Nature Strikes Back

MAN MACHINE - PREVIEW PICS

2011-09-02T12:32:00.000+04:00

E17 Art TRAIL 2011

E17 Art Trail 2011

2011-08-04T19:53:00.001+04:00

The theme of this year's trail is 'On your Marks' which relates to the fact that E17 is in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, one of the five boroughs connected to the 2012 London Olympics. My work looks at the contradictions between the olympian and modern life. Text below is a bit dull because I've just cut and pasted the blurb from the E17 Art Trail website but more details and pics to come soon. ..

Man Machine

The physical fluidity of the Olympic ideal is a sharp contrast to the sedentary and technology- dependent reality of contemporary life. Electronic immersion now begins earlier and increasingly dominates leisure as well as work time.

An unreflective market aggressively drives desire for products that are constantly updated in terms of form, but increasingly less in terms of actual technological substance. While assessed in the broad and usually positive terms of social and political impact, the potential negatives on the level of the individual, both physically and mentally, are largely absent from the discussion.

For this year's Art Trail, I have created an installation called Man Machine, which occupies the entire front room of my house. Featuring paintings, posters, skeletons, text and an interactive wall, it is a disturbing work that explores some of the more damaging dynamics of the contemporary mind-body-machine relationship.

Walthamstow... twinned with Gaza*

2011-05-30T15:44:00.006+04:00

It is not often that my somewhat diverse worlds collide but last week they did.

I took part in a local exhibition with my arty community of Walthamstow which was great because it's the first time I've done any art for almost a year. Called The Long Conversation, this exhibition explored the relationships between poetry and art through painting, print, artist books and installation On the opening night I was amazed to discover that it also included work by a guest artist from Gaza - Majed Shala.

Majed Shala is a founding member of the Shababeek (Windows) Artist's Group in Gaza which has consistently tried to promote contemporary Gazan art and provide education and training for young Gazan artists. Shala's work has been exhibited internationally over the years but last week he was here for his first UK solo show at the Arab British Centre in London. This show was organised and coordinated by the Arts Canteen project headed by Aser El Saqqa who just happens to live in Walthamstow. As a consequence he arranged for two of Shala's works to feature in The Long Conversation as well.

Majed Shala uses Arabic text, cut up and arranged in vertical forms on canvases layered with texture and vibrant colour.These distinctive compositions suggest classical Arabic calligraphy while undermining the form at the same time. The arrangement of materials and shapes also creates a strong visual tension between abstraction and the figurative which are contained simultaneously within the image.

The show entitled Breathing the Air consisted of a series of paintings exhibited in the gallery space at the Arab British Centre (ABC) which was also a surprise. The last time I went to the ABC in 2004 it was an earnestly old fashioned organisation in a completely unmemorable office space. However, in the past few years things have definitely changed! With a small and young team of staff, ABC now focuses much more on culture and, with the help of Off Screen who share the building, it now houses an impressive collection of art by some of the Middle East's most interesting contemporary artists. It also has a great library ... but to be fair it always did.

* Twinning idea from Aser El Saqqa and Arts Canteen

A conversation with Majed Shala:
Wednesday 1 June, 6 – 8pm
Mangobajito Gallery
107 Kingsgate Rd
Inside the Kingsgate Community Centre
London NW6 2JH
Tel 020 73724144

Jumping on the Gaddafi Bandwagon...

2011-03-14T20:30:00.007+04:00

There has been a lot of coverage recently of Saif al Islam al Gaddafi, one of the sons of the (allegedly) dope smoking, finger poking, gun toting, hair dyeing one man circus who claims not to be the president of Libya. What is it with the black hair dye and Arab leaders? Gaddafi, the late Saddam, Mubarak, Ben Ali ... they were all at it. There's probably a bit of facial nip and tuck as well, particularly if you happen to be a good friend of Silvio Berlusconi.

However, my interest here is in the Gaddafi Jnr. who has appeared regularly on both Libyan and international media since the Libyan leg of the regional revolutionary tour kicked off. In Libya he seems to be on TV doing very bad impersonations of his Dad, while his international appearances have consisted of indignation, regime justification and the high drama of embracing the inevitability of a political martyr's death on national soil.

Given Saif al Islam's connection to the UK there has been considerable hand wringing especially about his links to the London School of Economics, which has since disassociated itself from him and his generous donation. This is a little hypocritical given some of their other sources of funding but this is an issue for many UK universities that will no doubt worsen after huge spending cuts to higher education by the current UK government.

