ديجا فو: نقد لمحاولتي استرداد في الحدث الفني المصري المعاصر - عن محمد عبدالله

ترددت كثيراً قبل ان أقرر الجلوس للكتابة حول حالة مزاجية لمستها في الحدث الفني المعاصر الحالي في مصر.  حالة مزاجية تتميز بحداثة السن والإيجابية بل وربما إلى حد ما بعدائية.  وقد وجدتني طوال الأسبوعين الماضيين بصدد عدد من النقاشات حول طبيعة تلك الحالة وبالأخص فيما يتعلق بمحاولتين بعينهما وقعتا – لا مصادفة - في يناير/ كانون ثاني 2012.  أولى هاتين اللحظتين هي كايرو دوكيومنتا في دورته الثانية، وثانيتهما هي معرض شفت ديليت ثرتي (وأعتذر إذ لم يتكبد منظمو المعرضين على حد علمي أي مجهود لتعريب الاسمين).

أججت تلك النقاشات التحليل التالي إذ صارت وقوداً له.  ورغم ما قد يبدو للبعض تهميشاً لذلك الكم من الأعمال الفنية والفنانين الذي تشكلت منه كلا اللحظتان، فقد ارتأيت أن أتجنّب نقد أياً من تلك الأعمال.  ربما شفقة بذاتي، إذ لا قبل لي بأن أجد لي مدخلاً لتفكيك ذلك النسيج الفني المتشابك، عسى أن أتحرر يوماً من ذلك الذعر.  إلى أن يأتي ذلك اليوم فسأكتفي بأن أحاول في الصفحة التالية أو ما قارب إرساء سمة مشتركة لمستها فيما بين المشهدين.  كلا اللحظتان في رأيي فعلا استرداد فاشل، رؤيتا تمكين أجهضتا بينما تحاولان التهام أكثر مما يتسع فاهما، فلفظتاه كما هو.

المشهد الأول: كايرو دوكيومنتا

أدخن سيكارة في فضاء عرض مرتجل لأعمال قرابة 25 فناناً مصرياً شاباً داخل مبنى فندق الفينواز.  يشرح لنا أحد رؤوس تلك المبادرة آلية المشاركة والاختيار، وقد كانت كما يلي: في قلب المبادرة يقبع فريق من ستة فنانين (مجلس الأمناء) ويشاركون بالطبع بأعمالهم، يقوم كل من مجلس الستة بترشيح فنانين اثنين، ثم يقوم كل منهم بدوره بترشيح اثنين في منظومة تفرع متشعب.  ليس ثمة موضوع ولا نية قيمية ولا مناقشة ولا حتى محددات مساحية.  جل ما هنالك هو مجموعة الستة (هل ذكرت أنهم يطلقون عليها مجلس الأمناء؟) التي تقرر نهائياً من تقبل مشاركته ومن يرفض.

لا يخفى على المتابع للدورة الأولى من كايرو دوكيومنتا عبث تلك المنظومة لدى مقارنتها بالإعلان الذي أطلقته المبادرة قبل عام واحد لا أكثر (انظر مقال مي الوكيل الرائع حول الدورة الأولى). لقد كان جوهر الحدث عندها – بل واليوم كذلك على الرغم من المساعي المتعمدة لتجريد المعرض والأعمال من أي تسييس أو سياق -  هو عدائه للمؤسسة ولممارسات القيمين في محاولة لتصوّر ديناميات أخرى وسلطة أخرى ليست بالضرورة سلطة القيّم.  ما كان مقدر لها يوماً أن تكون تربة خصبة لمجموعة من أكثر عناصر جيلهم إبداعاً من أجل نمو ما قد يكون أحدث أنظمة صناعة القرار وتمكين الفرد، استكملت دورتها وتوصلت لاستنتاج أنه من العسير على قرابة 25 فرداً التوصل لقرار جماعي، ليس بشكل عملي أو في إطار زمني فعال على الأقل.  لابد لمجلس الستة أن يقرر عنهم، وعلى البقية أن تتبع القرار.

