Quarantined militants, metal flowers

ARTS & CULTURE
tuesday, march 25, 2014
LE BAN O N
LECTURE
‘Bonded Tales: or Did the
Arabs Enslave Africans?’
Building 37, CASAR, AUB,
Bliss Street
March 28, noon until 1:30 p.m.
01-350-000 ext. 4195
Dr. Dahlia Gubara from
Beirut’s Orient Institute will
talk about the historiographical and conceptual postulates animating the continuing fascination with slavery.
THEATER
‘Min al-Akhir’
Metro al-Madina, Sarolla
Building, -2, Hamra Street
Every Monday and Tuesday in
April, doors open at 9:30 p.m.
01-753-021
As Joumana prepares to
attend a ceremony honoring
her husband, she reflects on
the secrets and imperfections of her 30-year marriage. Written in Arabic and
directed by Aida Sabra,
‘Bottom Line’ features
Sabra, Marilylise Youssef
Aad and Elie Njeim.
MUSIC
Magic Malik
Music Hall, Starco Center,
Wadi Abu Jameel
April 8, 9 p.m.
01-999-666
Magic Malik and his new
ensemble Tranz Denied will
take electro-pop to an entirely different dimension.
ART
Lucy Tutunjian
Hamazkayin Art Gallery,
Shaghzoyan Center, Burj
Hammoud
R E VI E W
Quarantined militants, metal flowers
‘Garden and Spring’
marks the Abraaj
Group Prize’s last
show of new work
By Jim Quilty
The Daily Star
D
UBAI: Surrounded by trees
and birdsong, two 20something adults stare at
one another, expressionless.
“Bite and flee … like a fly
harassing a lion,” says the woman
in a black leather jacket and
Moroccan-accented Arabic. “But
the future is ours.”
“Our struggle has given our people a pride,” recites the hoody-clad
man in Iraqi-accented Arabic, “and
a hope, a self-confidence.”
The premise of Bouchra Khalili’s
16-minute video “Garden Conversation” is a conversation between
two 20th-century revolutionary
leaders – Ernesto Che Guevara and
Abdelkarim al-Khattabi.
The Argentine revolutionary
should be familiar for helping Fidel
Castro overthrow America’s mafia
clients in Havana. Khattabi, however, has been relatively overlooked by
history. He was a guerrilla warfare
pioneer and a leader of the Rif War
(1921-26) before eventually being
pushed into exile.
It seems Guevara and Khattabi
met in Cairo and had an undocumented conversation in 1959. The
Berlin-based
Moroccan
artist
assembled their dialogue from the
revolutionary texts they left behind.
“Garden Conversation” is a
thoughtful study of cultural and
political alienation that lives in its
actors and context.
This is apparent in the actors’
Iraqi- and Moroccan-accented Arabic but even more in the utter lack
of engagement or chemistry
between them – she channeling Guevara, he Khattabi – as they recite
Abraaj Group Art Prize © Vipul Sangoi
A G E N DA
Bouchra Khalili, ‘Garden Conversation,’ 2014. Digital film, 16 min 22 sec. Video still.
words that are meant to be at once
analytical and incendiary.
The work was shot in the forestcum-garden of Los Pinos de Rostrogordo, in Spain’s Moroccan enclave
of Melilla. Khattabi was imprisoned, tortured and politically radicalized there.
Equally significant, as a colonial
outpost Menilla has been heavily
securitized in order to prevent entry
by African migrants seeking passage
to Europe.
Los Pinos provides a quarantine
where 20th-century militancy can
be recalled and contained. Here the
rhetoric of revolutionary internationalism is remembered by a generation of young Arabs whose political idealism has been manipulated in
the past few years, then throttled.
Khalili’s is one of five works on
display in “Garden and Spring,” an
exhibition of new work curated by
London-based Nada Raza.
Abbas Akhavan’s “Study for a
Hanging Garden” (cast bronze, cotton fabric) is an “act of commemoration” that archives plants endemic in regions around the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers, the habitats of
which were damaged first by Saddam’s destruction of salt marshes,
then by the effects of war.