Despite all this coverage and analysis there has been almost no mention of Saif al Islam Gaddafi's former career as an artist. His association with The Desert is Not Silent, a touring exhibition of Libyan antiquities and contemporary art was occasionally mentioned but nobody had picked up on the fact that a substantial number of works in that exhibition were actually painted by Saif al Islam himself.

The Desert is Not Silent was most recently shown in Moscow in 2010 but was launched in London in 2002. It was a huge, champagne flowing affair in a specially constructed tent (sound familiar?) in Kensington packed with a bizarre and uneasy mix of politicians,.diplomats, academics, spooks, fixers, journalists and a few tokens from the art world.

The exhibition included the work of several contemporary Libyan artists and a collection of antiquities all of which were very interesting. However, because it was essentially Saif al Islam's project and he was present, it was his work which dominated. One of the rumours circulating the big tent was that he hadn't actually painted them himself. Fortunately, spouse knew the security man at the event so I was able to glide easily through the largely psychophantic (sic) crowd and get close enough for a question. I asked him about the technique and material used on one particular highly textured work and he gave me a very enthusiastic and plausible answer. So I believe he did paint them.... or at least the one I asked about!

If only he had stuck to the painting who knows where he could be now? Probably not at the Sharjah Biennial but possibly at Art Dubai. Incidentally, I found an article about him published in The National to coincide with last year's Moscow opening and it is a most informative read!

Unfortunately, The Desert is not Silent website just happens to be down for maintenance so for those of you who were wondering about the work of the Gaddafi 'Prince Formerly Known as Artist', here is a selection from the 2002 catalogue. It probably breaches copyright laws but I couldn't get hold of him to ask for permission and I'm guessing he's too busy to sue right now.

An article written about this exhibition at the time included parts of an interview with Saif al Islam and ends with the line:

So what of the future? Is there a Gaddafi succession planned? "No," he said. "Not me or anyone else. There will be no succession after my father. There will be a democracy."

All going according to plan then?

The Challenge

The image above received more attention at the exhibition than any other which was not entirely fair because there were more interesting works. However, Gaddafi Senior looming over earthly proceedings from the sky is a guaranteed attention grabber. Painted in 2000, part of the catalogue text for this read:

Libya was as strong as a rock against which the arrogance of the neo-crusaders was broken. In this tragedy of the new world order the leader becomes the 'unique eagle'.

Only two other images had any political theme or content. War (relating to Kosovo) and Intifada which could easily be a symbol of some more recent revolutions! Most other works reflected themes of bedouin culture, desert landscape, abstract colour and the emergence of art from original cave drawings and paintings. Medium was usually oil or mixed media on canvas.

Intifada

War

The Tent

Untitled

Untitled (Oil on Bedouin Fabric)

Selection from series The Desert is Not Silent

Still Life

Endless Colours

Bella Rosa

Happy New Year....

2011-02-28T18:36:00.008+04:00

May seem a bit late to be wishing people a happy new year but given the winter I’ve had it is understandable. Besides, spring has always seemed a rather more logical time to celebrate the new year than January but I guess we can blame the Romans for that seasonal anomaly.

Anyway, the reason it only now feels like new year to me is that I have spent the past two months either in bed, at the osteopath, or painfully dragging my sorry ass round the house with much wailing, gnashing of teeth and general bemoanment (?) of my fate. To cut a long story short, the bonkers workload of one particular project finally took its toll and my back muscles decided they were mad as hell and weren't going to take it any more. Managed to extricate myself from said project at the end of last year and am only now beginning to emerge from the whole experience. Moral of the story: 1) Never do a project you don’t really want to do but feel obliged to do because you have been specifically requested to do it and 2) Never assume that the people you are asked to work with know what they are doing.

I have only had one other experience of a job so stressful and awful that it made me ill but that was over ten years ago and involved Palestinian negotiating positions so is a very different story! However, talking of the Middle East, I would like to extend a deep personal thank you to Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya for rescuing me from the cultural twilight of UK daytime TV. Despite revisiting a teenage obsession with Sci-Fi by reading the entire 4 volume Rama Cycle by Arthur C. Clarke, I still had a lot of time in bed with nothing but daytime TV for company so thank you also Al Jazeera, the BBC and Sky.

One other thing…. throughout this process I have discovered much more than I ever really wanted to know about the true nature of UK health care, both public and private. Observations suggest that the public sector is hopelessly addicted to drugs while the private sector secures numerous income streams by mercilessly exploiting the low fitness and body awareness levels of Gulfies with more money than sense.

So .. now planning to resume the projects that had to be temporarily abandoned and get fit again ... ... in the meantime here's a brief summary of what I've recently learned. .

