http://nadour.org/artwork en wellsdjohn@gmail.com Copyright 2012 2012-05-02T09:41:30+00:00 /collection/moments-of-glory /collection/moments-of-glory#When:09:41:30Z Is this laziness on the part of the critic unable to grasp an artwork outside of his own value system? Does it show the stigmas created by the globalization of the art world from a Western point of view? Moments of Glory is an installation which revives one of the most commonly accepted forms in contemporary art, neon, the mere use of which seems to immediately qualify any production as a work of art.  If we compare it to Bruce Nauman’s original aim when he created his first neon back in 1967 (1), to make something that would not appear to be art, the formula might raise a smile, since the medium has become so widespread as to add the aesthetic equation “neon equals art”. Beyond merely a form that may question by means of cliché the notion of a work of art, Leila Pazooki’s multi-coloured tube writing reveals the parallels that are too easily drawn between some great names in Western art history and other artists from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Might it then be possible to discover an Iranian Jeff Koons, an Indian Damien Hirst, a Dali from Bali, or even a Renoir from South Africa?  There are so many quotes from the press that reveal a certain reluctance to consider every artistic production independently, without an accompanying reference to some supposed Western counterpart. Is this laziness on the part of the critic unable to grasp an artwork outside of his own value system? Is it the desire to assert the supremacy of the Western art scene over the rest of the world? Or does it show the stigmas created by the globalization of the art world from a Western point of view? Leila Pazooki explores the complexity of aesthetic relationships defined according to their geographical context between coming together, subsidence and separation. Vérane Pina Translated by Theodora Taylor (1) Bruce Nauman, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967) Sculpture, Installation 2012-05-02T09:41:30+00:00 /collection/leila-pazooki-women-eating /collection/leila-pazooki-women-eating#When:08:55:13Z On the border between licit and illicit images, "Women Eating" reveals the transgressive creativity of Iranian cinema, where the imposed framework has become the catalyst for a new kind of expression… Following on from the project The Aesthetics of Censorship begun in 2009, Leila Pazooki has turned her attention to Iranian cinema, which has been subjected to strict state-imposed censorship since the revolution of 1979. With the creation of a Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance whose purpose is to Islamize all types of art and artistic activity, the state wishes to maintain a national production by driving forward a public policy that focuses on films that are “pure and stripped of any vulgarity”[1]. Therefore Iranian cinema is restricted to conforming to a particular “Islamic moral code”, from the writing of the screenplay to the making, production and even the distribution of a film. No more representations of women in clothes that could reveal any part of their bodies, with the exception of the face and hands. No more physical contact between men and women, however it might be portrayed. As a result, the dictates of censorship have encouraged the emergence of a new wave in cinema, collectively known as “Islamic Hollywood”. If for Hollywood, sex, eroticism and violence are the basic ingredients in every cinema production, “Islamic Hollywood” has succeeded in finding its own recipes in order to get past the restrictions imposed by censorship whilst continuing to entertain the public. So for her video Women Eating (2010) Leila Pazooki has selected extracts of Farsi films showing women engaged in the seemingly banal act of the consumption of food on screen. Since any explicitly erotic element is no longer permissible, this comes through in the symbolic depiction of a woman who may bring a simple food – solid or liquid- to her mouth, thereby evoking the sexual act itself. Paradoxically, by imposing the wearing of a headscarf this far into the private sphere on screen, the censorship that restricts female representation has engendered a much greater emphasis on the expressiveness of the gaze and the eroticizing of the mouth, made deliberately dramatic in the close-up frames. On the border between licit and illicit images, Women Eating reveals the transgressive creativity of Iranian cinema, able to transcend moral, religious and ideological structures, where the imposed framework has become the catalyst for a new kind of expression… Vérane Pina Translated by Theodora Taylor. [1] Agnès Devictor “A public policy for cinema: the case of the Iranian Islamic Republic” in Politix, vol.16, no. 61, 2003, p.151-178 Video 2012-04-24T08:55:13+00:00 /collection/the-aesthetic-of-censorship /collection/the-aesthetic-of-censorship#When:17:33:37Z Can there be an aesthetic value in an iconoclastic intervention? Leila Pazooki’s take on this project as a combination of the artistic and the sociological is revealed by its contradictory title. Can there be an aesthetic value in an iconoclastic intervention? What happens to beauty when the logic behind censorship is to conceal and detract, as historically authority has used it to prevent freedom of thought and creativity? Think of Trotsky, erased from the official photos of the Stalinist regime or of Michelangelo’s nudes in the Sistine Chapel, covered over until the 1980’s. Unlike a complete ban, the aim of a retouch is to soften the taboo image, making it acceptable to be viewed. Those creators of the images on display have been driven by this