POINTS OF DEPARTURE
Groundbreaking exhibit rolls into Museum of Anthropology.
Censorship, restrictive visa requirements and warlike conditions are no match for an artist who has something to say. That’s one of the underlying messages of Museum of Anthropology’s Safar/ Voyage: Contemporary Works by Arab, Iranian and Turkish Artists, which brings together work from 16 artists from the Middle East and opens Saturday.
Indeed, those very same conditions can be inspiring. “Art is flourishing in Tehran,” sculptor Parviz Tanavoli said. Tanavoli, who divides his time between Vancouver, Dubai and his native Tehran, is one of the artists in the show.
“There is an underground for music, art, film,” he said.
“When I compare today’s Iran to several decades ago when there wasn’t censorship, I think the art is much stronger now. The artists make much greater statements. No one nowadays likes to be decorative, to make art just to please people.”
The examples selected for the show by independent curator Fereshteh Daftari certainly bear this out.
Artists have crafted pieces that are thought- provoking, sometimes beautiful and occasionally darkly humorous in a wide variety of media.
Mona Hatoum’s Hot Spot is a red glowing globe made of stainless steel and neon tube that immediately brings to mind global warming. At first glance, Nazgol Ansarinia’s Rhyme and Reason looks like a traditional Persian carpet until a closer look reveals scenes of everyday life in Tehran.
Taysir Batniji’s Hannoun is an installation in which a photo of the artist’s studio in Gaza hangs on the far wall. Between the viewer and the photo, the floor is covered in pencil shavings which are meant to suggest poppies.
“Hannoun was conceived as an ideal space, a space for meditation, dreams, a sphere of intimacy,” Batniji writes in his artist’s statement. He’ll be on- site shaving pencils for the piece during the first few days of the show.
Ayman Baalbaki will also be in Vancouver to help set up his piece, Destination X. The Lebanese artist isn’t able to do everything himself, however — for the work, MOA curator Jill Baird and her team had to source household items, and a car.
The piece is an automobile — in this case, a ’ 70s model Toyota — with its roof piled high with what looks like a family’s worldly possessions. It’s a comment on Baalbaki’s own experience of civil war in Lebanon, and the idea of forced migration. ( The Toyota was chosen because it is the type of car that would have been available in Lebanon at the time.)
This will be only the third time Baalbaki has assembled Destination X. Asked what will happen to the piece after the exhibit, Baird said she wasn’t sure, but that perhaps someone might purchase it. ( Bob Rennie, take note).
Another piece, Adel Abidin’s Abidin Travels, is set up as a travel kiosk inviting visitors to travel to Iraq. The installation comes complete with a neon sign reading “Abidin Travels,” a computer with a website on which you can book a trip to Baghdad ( you’ll even get a confirmation — and no, no credit card info is exchanged), and two videos. One has flashing images such as the silhouette of a tank along with the words “Need ground transportation? Rent- a- car.” The other provides voice- over tourist information accompanied by images of war. There’s even a brochure with typical travel- brochure info, with a twist: “Dear tourists, when visiting Baghdad please remember the following safety instructions ... when travelling, be prepared to spend at least a day at the Iraqi border. It is recommended you bring a blanket and a pillow.”
“It’s quite a dark piece,” Baird said. “It’s both dark and dark humoured.”
If any piece does come close to being decorative it’s Tanavoli’s own Oh Persepolis II.
Just over six feet tall, it stands like the monolith from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. But small figures are carved into its surface, and two abbreviated pieces jut out from the sides like arms, in homage to the architecture of Persepolis, an ancient city located northeast of Shiraz.
“Architecturally, Persepolis is very three- dimensional, very beautiful. On the surface of its architecture, on stairways and so forth, are basreliefs of figures. I wanted to make an essence of this, and reduce it in such a small size, and mix architecture and sculpture.” The figures mix shapes based on cuneiform ( an early form of script) symbols with the reliefs “to give the viewer an impression ( of) a tablet with writing on it.”
You might think that shipping a one- and- a- half- tonne bronze sculpture from a hostile ( to the West) nation state might pose problems, especially at the time it was brought over — a year ago, amid much sabrerattling.
Not so, says Baird. “Parviz’s is one of the pieces we were most worried about,” she said. “I was worried whether we’d get the piece out of Tehran. So I asked Parviz to help out and he connected me with a shipper in Tehran.” The MOA had the piece five days later, “crated, shipped, delivered. It was stunning.” Take that, UPS.
In fact, Safar/ Voyage has been in the works for three years, since before the beginning of what has been dubbed “the Arab Spring.”
“It does feel quite responsive to the current world situation,” Baird said.
She describes Safar/ Voyage as “the first major group exhibition of contemporary artists from the region, with the idea of breaking down boundaries and bringing new eyes, the eyes of the artists, to issues of global importance.”
Tanavoli agrees. “This is a pioneering show of Middle Eastern contemporary art in this country,” he said. “The curator did something very smart and picked different artists with different tastes in different media. Not many shows can be organized here, and this could be the last for some time — to give a broad idea of what the Middle East is today.
“Hopefully this will create an interest here to start with, and open more doors to open Middle Eastern art and culture to other parts in Canada.”