NEWSgrist - where spin is art

2006 Creative Capital Grantees: "Emerging Fields"

CREATIVE CAPITAL FOUNDATION AWARDS 2006 GRANTS
NEW YORK, NY (February 8, 2006) – Creative Capital Foundation, the national arts organization that supports individual artists, announces the recipients of its 2006 grants. Sixty-one artists representing 43 projects in the performing arts, emerging fields, and innovative literature received initial awards of $10,000. As the projects develop, the foundation offers additional funds; projects may receive as much as $50,000 each through the tenure of the multi-year grant and at least $1 million has been committed to the 43 projects. (Read more)

Some NEWSgrist pals are among this year's new crop of Creative Captial Grantees:

Emerging Fields
Cory Arcangel (Brooklyn, NY) Digital Arts
D.I.Y.W.I.K.I. – An open-source website detailing methods of media intervention and hacking, embodying the ethic of openness and generosity among the closed field of hackers, home hobby programmers and new media artists

MTAA + RSG (Brooklyn, NY) Digital Arts
Want – A six-channel video installation using Internet peer-to-peer networks and actors portraying the obsessive desires of six types of common Internet users

Golan Levin (Pittsburgh, PA) Digital Arts
Observation as Interaction: Eye Contact Systems – A series of large-scale artworks from wall projections to robotic sculptures that play with the idea of surveillance by returning the viewer’s gaze using tracking software and a simulated return glance

Jane Marsching (Roslindale, MA) Digital Arts
About Here and Later: Data Mining the North Pole – A series of digital images and sculptures, exploring both scientific and myth-based impressions of The North Pole, while detailing the collapse of the area due to environmental changes

Gordian Knot: Walid Raad/The Atlas Group at The Kitchen

Walid Raad
still from I Only Wish That I Could Weep
1998
The Kitchen


via Artnet Magazine, 2/15/06 [excerpt]:
INTERROGATION NATION
by Jerry Saltz

[...] Walid Raad/The Atlas Group, "The Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs: Documents from the Atlas Group," Jan. 7-Mar. 11, 2006, at the Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011

Walid Raad, founder of the semi-fictitious Atlas Group, a collective that archives ephemera from Lebanon's civil war, shares both Borges's proclivity for elaborate fiction laced with apparent fact and Dante's rhetoric of exile. Raad transforms his native Lebanon into a kind of Beatrice, or lost love.  

For Raad, Lebanon is a Gordian knot of notaries, dentists, professors and mechanics -- a principality of would-be revolutionaries, marginal characters and heartbroken souls. Instead of the totality of war, Raad fixates on its parts. He lets us know that there were 3,641 car bombs detonated in Beirut between 1975 and 1991. In seven collages titled Notebook Volume 38: Already Been in a Lake of Fire, an invented character named Dr. Fadl Fakhouri presents pictures of cars and Arabic writing. One image reads, "Silver Volvo; August 20, 1985; 56 killed; 120 injured; 100 kg of TNT; 24 cars burned; 11 buildings burned." Raad-Fakhouri fetishizes the facts of violence in Beirut the way Henry Darger recorded the weather in Chicago. Elsewhere, he gives us the serial numbers of engines that were blown from car bombs, how far each motor flew and where it landed.

The Atlas Group / Walid Raad, Notebook Volume 38;
'Already Been in a Lake of Fire, plates 57 and 58', 1975-2002

 

In Hostage: The Bachar Tapes, Raad, 38, recounts what he calls the "captivity narrative" of five American hostages held in Lebanon in the 1980s, adding a fictitious Arab who describes nocturnal homoerotic encounters. In Miraculous Beginnings we see a hallucinogenic 52-second film made by Dr. Fakhouri in which he exposed a frame every time he thought the war had come to an end. It's an abstract image of lost hopes and wishful thinking. In I Only Wish That I Could Weep we see furtive views of sunsets filmed by a Lebanese army intelligence officer posted to monitor a boardwalk in Beirut.

Borges wrote about the "pleasure of useless and out-of-the-way erudition." Rather than taking pleasure in arcana, Raad's work exudes a mania for minutiae that turns melancholic and openly joyless. His art is like a detective report or a communiqué from a secret agent: Facts are related, occurrences indexed, detachment and delusion mingle with obsession.