ambiguous intention. The piece consists of a number of reproductions of works of Western art: extracts from books from the library of the University of Fine Art in Tehran, where Leila Pazooki studied painting. It was between 2004 and 2008 during various trips to her native town that she secretly collected the pictures, amongst them Nymphs of the Spring by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Edouard Manet’s Olympia and Ingres’ Violin by Man Ray. The censorship is sometimes brutal here, or awkward where the flat translucent areas of coloured gouache render the “embarrassing” elements of the artwork more obvious and desirable. Whether it is applied to images from journalism or art, censorship provides a marker for a society’s values, aspirations and taboos. In the sound piece that accompanies the photographs Leila Pazooki gives a voice to an authorized censor, revealing the ideological motivation behind the piece but also the aesthetic choices and techniques that guide these subjective “reworkings”. And the displacement of these found images effectively puts their status into question, challenging museum conventions and the concept of originality in art. Removed from their political and religious context, these documents become iconic when the artist mounts them in antique gold frames [1]. It is only then, that these images that have been reproduced a thousand times, reveal their unique and singular craftsmanship, as if this gesture was no longer destructive but rather creative. Irène Burkel Translated by Theodora Taylor. [1] In 1953 Robert Rauschenberg made a similarly radical gesture in his Erased de Kooning Drawing in which he erased a drawing by Willem de Kooning. To accompany this appropriation/homage, Rauschenberg inscribed the title of the work by hand on a sheet of paper, which he mounted in a gold frame. Installation 2012-03-25T17:33:37+00:00 /collection/the-newer-middle-east /collection/the-newer-middle-east#When:18:20:22Z Borders in Africa and West Asia are amusingly straight only because they were crudely drawn on drawing-tables with a ruler and a fountain pen. Generally, I am interested when absurdity is or becomes the form.  Oraib Toukan   The New(er) Middle East consists of an interactive puzzle that engages the public to re-assemble a territorial map of the Middle East made from suspended plastic-magnet bits.  The bits are fragments of the region's actual nation states.  The work is a play on the so-called ‘New Middle East Map’ a plan that has been frantically distributed in various conspiracy theory circles and in some mainstream media since its inception in June 2006.  The map was originally suggested by retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, as his ‘proposition’ of ‘how a better Middle East would look.’  The puzzle was cut by overlapping his proposed map of the Middle East (Egypt to Pakistan) with the current, post World-War-II, map of the same area. Sculpture 2012-03-14T18:20:22+00:00 /collection/reza-aramesh-action-103 /collection/reza-aramesh-action-103#When:14:52:51Z Vulnerable and abandoned, as if summoned by the after-life, the figure drawn into this posture and this face carries a religious dimension. Reza Aramesh’s art is sourced from the images of conflict, war and hostage taking feature daily in the news. Hostilities, passions and dramas so powerfully expressed in the media have inspired the Iranian artist to create a corpus of gestures and poses that recur as a motif in an oeuvre that is alternately photographic and sculptural. By photographing live tableaux or by wooden sculpture, Reza Aramesh revives images gathered from the world’s press to produce what he calls “Actions”. The painted wooden sculpture Action 103 is based on the arrest of an Iraqi civilian in February 2006 by his country’s special police force. Face to the wall, the young man holds his arms above his head in an ambiguous pose, perhaps from fear as much as resignation. Vulnerable and abandoned, as if summoned by the after-life, the figure drawn into this posture and this face carries a religious dimension. Inspired by the iconography of the 17th Century, the golden age of Spanish statuary and its representations of saints and martyrs, the artist isolates his subject from all exterior elements in order to concentrate the effect. So no weapons, or any other signs bear witness to the violence of the scene. From this “decontextualisation” an archetypal figure has been created, frozen into a pose that seems timeless. Only one or two physical clues: his clothes, his haircut, allow any rapid understanding of the circumstances portrayed. Cut from a single block of wood with traditional tools and materials, this sculpture forms part of a series produced in Italy in a long-established workshop that specializes in church statuary. The hyper-realistic figure is raised slightly above ground on a plinth inlaid with marquetry, specially made in the United Kingdom, its complex geometric pattern evoking the traditional ornamental floors of Islamic tradition. Translated by Theodora Taylor. Sculpture 2012-02-28T14:52:51+00:00 /collection/taysir-batniji-hannoun /collection/taysir-batniji-hannoun#When:11:42:23Z Hannoun was thought – beyond any political or geographical concern – as an ideal space, a space of meditation, of dream, an intimate sphere, light, fragile yet imposing at the same time…an impenetrable space…inaccessible…mirroring my "Atelier" in Gaza. This artwork has been created for the 1st Palestinian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (June, 2009). The Hannoun project (poppy in Palestinian dialect) is based on scattering red pencil shavings on the ground. The red shavings suggest the appearance of a field of poppies: an