التلويح هنا كان بفعل استرداد الفرد لاستقلاله عن المؤسسة، وهي محاولة شديدة الإثارة حبسنا أنفاسنا في انتظار ما قد تسفر عنه من تجليات جديدة.  منيت المحاولة بالفشل، ولم يتم استرداد شيء.  لقد أنشأت مؤسسة بين الأفراد ولكنها مصمتة هذه المرة.  أكرر أن أنه قد جرى تجريد متعمد للأعمال من السياق، فصرنا نتساءل ازائها عما نفتقده فيها.  أود أن أزج برأيي هنا، إذ أعتقد أن ما كان ينقص التجربة هو الفضاء الحواري.  هل من المفترض أن نصدق أنه لدى منح الفنان مطلق الحرية لدى تقرير جميع الأمور ابتداء من ظروف العرض وانتهاء بالعلاقات الجمالية والمساحية بين الأعمال وبعضها البعض، فإن الفنان يقرر الخيار الاعتيادي بل التوفيقي؟ أشارت صديقة في حصافة إلى طرافة تعليق جميع الأعمال تقريباً على ارتفاع واحد، باستثنا عملين أو ثلاثة.

المشهد الثاني: شفت ديليت ثرتي

أقف في مركز سعد زغلول الثقافي أمام تجهيز فيديو من قناتين.  التجهيز غير مشغل.  ديجا فو؟

يختلف المذهب هنا جملة وتفصيلاً عن كايرو دوكيومنتا، فنحن هنا بصدد قيّمتين اثنتين لهما موضوع قيميَ جليّ أسفر عن عرض مسيّس واستجابي بل ارتكاسي إن شئنا القسوة.  عدد الفنانين أقل هنا الأمر الذي يلمح إلى مقاربة أكثر انتقائية بالمقارنة بالمنهج التشعبي.  لا يمنع ذلك تكرر حالة الاسترداد.

إننا هنا إزاء قيّمتين تحاولان العمل ضمن المنظومة الرسمية، فإن مركز سعد زغلول فضاء حكومي في نهاية الأمر.  تسهى القيمتيان في شجاعة إلى الدفع بالممارسات القيّمية في قلب أجهزة الدولة، وإلى تقديم أعمال نقدية وسياسية لجيل شاب من الفنانين تحت أنف الدولة وباستخدام مواردها، وإلى أن يجري كل ذلك بشكل جيد.  ثمة هنا تفوّق واضح في الاهتمام بظروف العرض والتجهيز، وعلى الرغم من ذلك فإنني بصدد الدفع بفشل محاولة الاسترداد تلك أيضاً.

إن إشكالية تعامل الدولة مع الفن متعددة الأوجه.  لا جدال حول أهمية السعي إلى استرداد الموارد، ولكن ما ينبغي استرداده ربما أكثر من الموارد لهو الموقف من الفن، إنه الاهتمام بالخطاب الفني أو الاستجابة له على أقل تقدير.  ليس ثمة استرداد طالما لا يزال عشرون موظفاً أو ما ينيف يلتهمون شطائر الفلافل في مكاتبهم الضيقة التي تفتح أبوابها على قاعات العرض.  يمكننا بالطبع التجادل حول مسألة “القيمة المقدسة” لفضاء العرض، ولكن لا مجال لذلك الجدل إلى أن نعترف به، إلى أن نفسح له مجالاً في العقلية العامة.  وبالمثل فقد حقّرت الدولة من قيمة النقاش العام لأسباب لا تخفى على أحد، وإنني لم أر أي استرداد في وضع برنامج نقاشي عام ثم إهمال ترويجه للجمهور – ربما لتسرب شك الدولة المضمن في قيمته إلى عقليات المنظمين - بل والفشل في تظيمه بشكل يحترم المتحدثين ويليق بهم.  وأخيراً فليس ثمة أي استرداد في تنظيم عرض يتناول محو ثلاثين عاماً من ذاكرة جيل دون تقديم فنانة واحدة وكأنما تقيّدنا – بلا وعي - القيم المترسبة لدولة سلطة الذكر.  إن التأثير على السرديات الرسمية ومنظومة قيّمها ومؤسساتها ودينمايات القوى فيها إنما يبدأ بتحدّي تلك المسائل وليس باعتناقها.

