THE SHAH MUST GO ON




Yesterday was the festival of Nourouz, as anyone in the vicinity of an Iranian restaurant will be aware. Finding evidence of Iran’s great artistic contribution is more difficult. Nowhere in the Islamic world has had a more prolific output and yet it is not always easy to locate.

Contemporary Iranian art is ubiquitous – most of the Middle Eastern market consists of this rather than the work of Arab artists. It fills countless galleries in the Gulf and elsewhere. Older Iranian artefacts, however, are usually found only in Islamic-art museums. A spectacular collection exists in the most publicised new museum of recent times. The Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar is famous for being a big enough project to bring the legendary architect I.M. Pei out of retirement. When it opened last year, most of the attention went to Pei and the canapés. YoYo Ma with his cello was another popular attraction. There was also an exhibition, which has been a less lasting achievement with minimal input from Iranian institutions.

Far from Qatar an exhibition has opened at one of the world’s oldest museums, rather than its youngest. The British Museum has received less international publicity than the museum in Qatar and it certainly deserves more. Most remarkably, it’s a blockbuster show with Iranian art as the theme. ‘Shah Abbas: The Remaking of Iran’ is in the same series as two of the most successful exhibitions of recent years. The first was about China’s Emperor Qin Shihuangdi, and the second was about the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Both brought in record crowds, with visitors booking months ahead and having limited-time tickets.
I’m not sure how Shah Abbas I is doing, but he probably needs a bit more support. He doesn’t have any terracotta warriors (like Shihuangdi) or a famous wall (like Hadrian or Shihuangdi). Few art lovers have heard of this Safavid ruler and yet his reign (1587 - 1629) was remarkable. Equally remarkable is the way Iran has become such a central world player while its traditional art is less well known now than it was a century ago.

The US probably won’t get as excited about this exhibition as the UK, mainly because America still has all sorts of restrictions on relations with ‘Axis of Evil’ Iran.
When I wrote recently about America getting over the British burning down the White House, unlike China which refuses to let go of its Summer Palace being looted, I was talking about 200 years ago. America has not, however, recovered from the humiliation inflicted during the Tehran siege of 1979. Art might help the healing process.
The art of Iran reveals that the nation may usually have been good on the battlefield but its first love has always been love. Could there be a nation of more incurable romantics? Poetry fills every type of surface at the British Museum exhibition. When the elite of Iran were not pining for some unobtainable woman – or ringletted man – they were seeking union with God. It was not all about prostrating themselves before a frightening and unknowable Almighty. The aim was a kind of mystical union, and in the front row of the love fest were the Sufi orders.

These have become increasingly popular around the world in recent years, even in Malaysia, where they are not approved of. They might be called ‘Sufi light’ when compared to the heavy-duty ecstasy that existed in Iran of the Safavid era (1502 -1736). The British Museum exhibition sheds fascinating light on the different forms of inebriation that existed there. The way in which the show was assisted by some of Iran’s leading institutions shows the country’s willingness to examine the past without censoring it.
In a different, and supposedly more liberal part of the Islamic world, Dubai has just banned dancing and loud music. The Sufis of today won’t be holidaying there, which will suit the emiratal authorities fine.

Dancing and loud music were part of the package in old-style Sufi practice but their act has been cleaned up nowadays. Just as old-style crazy Christian preachers with an aversion to bathing have been replaced by Teflon-suited TV evangelists with great teeth, the disreputable ways of the dervish have gone. Fortunately they have been recorded at the British Museum. Malaysian residents who can’t make it to London will find an admirable substitute in the exhibition catalogue written by the pre-eminent scholar Sheila Canby. Priced at a mere RM125, the pound’s decline against the resurgent ringgit is a bonus to art lovers.

There is a lot more than whirling dervishes on display in both the exhibition and the catalogue. The profusion and variety of art at the time is astonishing. Iran was a world superpower of the 17th century, thanks largely to one very ambitious emperor. Art was probably not his greatest passion; there are few dictators who would list it among their favourite hobbies, and Saddam Hussein certainly couldn’t tell a bomb from a blonde bombshell on canvas.