Anup Mathew Thomas’ “Nurses” (C-print, Diasec, 60 x 80 cm
each) consists of 48 portraits of
nurses of Keralan origin employed
in hospitals and care facilities
around the world – nurses being the
single largest group of professional
female migrants from that region.
Kamrooz Aram’s wall installation “Ancient Through Modern: A
Collection of Uncertain Objects,
Part 1” (mixed media, approximately 244 x 434 x 56 cm) consists
of painting, ceramics and collage
arranged to echo the displays in
popular museums such as the Paris
Louvre. The aim is to investigate
how museums serve a longing for
mythical pasts.
Basim Magdy’s “The Dent” (19
min) is a loving application of Super
16mm film to a reflection upon collective failure and hopefulness. The
film component weaves through a
montage of images shot in Paris,
New York, Brussels, Quebec City,
Basel, Madeira, Prague and Venice.
It concludes with the demise of a circus elephant, an end reached via the
description of an odd public event in
an anonymous town dreaming of
international recognition.
“Garden and Spring” had an
ephemeral life last week at Art
Dubai. Each year the fair exhibits
the works emerging from the Abraaj
Group Prize (née Abraaj Capital Art
Prize). The Dubai-based private
equity firm invests a pot of money in
a number of professionally vetted
project proposals from young artists
from the Middle East, North Africa
and South Asia (MENASA).
A mutable thing since its inception six years ago, the prize has
always been lucrative. With each
artist receiving $100,000 to realize
a piece, the AGP has afforded
emerging artists an chance to create
more ambitious work than usually
possible in a region where both state
support and private patronage of
the arts are rare as hens’ teeth.
The prize’s recent editions have
assembled winning works as curated exhibitions before they revert to
the firm’s private collection – where
they’ve been made available to
exhibitors and curators.
“Garden and Spring” will be the
last such show. During Art Dubai
Abraaj Group managing director
Fred Sicre announced that in future
the prize will be awarded to only one
artist-curator team – not five, as has
been the case most recently. Henceforward, the winning artist’s new
work will be shown in the context
of selected older pieces.
Complementing this retrenchment was the announcement of the
Abraaj Group Innovation Award, a
two-year postgraduate scholarship
program for five students – presumably MENASA artists – at London’s
Royal College of Art.
The intention, Sicre said, is to
make the Abraaj Group Art Prize
more “competitive.”
Raza decided not to publish a catalogue or booklet series to accompany her exhibition, opting instead
for a digital publication.
Here the public can find the
artists’ and curator’s thoughts on,
and documentation of, their works
complemented by further writing by
five authors commissioned to
respond to each artist’s project proposal. The curator can thus be seen
to embrace the transience inherent
in “Garden and Spring.”
The online catalog accompanying
‘Garden and Spring’ can be found at
http://gardenandspring.com
Until March 29
‘Dessin d’Enfant’
Gallery 169 & Gallery
Maqam, Saifi Village
March 23-30
Two more colossal pharaoh statues unveiled in Egypt
By Jay Deshmukh and
Riad Abou Awad
Agence France Presse
This exhibition displays
drawings by children made
with the assistance of Hanan
Houhou Hamdam during
one of her workshops.
‘Mute Beauty … Blinded
Truth’
Cynthia Nouhra Art Gallery,
Elias Hrawi Avenue, Furn
al-Shubbak
Until April 10
01-281-755
In this exhibition, Antoine
Mansour’s paintings revisit
classical scenes, giving them
a modern twist.
‘Whatever passes you does
not belong to you, and what
remains is nothing’
Workshop Gallery, Jisr
al-Basha
Until April 25
03-777-235
This show presents four
recent works by the Brazilian
artist Vijai Patchineelam,
whose media include photography, posters and books.
‘Georges Daoud Corm
1896-1971: Lebanese
Painterly Humanism’
AUB Art Gallery, Sidani
Street, Ras Beirut
Until April 19
01-350-000
Paintings, drawings and
essays by Lebanese painter,
writer and cultural activist
Georges Daoud Corm reflect
the artist’s aesthetic position.
Just a thought
There are two kinds of people:
those who do the work and
those who take the credit. Try to
be in the first group; there is less
competition there.