لقد تعلّمت منذ فترة وجيزة ألا أتساءل حول دوافع أي فنان، وإنني لست بصدد ذلك الآن بأي شكل.  إن ما يثير فضولي هو ممارسات الاسترداد التي باءت بالفشل ومحاولات التمكين المحبطة وفوق كل شيء التساؤلات والجدل الموازي لها وما ينشأ عنها من تغيير في الديناميات.

عن مدونة غاردن سيتي moabdallah.wordpress.com

Déjà Vu: A Critique of Two Attempts of Reclamation in the Egyptian Contemporary Art Sphere - by Mohammed Abdallah

I hesitated a great deal before sitting down and writing about a certain temperament I identified in the current Egyptian contemporary art sphere. It is a temperament that is young, proactive, and to some extent aggressive. I have in the past weeks been engaged in multiple conversation and debates about two particular attempts that took place in January 2012, the date is no coincidence. The first moment is the second edition of Cairo Documenta, the other is Shift Delete 30.

The conversations fueled the following reflection. At the risk of margenalising the multitude of artwork and artists involved in those two moments, I have decided not to critique the art. Perhaps out of shear pity for my own self as I have no clue where to begin unpacking that wealth of artistic production, a sentiment perhaps I may free myself of one day. For the moment I will try in the next page or so to establish a specific common feature I have identified between the two scenes. Both moments are, in my view, failed acts of reclamation, two frustrated visions of empowerment that bit more than they could chew, so they spat it back as it is.

Scene one: Cairo Documenta

I am smoking a cigarette inside the make-shift exhibition space of the 25 or so young Egyptian artists showing in the Viennoise building. One of the leading figures of that initiatives is explaining to me and to others the mechanism of participation and selection, and it goes like this: at the core there is a group of 6 artists (The Board) whose work is of course shown, each of the six nominates two other artists, each of whom in turn nominates two more in a branching scheme. There is no theme, there is no curatorial notion, there is no discussion, and there are no spatial restrictions. The only thing there is a group of six (did I mention they refer to themselves as The Board?) who ultimately decide who is in, and who is not.

Anyone who is familiar with the first Cairo Documenta is aware of the absurdity of this system when cross examined with their published manifesto no more than one year ago, which ‘proposed an alternative model for exhibition design, one that is free from the conditions and frameworks imposed by art institutions and practicing curators,’ as Mai Elwakil puts it in her brilliant review last year. The gesture then, and even now despite the deliberate apoliticisation and decontextualisation of the show and the works within, was supposedly anti-institutional, an attempt to imagine different dynamics, a new authority that is not curatorial. What started out as a fertile soil for a group of the most creative individuals in the country to try and develop what could have been the most novel system for decision making and individual empowerment completed its full orbit and came back to the conclusion that 25 or so people cannot decide for themselves, at least not in a practical and time effective way. A Board of six must make some decisions and the rest will have to comply.

The gesture here was an act of the individual reclaiming her agency from the institution, a most intriguing attempt that many of us held their breath in anticipation of some new revelations. The attempt fails, and nothing is reclaimed. An institution is created within the individuals, only this time it is an opaque one. Again the work was deliberately decontextualised, we are left with a lot of question marks hovering over our heads, we feel unsatisfied and somehow wondering what it is we feel is missing. I personally argue that it is the discursive space that is missing. Are we to believe that when artists are given absolute agency over deciding everything from the conditions of showing to the inherited spatial and aesthetic relationships between artworks, the artists would opt for not only the conventional but even the compromising? A friend so rightfully pointed out that it is most interesting that with the exception of one or two pieces all the artists installed their work roughly at the same height.

Scene two: Shift Delete 30

 
I am standing at Saad Zaghloul Cultural Center before a two channel video installation. The installation is switched off. Déjà vu anyone?

The ideology here is radically different than that of Cairo Documenta, there are two curators, a forceful curatorial theme, and the show is political and responsive, perhaps even reactionary if you wished to be cruel. The number of artists is smaller too, implying a more selective approach than the branching scheme. However there is reclamation here no less.

Here is two curators working within the official sphere, Saad Zaghloul Center is after all a governmental space. The curators’ courageous attempt is to bring curatorial practice within the official apparatus, to present the political and critical works of this young group of artists under the nose of the state, and with its resources, and to do it well. There is evidently far more superior attentiveness to the conditions of showing and installation here. However I would argue that this attempt at reclaiming the state’s venues is yet another failure.