The Jerusalem Show 2010

2010-10-13T18:16:00.000+04:00

It's terrible that I no longer have time to write on my own blog but what I have been doing instead is writing on other blogs...

I have just come back from a two week long trip to Jerusalem where I reviewed and documented the Jerusalem Show and it was great. It's the culmination of an archive project I've been working on for about 6 months. It starts with the history of the Al Ma'mal Foundation in the Old City of Jerusalem and concludes by being right up to the present with reviews and documentation of the 4th Jerusalem Show which finished on October10th.

It's an amazing thing especially given the fact that the situation in the city is so difficult. After the opening of the Show there was a visit to the gallery from Israeli security to check there was nothing too provocative on the walls. Another partner venue also had a visit from the police for the same reason and the visiting international artists got ten tons of shit from security at the airport on their way out.

The only 'democracy' in the region? What a joke. It's as brutal and reactionary as any other and even more paranoid. It's truly bizarre to see the situation on the ground and try and connect that with the absurdity of 'peace process' diplomacy. Most of what happens on the ground happens fast and is invisible to the outside which means that policy is always years behind reality... as well as being flaccid and irrelevant :) Thank god for small mercies .........

Click for link to The Jerusalem Show

The Cricket Test

2010-08-12T11:46:00.000+04:00

With thanks to Private Eye....

European Summer - Part II

2010-07-30T20:49:00.002+04:00

Given the extravagance of last years 2-month road trip, our holidays this year were rather more modest. In fact, thanks to some good friends, it was almost free. Said friends have an organic smallholding in Corsica so we got a cheap flight and then spent a week in a tent, under some trees, next to a stream, halfway up a mountain.

All we did was go on short hikes where we found abandoned houses and trucks to play in and amazing Cork Oaks to climb. We laid on beaches, saw old mountain villages, cooled down in the chilly waters of the stream, basked under the solar shower and contemplated life from the composting toilet.

At night we watched the moon, listened to the Skops owls and the sheep bells and ate great food grown almost exclusively on this piece of land:.

We also learned all about the wonderful world of WWOOF .........

WWOOF stand for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - people who are interested in learning about permaculture, organic farming and in this case, Corsica, come and stay for free in return for working on the land and doing a few other things related to the business (The source of income here is from four cabins that are rented out in the summer).

We learned some organic and permacultural stuff too, got some great tips on how to improve our composting and came back determined to start growing a few veg of our own in the back garden. We also learned a lot about Corsica: it's really not France - they speak a dialect of Italian and love the English!

Given that spouse and I were a) on holiday and b) there to catch up with said friends we were not assigned any hard labour We did volunteer to cook one evening and did a few other minor chores but most of the week was spent with our feet up, sipping the local wine and watching other people work.

The friends have been here for most of the past 10 years and I really wish that we had got round to seeing them here sooner because this could be their last year. They are planning to come back to the UK and the whole place is now up for sale. So if you want a new life half way up a mountain growing your own food let me know and I'll pass on your details!

European Summer - Part I

2010-07-29T14:05:00.001+04:00

A couple of weeks ago spouse was asked to speak at a conference in Germany. His flight was paid for so we concluded that we would get another flight and have a long weekend in Koln after the conference.

It was spouse's birthday that weekend and an old friend of ours, who lives in Berlin, also came up to Koln for the weekend. As usual when the three of us meet, a riotously drunken night was had by all. In fact spouse and I never get so completely inebriated as we do with this particular friend. I think there is a kind of mutual nihilistic chemistry that is only activated when we are in close physical proximity in European bars and spouse and I always seem to end the evening by dancing to whatever live music happens to be on. In this case it was a piano man in a hotel bar possibly playing 60s soul but could just as easily have been Barry Manilow or Rachmaninov. I really can't remember. A rapid exit followed.

The next day we got up very late and did very little except wander around town and eat. It is a long time since I have been in an historical environment like this (not counting London) and it was great. Koln Cathedral is a masterpiece of European Gothicity and its free - everyone has to pay to go into historic church buildings in London these days. What was also nice was taking short flights. I always forget just how close the rest of Europe is. The bizarre thing about the UK is that the continent of which it is a part seems to get less news coverage than others much further away. Can we still blame the empire for this?

There's always some historically referential graffiti....

World Cup deficit

2010-06-28T18:37:00.006+04:00

Here are some pics of the Canary Wharf towers which survived a month outside in a local nature reserve. Unusually there hasn't been much rain recently so they only had to cope with sunshine and curious children. Not sure what to do with them now but have had several suggestions including: setting fire to them outside Citigroup, selling them to the FT, donating them to Alan Sugar or just abandoning them on random street corners in London. I think I like the last idea best.