Yet for all his pseudo-scientific esotericism and his ultra-educated post-structuralism, Raad (or at least his character) is a textbook romantic: a man in search of the miraculous, a knight-errant taken with political intrigue, social estrangement and emptiness -- someone preoccupied with connections and affinities, real or not. As with all romantics, Raad is homesick. Lebanon for him is a refuge and nightmare, a utopia and a cult. Raad's vision of his war-torn country is part apparition, part anxiety attack and part healing fantasy. You can almost feel the incubus of history squatting on his chest and reciting Lucian's description of the passage to the Isle of Dreams: "As we approach, it recedes, and seems to get further and further off." This is Raad's relationship to Lebanon's civil war. [read on...]

more on The Atlas Group / Walid Raad from AFC:
Friday, January 13, 2006
Raad Shows Facts to be Not So Factual

[...] So what is The Atlas Group? This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer without giving away the project, but a good beginning was provided by Raad in a talk I attended in 2001. He explained that it is a foundation established in 1976 by artist Mahia Traboulsi dedicated to the preservation of rare and unusual artifacts from the Lebanese civil war. Since there were no archives to speak of in the beginning stages of the project Traboulsi fabricated relics, and lectured about the group, until it gradually received enough notoriety that people began send the foundation their own materials for study and conservation. In 2001 Raad claimed replica's of the original archived were never sent out for exhibition, for fear that they would be damaged, (though obviously this is meant to be a clue that they don't exist in the first place). [SPOILER WARNING AHEAD] In light of this information, it seems rather obvious that [...]

The point that imagined histories, are often indistinguishable from the real and will effect our understanding of historical events can not be understated in this work. [emphasis mine; read on...]

Iluminating the Issue...

Ascension of the Prophet (on horse-back) surrounded by angels
ca. 1800

Color and gold on paper
H: 61.5 W: 42.5 cm
possibly Delhi, India

Gift of Professor Alban G. Widgery of Winchester, Virginia

via Tyler Green's Modern Art Notes, 1/14/06:

Richard on portrayals of Muhammad
In today's Washington Post, Paul Richard offers an excellent piece about the history of portrayals of Muhammad. Several examples are in Washington collections, but, "For reasons that include "cultural sensitivity," and today's bloody news, none of these old paintings is currently on view [at the Smithsonian]," Richard writes.

Ah, but they are on the web. (Naturally the WP website has buried Richard's story, the only important visual arts story that's been in the Post in eons. And they could have found these links in under five minutes.)

• Ascent of the Prophet to Heaven, ca. 1550, Persian, ;
• Ascension of the Prophet (on Horseback) Surrounded by Angels, ca. 1800, Indian; and
• The Prophet Enthroned and the Four Orthodox Caliphs, ca. 1500, Persian.

The Prophet enthroned and the four orthodox Caliphs from a Shahnama (Book of kings) by Firdawsi
early 14th century
Il-Khanid dynasty

Color, gold, black, and silver on paper

H:     9.8 W:    11.5 cm
Iran

via The Washington Post [excerpt]:
In Art Museums, Portraits Illuminate A Religious Taboo
By Paul Richard
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; C01

All depictions of Muhammad -- or so we hear daily -- are now and have always been forbidden in Islam. Art's history disputes this. True, that strict taboo today is honored now by almost all Muslims, but old paintings of the prophet -- finely brushed expensive ones, made carefully and piously by Muslims and for them -- are well known to most curators of Islamic art.

There are numerous examples in public institutions in Istanbul, Vienna, Edinburgh, London, Dublin, Los Angeles and New York.

Four are here in Washington in the Smithsonian Institution on the Mall. Three are in the Freer Gallery of Art. The fourth is next door in the Freer's sister museum, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

These portrayals of Muhammad are not big or new or common. Most were made for the elite. And most were bound in books. These were lavish volumes that were political in purpose, and were designed to celebrate and dignify self-promoting rulers. What their paintings show is this: Once upon a time -- in the era of the caliphs and the sultans and the shahs, when the faithful felt triumphant, and courtly learning blossomed -- the prophet did appear in great Islamic art.

Old portrayals of Muhammad come from Sunni lands and Shia ones, from the Turkey of the Ottomans, the India of the Mughals, from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran. The oldest that survive were painted circa 1300. The newest were produced about 200 years ago.

Three such pictures, from Turkey, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

"Contrary to widespread assumptions today," says a statement issued by that museum's Islamic specialists, "the traditional arts of Islam, whether Sunni or Shiite, often did reverently depict the prophet, as abundantly attested by manuscript illuminations ranging in time from the 13th to the 18th century, and in space from Turkey to Bengal. Pictorial representations of the prophet remain accepted by many Shiites to this day, although they have been generally frowned upon by most Sunnis since about the 18th century."

"Of course such depictions exist," says Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America. "What is important to remember is that they were never widely available. Had they been, the common people surely would have resented them. But they were made for powerful dynasties, and no one could take them to task.

"Today the consensus is strong. From Morocco to Indonesia, our tradition prohibits such images."

Those rough cartoons from Denmark were intended to enrage. They do what they set out to do. Published in a bunch, they disrespect the faith. The paintings of the prophet found in grand museums aren't like that at all.

They were once imperial luxuries. The rulers who commissioned them were attempting to ally themselves with God-approved, courageous figures of the past.

The paintings of the prophet were not made for walls. They stayed in costly bindings. Sunlight hasn't dimmed them. [read on...]