The problem with the state’s interaction with art is multifaceted. Reclaiming resources is undoubtfully crucial, however what needs to be reclaimed even more is the attitude, the attentiveness to artistic discourses, or at least interacting with them. No reclamation is successful as long as the 20 so idle government workers are still having their falafel sandwiches in their crammed offices with open doors exposed to the exhibition space. We could surely question the “sacred value” of the exhibition space, but we can’t do that before we give owe to it, before we create a room for it in the public mindset. Similarly, the state has for a long time and for obvious reasons undermined the value of public discourse, I didn’t see any reclamation in putting together a potentially critical discursive programme and not only fail to publicise it, perhaps again unconsciously subscribing to an official disbelieve in its value, but even fail to organise it in a fashion that is respectful even to the speakers. There is no reclamation whatsoever in a show about cancelling 30 years of generation’s memory that doesn’t feature one single female artist, as if, even coincidently, bound by the inherited values of a patriarchal state. Affecting an official narrative, system of values, structure, power dynamics begins by challenging those very issues, not taking them on.

I have learned a while ago never to question an artist’s motives. By no means am I doing that here. What I am most curious about is failed acts of reclamation, frustrated attempts of empowerment, and above all the questions and debates adjacent to a those attempts and the shift of dynamics they evoke.

Originally published on Garden City moabdallah.wordpress.com

Obsession Sessions with Henrik & Sofia - by Ibraheem Youssef

During my time at SidLee in Montréal earlier this year, I was fortunate to be exposed to such a myriad of national and international talent. Among the inspiring people that I encountered, Henrik Leichsenring & Sofia Gillström are one of the few that stood out amongst the crowd. Not only are they extremely cheerful individuals, but they also are a supreme dynamic husband & wife creative duo. Being around them, one can’t help but feel really motivated to be the best version of themselves and aspire to reach constantly new creative heights. Once again, I’m truly grateful to know such creative talents.

I: What’s the earliest memory of a creative activity you did?

S: I remember thinking I could build a robot, I must have been 5 or 6. I made it out of cardboard boxes. I guess I was disappointed when I realized I couldn’t make it walk or talk.

H: I’ve actually tried on something similar. I was about the same age trying to build a helicopter with just one piece of wood and a hammer. I was hammering on that piece of wood for a while until I realized that wood will never fly. I gave up on that and carried on playing with toys not made by me.

I: If you weren’t doing what you do right now, what would you be doing?

HS: We would be inventors. We would hook up with like minded developers and business savvy people and make cool shit happen. In fact, that’s the next step for us I believe. We have a lot of ideas we want to see come to life, you know walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

I: Inspiration, who? what? where?

S: Maybe the most obvious answer right now, but Steve Jobs was an amazing smart and creative person. I guess you don’t appreciate people as much when they’re alive as when they pass away.

H: I get inspired by people around me that is about to move to new places, take on new challenges, getting into the unknown if you will. People taking risks in general inspires me and broadens my mind.

I: Share any of piece your work, recent or old and talk about it.

HS: Mixable Dancer is probably our favorite work up to date mainly because it was an idea we had that we could execute by ourselves in our apartment. It was a cool experience that you could make a lot of buzz on the internet with a simple idea that didn’t cost us more than a rabbit mask to make.

It is basically an interactive YouTube video where the user mixes the song and visual. It has almost 100 000 views today and the reaction on blogs was great and we even got an interview on Underwire (Wired magazine blog). We have a dozen ideas like this waiting to get started on, just need a few more people in our network to make it happen. Good times!

I: Name 5 websites that you check often.

S: Facebook and twitter is the first thing I check, there I have a collection of all my friends cool links. Buzzfeed gives me a daily dose of LOLs and other cool stuff. I get design inspiration from sites like Behance, awwwards and ffffound. Dvice is my favorite site to get insights about technology and some insights for what the future holds. I’m all into fashion and pop culture, and the Nylon blog does a good job of bringing me both.