Indira Gandhi
(1917–1984)
Indian politician
LUXOR, Egypt: Archaeologists
unveiled two colossal statues of
Pharaoh Amenhotep III in Egypt’s
famed temple city of Luxor Sunday,
adding to an existing pair of worldrenowned tourist attractions.
The two monoliths in red
quartzite were raised at what European and Egyptian archaeologists
said were their original sites in the
funerary temple of the king, on the
west bank of the Nile. The temple is
already famous for its existing 3,400year-old Memnon colossi – twin statues of Amenhotep III, whose reign
archaeologists say marked the political and cultural zenith of ancient
Egyptian civilization.
“The world until now knew two
Memnon colossi, but from today it
will know four colossi of Amenhotep III,” said German-Armenian
archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian,
who heads the project to conserve
the Amenhotep III temple.
The existing two statues, both
showing the pharaoh seated, are
known across the globe.
As excavators and local villagers
washed recently unearthed pieces of
artifacts and statues, Sourouzian
noted the two restored additions
had weathered centuries worth of
severe damage.
“The statues had lain in pieces for
centuries in the fields,” she said,
“damaged by destructive forces of
nature like earthquake, and later by
irrigation water, salt, encroachment
and vandalism.
“This beautiful temple still has
enough for us to study and conserve.”
One of the “new” statues is a
250-ton depiction of the pharaoh
seated, hands resting on his knees. It
is 11.5 meters tall, with a base 1.5
meters high and 3.6 meters wide.
With its now missing double
crown, archaeologists said the original statue would have reached a
height of 13.5 meters and weighed
450 tons.
The king is depicted wearing a royal pleated kilt held at the waist by a
large belt decorated with zigzag lines.
Beside his right leg stands nearly
a complete figure of Amenhotep III’s
wife Tiye, wearing a large wig and a
long, tight-fitting dress.
A statue of Mutemwya, the queen
mother, originally beside his left leg,
is missing, archaeologists said.
The throne itself is decorated on
each side with scenes from that era,
showing the unification of Upper
and Lower Egypt.
The second statue, of Amenhotep
III standing, has been installed at the
north gate of the temple.
The team of archaeologists also
showed several other ancient pieces
of what they said were parts of other statues of the ancient ruler and his
relatives, including a well-preserved
alabaster head from another Amenhotep III statue.
“This piece is unique,” Sourouzian
said. “It is rare, because there are not
many alabaster statues in the world.”
The head, shown briefly to some
reporters and fellow excavators, has
also weathered centuries of damage.
Its nose, eyes and ears are intact,
and some signs of centuries-old
restoration are clearly evident,
archaeologists said. Close to the
head lies a statue of Princess Iset,
Amenhotep III’s daughter.
Sourouzian said the aim of her
team’s work was to preserve these
monuments and the temple itself,
which she said had suffered at the
hands of “nature and mankind.”
“Every ruin, every monument has
its right to be treated decently,” said
Sourouzian, whose dream as a student was to conserve the Amenhotep III temple.
“The idea is to stop the dismantling of monuments and keep them
at their sites,” she said, adding that
what was required was steady
“international funding” to conserve
such world heritage sites.
AFP/Khaled Desouki
01-241-262
New works by Armenian
artist Lucy Tutunjian.
Archaeological laborers work alongside a newly displayed alabaster statue of Amenhotep III in Luxor, Sunday.
The work to conserve the Amenhotep III temple is entirely funded
through what she said were “private
and international donations.”
Pharaoh Amenhotep III inherited
an empire that spanned from the
Euphrates to Sudan, and he was able
to maintain Egypt’s position mainly
through diplomacy.
The 18th dynasty ruler became
king around the age of 12, with his
mother as regent.
Amenhotep III died around
1354 B.C. and was succeeded by
his son Amenhotep IV, widely
known as Akhenaten.
Luxor is an open-air museum of
temples and Pharaonic tombs.
Life is a cabaret ‘Hishik Bishik’ celebrates one year of sold-out performances
Photo by Nadim Saoma
BEIRUT: “Hishik Bishik” Metro al-Madina’s homage to the profane cabaret culture of early 20th-century Egypt celebrated its one-year anniversary this weekend before yet
another full house that mingled 20-something hipsters with veteran cabaret lovers of a certain age. The cabaret is staged several times each week.