impalpable landscape that one observes as in a dream from an un-crossable vantage point. This piece follows several performative projects, undertaken in the last few years that evoke notions of memory, erasure, non-being, and destruction/construction or (deconstruction /restitution). Each of these “acted shapes” is the result of obsessional, repetitive, and often useless or absurd gestures. In Palestinian consciousness and literature, the poppy has often been associated with the memory of freedom fighters. Despite this obvious symbolism,and especially through the repetitive act of pencil sharpening, Hannoun relates to a childhood memory. At school, to make sure we learnt our lessons we had to copy them by hand with a pencil, many times, especially during the holidays. Unconsciously trying to escape this exercise, I would spend my time sharpening pencils, under the pretext that they were never sharp enough. Invariably, I would skip my homework. Hannoun was thought  – beyond any political or geographical concern – as an ideal space, a space of meditation, of dream, an intimate sphere, light, fragile yet imposing at the same time…an impenetrable space…inaccessible…mirroring my Atelier (22.06.2006-07.06.2009) in Gaza. Barely had the construction of my atelier in Gaza been completed in 2001, I had to leave again. Each year, when I return home (which is no longer possible since the borders were closed by the Israelis in 2006), I open my studio, abandoned ever since, go over my things and clear the dust on the ground. By then, it would be time to leave again, and the atelier is closed once more. Gaza has become a real yet unreachable place of production. Paris, or elsewhere, offers the possibility of production without the physical space to realize it. Just as an atelier is a space in which to elaborate, construct and work, Hannoun is “the attempt of an oeuvre” where what we perceive is not so much a finished product but rather the traces of its possible realization. Taysir Batniji, co-written with Sophie Jaulmes Translated by Carole Corm. Installation, Performance 2012-02-07T11:42:23+00:00 /collection/taysir-batniji-suspended-time /collection/taysir-batniji-suspended-time#When:20:17:15Z ... between presence and absence, impermanence and constancy, immobility and itinerancy, deconstruction and restitution. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.  Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. Article 13, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) A far cry from the exploitative imagery used by the media, Taysir Batniji puts forward an interpretation distanced from events that mark out the situation in his country of origin, events which have prevented his return to Gaza since June 2006.  Continuing the theme of a series of works produced by the artist since that historic date, Suspended Time is witness to a suspended reality, symbolized here by an hourglass placed on it side, which prevents the grains of sand from flowing freely.  From this constrained condition which is a part of everyday life for the Palestinians, and takes account of the complexity of such a restrictive existence upon the individual, Taysir Batniji has developed a work in dialogue with a socio-political theme determined by a relationship conditional to space and time. In the same way, Man cannot live by bread alone (2007) recalls the essential right of all individuals regarding the freedom of movement, a freedom expressed by Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and in which the chocolate inscription melts before its disappearance.  Also, Untitled (2007) shows a glass copy of the bunch of keys used by the artist before his departure from Gaza, a fragile trophy from a past existence to which he can never return.  Echoing the collective dispossession of land in 1948, since which date the Palestinians have preserved the keys of their houses in the hope of one day returning, Untitled (1997) also expresses the difficulty of a life of enforced itinerancy, here evoked by the imprints of rusty keys on rolled canvases.  To the eventalism of the narrative, Taysir Batniji prefers the more poetic, and no less conceptual dimension, of an artistic approach which avoids the clichés of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in order to better represent some aspects of it: a conflict between presence and absence, impermanence and constancy, immobility and itinerancy, deconstruction and restitution. Vérane Pina Translated by Theodora Taylor Sculpture 2012-01-24T20:17:15+00:00 /collection/taysir-batniji-transit /collection/taysir-batniji-transit#When:11:01:35Z As Israeli forces arbitrarily limit the number of entries per day, passengers crowd on Egyptian side of the border. So then begins the waiting which can last a day to weeks sometimes… Filming or taking pictures in transit areas between Egypt and Gaza is forbidden. The lack of images due to this fact is underlined in this video by the editing: still images hurriedly taken, irregularly punctuated with blank spaces (blacks), appear as a slide show, the only sound dimension is the noise of the slide projector. As a conclusion, a unique sequence in movement (in slow-motion). Transit, made in September 2004, deals with the conditions of the difficult, or even the impossible mobility of Palestinians nowadays. In recent years, especially since the beginning of the second Intifada in 2001, Rafah is the only way to enter or leave the country. From the arrival at the airport of Cairo, men traveling alone, not allowed to move in Egypt, are taken from the passengers and kept under surveillance in basement of the airport until morning, departure time of an escorted bus to the Palestinian “border” under Egyptian and Israeli control. After almost six hours, Palestinians join men, women (of all ages) and children who wait already in Rafah. As Israeli forces arbitrarily limit the number of entries per day, passengers crowd on Egyptian side of the border. So then begins the waiting which can last a day to weeks sometimes… Conditions in this earth port are difficult especially during summer (heat, tiredness, humiliation, precarious conditions of hygiene…) Transit is part of a reflection I have led since 1997 on notions of involuntary or voluntary displacements and travels. I am especially interested in the state of in-between: in-between identities, in-between cultures...  