H: Same here, I get my daily dose of cats out of twitter, Facebook and YouTube like everyone else. Lately I’ve been working on web related projects so I’ve been camping on sites like awwwards, siteinspire, cssdsgn and similar for cool stuff to steal. Lastly I spend a lot of time on feber (fever) a Swedish blog about everything news worthy.

Preview: Hydrarchy – Transitional and Transformative Seas - by Hannah Mae Cooper

In October 1967, the Suez Canal’s Bitter Lake became home to fourteen international cargo ships, trapped in a legal grey zone caused by the Six-Day War. Officially un-allowed to contact the shore, the ships were stuck for eight years, the crews continued with operations as their contracts required them to do so.

The few available traces of this intriguing but little-known anecdote were researched by artist Uriel Orlow; one of the many amazing, but unseen stories of the sea explored by Hydrarchy.

Opening Friday, December 9^TH, 7:00PM at Contemporary Image Collective (CIC), this exhibition leaves land to explore the sea, the ship, and the offshore as “remarkable and contested cultural, political, legal and socio-economic territories”; intertwined with both historical and contemporary narratives of resistance. As conventional shipping and state military forces take full advantage of the sea, non-state actors such as pirates and ‘illegal’ migrants also make use of the sea’s flexible circumstances by achieving their goals through constantly changing tactics and opportunities.

Hydrarchy – Transitional and Transformative Seas is the second part of a two-phase project, which started with Hydrarchy - Power and Resistance at Sea 

that took place in London at Gasworks and the University of Central London in September 2010.

As a volunteer worker at CIC, I had the chance to talk more with Mia Jankowicz, CIC’s art director and as one arm of Hydrarchy’s curatorial team, she provided insight into the conceptualization of the exhibition and its overall relationship to both historical and present-day Egypt:

“Doing a show about the sea might seem like a strange and distant topic but myself and Anna Colin, the show’s co-curator, realized how little we factor in the sea when we discuss global politics. We think of history as something that happens on land, but when you look at the ways in which the sea is used by pirates, offshore financiers, smugglers and ‘irregular’ migrants - not to mention the enormous wealth of cultural material about the sea - you realize the sea provides a lot of amazing ‘loopholes’ for us to break the rules and consider the world differently.”

The sea is indeed a fascinating subject and in relationship to Egypt’s waters,

Jankowicz explains, “Egypt is not typically a maritime country, but its fate has been tied to ‘water’ factors. Look at Suez, which for thousands of years, people have wanted to develop and control as a shipping route, and in the 20th Century Suez has become an immensely symbolic site of military and nationalist pride. We became fascinated by issues like these where the use and control of water routes became not only historical events in themselves, but actually shape the world as we know it.”

Without giving too much away, the exhibition includes seven international artists or groups – some who talk very directly to matters involving Egypt including Uriel Orlow’s work on the Suez Canal and the research group, Take to the Sea, who looks into Egyptian migration across the Mediterranean. Others take a more symbolic approach such as Ayed Arafah’s piece about the idea of a sea in Ramallah, or Lawrence Weiner’s work using the language of navigation.

As Hydrarchy includes a symposium on January 6^th, the project offers the chance to explore its ideas in more depth, and more closely in the context of Egypt’s politics today. The keynote lecture is by postcolonial theorist Iain Chambers, who has long looked at Mediterranean cultural relations, through a process he calls ‘maritime criticism”; he will be in conversation with the Egypt-based research group Take To The Sea.

The exhibition will run from December 9^TH- January 21^st. Do not miss this! 

From Berlin with Love

Part of Spring Lessons is not just documentation, but active participation in giving people a voice and finding simple, yet effective ways of doing so.

In this case, noticing that demonstrations in Berlin consisted mostly in a lot of shouting at walls, a team went out to give the participants in a demonstration in front of the German Foreign Office in Berlin the possiblity  to relay their statements directly to Egypt. We shot about 35 15- second segments, recording the name and demand of the individual interviewee.

Thanks to the hard and wonderful work of Kareem Kandiel, who shot and edited this. Marianne Wagdy, translator extraordinaire is responsible for the subtitles.

I hope other Egyptians across the world will take up this idea and emulate it.

[Originally published on CaramK.blogspot.com on November 29, 2011]