Iraq Returns Fire, in SoHo

Hana Malallah
The Looting of the Museum of Art
2003
Pomegranate Gallery, NYC




via Artnet Magazine (2/9/06):
RETURN FIRE
by Ben Davis

"Ashes to Art: The Iraqi Phoenix," Jan. 19-Feb. 22, 2006, at Pomegranate Gallery, 133 Greene Street, New York, N.Y. 10012  

The current group show at SoHo's Pomegranate Gallery is the first American glimpse of contemporary art from war-torn Iraq. It paints a picture of a national school in formation, and offers a subtle essay on the many things that art can mean in dire times.

Pomegranate, which has only recently opened, claims the distinction of being the first U.S. space dedicated to contemporary art from the Middle East. The setup is a little unusual. A large coffee bar occupies the front of the space, and the gallery is filled with tables where people can chat and have lunch. Gallery director Oded Halahmy, a sculptor who is an Iraqi Jew by birth, says he wanted an atmosphere that recreates the social vibe of cultural spaces in the Middle East. In any case, the works in the current show are considerably more interesting than what might typically hang on café walls.

"Ashes to Art," as the show is called, features painting and sculpture by five members of the "Iraqi Phoenix" group (several of whom are friends of Steve Mumford, the American artist who went to Iraq with a press pass from Artnet Magazine, as well as of Steven Vincent, the former art critic and journalist who was murdered in Basra last year). The "Phoenix" label, like most such categories, is a construction for the consumption of outsiders, coined by the present show’s curator, Peter Hastings Falk. Nevertheless, it does represent a set of coherent esthetic concerns.

The Phoenix group is characterized by a strange two-sidedness. Their work clearly resembles late modernist expressionism -- apparently, Catalan mystic painter Antoni Tàpies was a big influence on an earlier generation of European-trained Iraqis -- while at the same time making use of materials that pack an inevitable political charge. [read on...]

 

Qasim Sabti’s Untitled, from the "Book Cover Collage" series

via al-Jazeera:

New York to host Iraq art exhibition
Sunday 15 January 2006, 11:46 Makka Time, 8:46 GMT 

Tattered book covers salvaged from the Iraqi Academy of Fine Arts and wax sketches of US bombs blowing up Baghdad are part of an exhibition of Iraqi artists in New York's Soho gallery district.

Ashes to Art: The Iraqi Phoenix will be on display at the Pomegranate Gallery from 19 January through 22 February. The exhibitition concentrates on subject matter from the most recent chapter of Iraq's history, beginning with the March 2003 bombing of Baghdad.

Artist Qasim Sabti, who graduated from the academy in 1980, wrote in his statement for the exhibitition: "The morning after that first sleepless night, I went to check on a place most dear to me, the Academy of Fine Arts."

He described entering the academy's library, which had been burned. Sabti turned books he refers to as "survivors" into collages by exposing and reapplying layers of their delicate bindings which are on show in the exhibitition.

Hana Malalla, the only woman among the 10 artists represented in the exhibitition, submitted the painting The Looting of the Museum of Art, which she created on wood that she cut, burned and painted.

Charred element
The exhibition's curator, Peter Hastings Falk, points out that a charred element exists in nearly all works in the exhibition. "This is the aesthetic of the country," he said. [read on...]

Radar: Arab-American Theater

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
Yussef El Guindi explores issues of fear and profiling in his new play.

via NYTimes:
For Arab-American Playwrights, a Sense of Purpose
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: February 11, 2006

The title of Yussef El Guindi's new play, "Back of the Throat," refers to an attempt by the lead character, an Arab-American writer named Khaled, to tell the government agents who show up at his door how to pronounce the first syllable of his name.

This task, the need to identify and explain oneself, has become a familiar one since 9/11 to Arab-Americans, who often find themselves the subject of both curiosity and fear. For playwrights, though, this twin desire, has turned out to be an opportunity.

"For the longest time Arab issues or Muslim issues just had not been on the radar," said Mr. El Guindi, whose play has its New York premiere today at the Flea Theater. "They were regarded as too complex."

The subject was just "too edgy," he said. Then came 9/11. "Suddenly there were calls for plays," he added.

Mr. El Guindi is one of a small group of Arab-American playwrights who have gained a higher profile since the terrorist attacks. Their work, they say, is partly designed to counter stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims.

That effort has also helped unite a scattered and diverse group of immigrants and second- and third-generation Arabs, Muslims and Christians alike. "Prior to Sept. 11, I felt the Arab community was a lot like the Mideast itself, made up of insular communities," said Heather Raffo, a half Iraqi and half American playwright who was raised as a Catholic. She wrote and acted in "Nine Parts of Desire" about contemporary Iraqi women. "But since that time it's become an immediate, all-inclusive, wanting to create together." [read on...]