The video Transit consists in a work of counter-information about a city at the border of Israel, Palestine and Egypt. Rafah, unknown to the global media, hits the local headlines daily. Unauthorized video-maker, passenger among passengers, I distinguish myself from a reporter because I do not represent any government or ideology. The fixed images clumsily framed which slowly follow one another and where nothing happens except the wait of the passengers, are also in contradiction with the spectular events hunted down by the mass media emissaries. Nonetheless, I try to document a current issue from the inside: the life of Palestinians (and others) who try every day to cross a border sealed by the power of a military control. Taysir Batniji Text edited by Sophie Jaulmes. Video 2012-01-02T11:01:35+00:00 /collection/manal-al-dowayan-landscape-of-the-mind /collection/manal-al-dowayan-landscape-of-the-mind#When:21:24:01Z By associating objectivity and fantasy, the individual’s perception and the collective imagination, a feminine viewpoint and a masculine organisation of space, Manal Al-Dowayan highlights the part of construction in reading a landscape. The surrealists substituted the “interior landscape” for the romantic idea of landscape as a “state of the soul”.  Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy represented dreams and the unconscious as deserts, punctuated with figures and objects. Strange and ghostly, the images in the series Landscapes of the Mind belong at first glance to this tradition. The eclecticism of the series evokes the disruption of a surrealist collage: over photographs of views of her region, the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, the artist has affixed codified motifs from other styles ; women in black veils, compressed silhouettes, imposed figures of all media representation of the kingdom.  Eyes and made-up mouths floating in the sky, rising index of women’s hands dyed with henna, monumental, on top of a mountain or a petrol tank,  doves, palm trees.  How is this for exoticism? The repetition of these signs, symbols of glamour recalls the seriality reminiscent of Pop Art, while the landscapes which make up the background of the images are arid, “without qualities” and difficult to interpret. With her montage, Manal Al Dowayan, confronts her personal vision of these landscapes, fed by her own experience, with that of an observer of the outside, a foreigner, troubled by projections and stereotypes.  It is also about underlining the absence of autonomy, of visibility and of freedom of speech for women, in this oil-producing region but also throughout the kingdom.  The mouths and pointed fingers are emblems for speech and the affirmation of self, the doves represent liberty.  By associating objectivity and fantasy, the individual’s perception and the collective imagination, a feminine viewpoint and a masculine organisation of space, Manal Al-Dowayan highlights the part of construction in reading a landscape. Irène Burkel Translated by Theodora Taylor Photography 2011-12-18T21:24:01+00:00 /collection/saadane-afif-national-glasgow /collection/saadane-afif-national-glasgow#When:17:09:36Z A revolution of fear: it is not others who threaten us but a world which no longer functions except by the manipulation of forms and images up to saturation point. In National  (Glasgow), it is the force of the symbol which instantly strikes the viewer  which appears to  have  been assembled almost by accident , randomly,  with three  pieces of clothing strung  up end-to-end like washing hung out to dry. The three colours act as an immediate reference to the French flag – the title, National (the Glasgow part signifying simply where it was made), leaves no doubt as to the subject. The impersonal and derisory nature of the elements used:  two tops and a football shirt, suggest contempt for the possible identity referred to by the flag’s colours; the nation represented by purely market values offers an ironic and literal interpretation about diversity – under the guise of a plurality of sartorial styles.  The identity linked to the flag could be itself reduced to the appearance that is nothing more than coincidental. Saâdane Afif, by limiting to a minimum any signs of his own intervention, lets the simplicity of his forms work by enabling the unexpected and brutal outburst of a question of burning topicality.  By opposing the simplistic views which have already set the rules about the question of what makes a nation – and those connected to it– nationality, rights, fear of others - he raises a conflicting view: the importance of uncovering something substantial beneath the basic  symbolism. The piece thus risks reaching a conclusion whereby the elements which assure cohesion of our community behind the images are exhausted.  A revolution of fear:  it is not others who threaten us but a world which no longer functions except by the manipulation of forms and images up to saturation point. Michaël Verger-Laurent Translated Theodora Taylor Installation 2011-11-24T17:09:36+00:00