by Salima Hashmi featured works of eleven emerging and mid-career artists who approached ‘Paradise’ from startlingly independent perspectives, deeply reflective of the geopolitical and societal unrest in the country. Charged with critical content, the art, provocative, gutsy and outré came from the heart and won the validation it deserved. In his review Polemic and ‘paradise’ in the Pakistan pavilion Peter Aspden of the Financial Times writes, “Desperately Seeking Paradise has added a sharp political edge to the fair that it might otherwise have lacked….. There is unmistakable anger here, irony refreshingly employed in the service of savage polemics rather than as a vapid end in itself, and it enriches the fair.”

Yet another showing of contemporary Pakistani art courtesy London based gallery, Green Cardamom at Art Dubai 2008 consolidated this impact with their personal collection of challenging, edgy art. Miniature artist Muhammed Zeeshan’s multiple inversions of national flags of politically significant countries were as pointedly critical as they were insightful. Most interesting was his American flag installation capitalising on the reds and blues of Pepsi cans, in the Art Park. Visitors requested to partake of the canned drink from the installation helped dismantle the flag.

Emotionally harrowing, life size sculptures by Khalil Chistee composed of shopper bag plastic (supposedly non-degradable here) mocked the fragility and vulnerability of the human condition in an industrial age. Similarly Bani Abidi’s video art, Hamra Abbas’s paper sculptures, Rashid Rana’s digital prints, Nusra Latif’s miniatures and a rare showing of pioneer modernist Anwer Jalal Shemza’s calligraphy originals came across as a rich, diverse and exciting cache of Pakistani expression.

Buoyed by appreciative solo and group showings abroad in recent years, Pakistani art is poised to take off. With the inclusion of foreign galleries, especially from India, UK and USA already exhibiting Pakistani art, this ‘happening moment’ needs to be seized and capitalised upon for the furtherance of local art. Events like Art Dubai 2008 are tailored for such flights. So what is so special about Art Dubai?

In the midst of an art boom, Dubai is increasingly attracting contemporary artists, especially from neighbouring Iran and South Asia, as its exhibition venues continue to multiply. Situated in close proximity to the region and sharing religious and cultural affinities with the hosts is an obvious facility and commonality that should spur our artists to look towards this venue. And the changing focus of art marketing is the other significant development that should be followed. According to Martin, “Recent shows of contemporary Middle Eastern Art in the British Museum and Museum of Modern Art highlighted the fact that art from the region is highly regarded. There is a vibrant art community with exceptionally talented people. Sadly, up until the last few years, most artists have had to study and live in New York or London to find success. With a growing art market in Dubai this will change.”

Involved in the last Sharjah Biennial and noting Abu Dhabi’s ambitious plans regarding the Saadiyat island cultural venture and observing Dubai’s burgeoning gallery scene, curator of Green Cardamom, Hammad Nassar comments that the city “has a location of strategic importance, with deep connections to South and Central Asia and the wider Middle East. So it is ideally located to explore a different slice of the art world.” As an art fair he feels “Art Dubai offers an opportunity to showcase the artists we work with to an international audience, one that will bring different expectations and ways of seeing than what we might come across in London or Lahore. It will be valuable to get this fresh response to the work.”

Describing the thrust of Green Cardamom he states that “We are an international arts organisation. When most organisations in London or New York say that, what they really mean is that they work with European - American artists, or in other words they work around the Atlantic Ocean. But our version of the international is focused on the Indian Ocean. And it is that view of the world that you will find reflected in our programme.”

Artists and galleries in Pakistan need to shed their insularity and avail this change of perspective and spotlight on this region with the intention of establishing a more pronounced international presence.

In the absence of a government policy, ‘business patronage’ as the new survival kit for the arts is another area we at home need to cultivate on a serious note if we intend to branch out. Discussions and talks on business patronage of the Arts at Art Dubai highlighted the supportive role the private sector can play in financing the arts. Taking place simultaneously the Global Art Forum at DIFC brought together 50 of the world’s most influential cultural leaders, including architect Rem Koolhaas, artists Daniel Buren, Ai Wai Wai, and Anish Kapoor, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Glenn Lowry, director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. They talked about the role of the Middle East in the global art community and about how partnerships with businesses and private individuals can support art institutions. It’s the model that US cultural institutions have been built upon, and one that Dubai hopes to emulate. Private equity firms like Abraaj Capital working in the service of creativity at Art Dubai floated its ‘investing in foresight’ logo.

Abraaj invests solely in the area dubbed MENASA (Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia). On March 18 it announced the Abraaj Capital Art Prize, which will provide an opportunity for up to five artists from the MENASA region to work with established curators to prepare work for Art Dubai 2009. “As the Middle East and Asia’s art landscape continues to develop exponentially,” says Frederic Sicre, executive director at Abraaj, “the timing is ideal to foster more international understanding about contemporary pieces being produced in the region.”

And they’re not alone; Credit Suisse, the Swiss banking giant, had an entire room at the Madinat Resort called ‘Art and Entrepreneurship’, an exhibition that will go on tour to New York, Berlin, Moscow, Geneva, Milan, Madrid and London. Its purpose is to redefine artists as entrepreneurs, and 19 artists from 16 countries were participating. An auction of works will benefit a project called Room to Read, a charity for the developing world that builds schools, computer labs and libraries.

Art Dubai as a business platform also gains leverage from the current world situation. Amid fears of an economic slowdown in the West, and with soaring oil prices creating huge fortunes in places like Russia and the Middle East, artists and galleries are looking east for new customers. “In the face of a possible international downturn in the financial markets, the global art market is looking to the emerging markets of the Middle East and South Asia to keep it fuelled,” says John Martin, director of Art Dubai.

Other than business patrons, Art Dubai, in its Collectors Circle Program, defined the role of the corporate and private collector as pivotal in establishing a successful contemporary art scene in the Middle East. John Martin urged both private collectors and institutional art investors to get on the contemporary art buying ladder sooner rather than later given the rising sticker prices for pieces from the Middle East including Iran, India, Pakistan, China, and Latin America.

John Martin envisions Dubai as a place of art commerce, saying, “There has been a great deal written about the forthcoming museum projects in the UAE, which are fantastic, but I see Dubai’s real role as one of fostering art commerce. To many people art and commerce don’t mix, but I totally disagree; artists need to sell their work and tend to congregate around art markets more than museums. Art commerce is another side of ‘culture’, but one that is every bit as exciting and stimulating and vital as anything you will see in a museum.

“With culture and contemporary art — people have to be honest — marketing is terribly important. We want Art Dubai to be a flagship for some other projects,” he says, adding, “I certainly wouldn’t rule out taking the fair elsewhere to the West.” One artwork by Pakistani artist Huma Mulji sardonically hints at this — it’s a taxidermied camel stuffed into an oversized suitcase called ‘Arabian Delight’.