The milieu that Shah Abbas created was an incentive to artists. The emperor did as much to encourage creative innovation as the present rulers of Iran do to ignore it. This hasn’t stopped Iran from being one of the great artistic hothouses of the past few years. So, maybe official policy is irrelevant. Art will always be a part of Iran; just like food at Nourouz.

(published in the New Sunday Times, 22 March 2009)

GULF TOUR DE FORCE

The art action is focused on the Middle East this month. After February’s ‘Art and Antiques Dubai’ comes the biggest event in the region. The more succinctly named ‘Art Dubai’ is in its third year and as influential as ever. The oil price may be down, but the energy is still all around the Gulf.
There is something new for this year. ‘Contemporabia’ is a showpiece of inter-emirate harmony involving the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage; Art Dubai; the Sharjah Biennial; and the Qatar Museums Authority. Described as an “a cultural and geographical excursion” by the organisers, it should provide the most comprehensive introduction ever attempted to one of the world’s least comprehensible regions. Seven days to cover four different kingdoms of culture, each one vying with its neighbour to provide the most memorable experience. There is nothing else like it in the art world and it provides a neat summary of the non-stop activity taking place there.
The excursion begins in the domain of a comparative newcomer: Qatar. After the year-long build-up, Doha eventually opened its showpiece, designed by I.M. Pei, as everyone must know by now. The new Museum of Islamic Art provides the most dazzling glimpse of the Gulf’s potential so far. It also shows the internationalism of the region. Instead of the obsession with keeping things local that exists in much of Asia, the MIA has taken a more global approach. Day one of Contemporabia includes a greeting from the Director of the Qatar Museums Authority, who is from the USA, and a tour with the Director of the MIA, who is from the UK.
After Qatar, it is on to Sharjah for the Biennal 9. Yes, that is a nine as in the ninth biennal. This has become a major happening, as well as being the most established in the region. The first Sharjah Biennal was back in 1993 when the Gulf did not show any of the promise that it does now. Six years ago the event was re-energised and the focus widened from paintings and sculpture to include video installations and performance art. There have inevitably been some scathing comments in the past. Perhaps the worst blunder was two years ago, with the theme ‘Still Life: Art, Ecology and Change’ in a land where the airconditioning blows as fiercely as a desert storm. As Sharjah has less oil than its richer neighbours, the energy issue could become more pressing there.
The Sharjah Biennial has become a respected force in the Gulf, encouraging local artists to get engaged in the global art scene. Its patrons are from the royal family, which goes without saying in this part of the world. More unusually, the royal director is an artist herself. Her Highness Sheika Hoor al-Qasimi is a graduate of the Royal College of Art and is sufficiently hands-on to have been a painting tutor more than a decade ago. Taking a truly open approach, all are welcome to submit their works. In the words of the director, the aim is “… to consider work submitted by artists and non-artists alike, who were brave enough to take up the challenge and respond to an open invitation to realise their ideas.”
A less publicised detail about Sharjah is that it is the latest stop on the tour of the exhibition ‘Lure of the East: British Orientalist Painting”. This was on at Tate Britain last summer and marks the rehabilitation of the once-despised Orientalist genre. As much of its new respectability is a result of Middle Eastern enthusiasm, it is appropriate that the exhibition should be touring the region that inspired these works. When shown in London it was an astonishingly comprehensive and thought-provoking assemblage. It looks like it will be attracting plenty of attention in Sharjah too, partly because the opening hours are rather more generous (9am to 9pm). To show that this interest has solid foundations, a David Roberts painting on loan to the Tate for the original exhibition was actually from the Sharjah Museum. There will be no dodging of difficult questions about supposed Western fabrications and racial slurring. The exhibition curator will be on hand to do a gallery tour, and panel debates are also planned. One wonders whether any of the many harem scenes will be included in the Weekend Family Workshop for 6 to 11 year olds. One of the most interesting paintings in the London exhibition was on loan from the Qatar Museum Authorities and illustrated different and more enduring racial antagonisms. Gustav Bauernfeind’s ‘Entrance to the Temple Mount’ shows Jewish visitors being denied access to this holy site by turbaned Muslims.
There are no such problems on the short journey from Sharjah to Dubai for the next step in the Contemporabia programme. A mere half an hour takes visitors to the glossiest part of the Gulf. Dubai is where most of the activity is happening, including the essential ‘Art Dubai’. This year’s event sees the continuation of an initiative that started last year. The Abraaj Capital Art Prize is one of the richest in the world, with prizes up to US$200,000. Equally enticing is the opportunity of artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia to work with established international curators to create exhibitions that will find a worldwide audience. The three winning entries are unveiled at this month’s Art Dubai and even the curators get to share some of the money.
After checking this out, participants in Contemporabia will be able to rush over to Abu Dhabi and then conclude the tour back at the Sharjah Biennial. A gruelling schedule, but perhaps the best way to make sense of the Gulf. There is no shortage of comfort these days, and it is probably better to stay away from the beaches with all the publicity about effluent control.



SALES GROWTH
Although it is not part of the Contemporabia safari, Sotheby’s is holding its first-ever major series of auctions in the Gulf at the same time. Along with the now customary offerings of watches and contemporary art from Iran and the Arabic-speaking world, there is the novelty of Orientalist paintings. Private collectors around the region are showing as much interest as museums, so success should be assured for this category. Among the paintings on offer is a sumptuous Rudolf Ernst view of a waterpipe smoker. Equally ravishing but less convincing as a piece of reportage is Jean-Baptist Huysman’s harem-like ‘A Private Meeting’. To ensure a Gulf-wide audience, highlights from the auctions have been previewed in the United Arab Emirates.
In the same month, Sotheby’s is undertaking a bolder experiment on its more established London turf. In addition to continuing the London sales of contemporary Iranian and Arab art, the auction house is introducing an entirely new category: Turkish contemporary art. Turkey’s long history of art collecting receives an international emphasis in Bond Street. This comes at a time when Western art lovers are getting used to the existence of Middle Eastern art, something that has been exposed by the heavy promotion given, as usual, by Charles Saatchi. The show ‘Unveiled: New Art of the Middle East’ at his Sloane Square gallery has generated far more comment than any others in this category, including the pioneering ‘Word into Art’ at the British Museum in 2006.
Not even Saatchi has Turkish artists at his exhibition though. They come from many other parts of the Islamic world, but Turkey tends to be missing from most overviews. Its hour has definitely arrived, thanks to Sotheby’s, so a non-Turkish audience will at last become acquainted with an entirely different genre. Highlights of the sale include artists such as Mubin Orhon and Erol Akyavas, names that are as little known now as artists from the Arab and Iranian worlds were two years ago. Compared with the works being sold in the Gulf, the estimates for Turkish works are appealingly low.


Sotheby’s series of auctions in Qatar at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Doha, 18 and 19 March

Sotheby’s inaugural sale of Turkish Contemporary Art, Bond Street, London, 4 March





Caption 2
Mubin Orhon’s ‘Untitled’ from 1961 will be one of the main attractions at Sotheby’s pioneering sale of Turkish contemporary art

Caption 3
The Turkish avant-garde is represented by artists such as the sculptress Seyhun Topuz



SUBCONTINENTAL DRIFT

It might seem that it is all about contemporary art this month. In the Gulf, last month featured some of the older material at ‘Art and Antiques Dubai’. Elsewhere around the world, traditional Islamic-art events are quite limited. This month sees the closing of an innovative exhibition at a museum that does not often appear in this column: the San Diego Museum of Art. ‘Emerging Elites: Indo-Muslim Art in Transition’ takes a new look at Indian paintings between 1739 and 1858.
Instead of examining the art of India’s Mughal rulers, whose time was up by then, this exhibition explores a period of decentralisation in which new elites imposed their tastes. Bankers and merchants were an important force at this time, creating a new aesthetic that is visible in paintings from the collection of Edward Binney 3rd. Appropriately, Binney was the heir to the Crayola crayon empire.

Emerging Elites: Indo-Muslim Art in Transition at the San Diego Museum of Art, ends 15 March