Went to see Jawad al Malhi's new show in London and even got paid to review it for Nafas Magazine which was an unexpected treat. This is first serious review I've done in a while and I really enjoyed it. Made me think about a lot of stuff I haven't thought about for a while.

The other Palestinian writing project is going well and a new job has just come in from my favourite emirate - Sharjah. The Sharjah Art Foundation is creating an ambitious website that serves both as information portal and archive resource. It will link all the people, artists and organisations who have been connected with the biennial and its associated projects and gatherings since it began in 1993. The plan is to launch later this year with the lowdown on the last two biennials, and then work backwards gradually adding archive material.

Apart from the unusually hot weather the other local news is of course the world cup. It is a patriotic duty to watch England's humiliation every four years,usually at the hands of a far superior German team. But what do they expect? They couldn't even beat Algeria! Perhaps each of the England players could donate their salaries to the nation as penance. That would clear a substantial chunk of the deficit.

More Towers of Trash..

2010-05-23T16:12:00.006+04:00

In June I am part of a group exhibition that takes the Lee Valley as its subject. This is an area about 15mins walk from my house. It is a marshy nature reserve adjacent to part of the old East London canal network. It’s great to walk or cycle along the towpaths with the brightly coloured narrow boats, swans, geese and ducks all drifting by on the canal. It’s a strange part of London where the City and its natural and industrial history meet. From certain parts of the Valley you can see the towers of Canary Wharf and these are my focus for this show.

So the Towers of Trash are back! This time, however, they are all made of newspaper or more specifically, the Financial Times. Given recent events, it's a lot of fun re-creating the buildings that stand in Canary Wharf, and which represent bastions of banking and finance. As with the 2007 Creek Art Fair in Dubai, the Towers will stand outside for the duration of the exhibition so it is quite possible that they will have disintegrated by the end. I am sure this metaphorical abandonment of financial institutions to the elements will entertain as will many of the FT headlines featured. Perhaps it will also prompt some interest in the FT which I am beginning to think is the only intelligent newspaper left in the country. Unfortunately, even that is showing signs of thinning and as the cost per square inch goes up, the incidence of daily investment goes down. That said the weekend edition is a bargain by comparison.

Will post images of new towers in situ when the exhibition is up and running but in the meantime here’s a preview of HSBC in progress...

Other news is that I got an invitation a few days ago to participate in the 2011 Florence Biennale. I got very excited about this and naturally assumed that my diverse creative output and consummate professionalism had finally been recognised. I would now be lauded internationally and have bundles of cash thrown my way......

Yeah, right! After extensive research I discovered that it actually costs loadsa money to participate in Florence! I am still not entirely clear on how you end up being selected but it seems that zillions of invites go out anyway. Invited artists then either pay for themselves or get sponsors if they want to do it. Overall the reviews from people who had participated in previous editions of Florence were very mixed. Some said it had been one of the best experiences of their lives while others suggested it was merely a prestigious scam. Verdict came out at about 50-50 but unless the Euro slumps to about 100 to the pound I will not be going to Florence.

I actually went to Florence in 1992 but didn't make it very far. Pre-spouse and I got off a train at Florence station intending to spend a few days there. We had a blazing row as we sat on the station steps and ended up storming back in and getting on another train. We still regret that especially seeing as neither of us now has the remotest recollection of what the argument was about!

(Thanks to Valeria Bateson for photo of narrow boats on the canal).

OMG It's Almost May ..

2010-04-27T15:51:00.005+04:00

Have just realised that it's almost May and I have done precisely 6 blog posts for the entire year so far. That's an appalling average of 1.2 per month. Granted, I haven't had a life since I left the UAE, BUT.... that has just changed. I have now acquired an almost proper job! What's more it's a writing job that involves a lot of things that I either a) know about or b) love. In relation to the first category it's the Middle East, and in relation to the second it has art, politics and history.

Given the cultural .. dare I say it... renaissance ... in this region over the past 10-15 years, there is a now an urge to start archiving. The project I have been asked to do is essentially an archive project about the Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art in Jerusalem. As a consequence I just came back from 2 weeks in Jerusalem doing research and interviews and going through lots of lovely dusty old boxes.

The trip was supposed to be 10 days but when nature strikes back, there's not a lot you can do so thanks to the delightful volcano in Iceland, I got stranded in Jerusalem for an extra 5 days. This was fine because I have a lot of friends there and as usual the social schedule was harder to deal with than the work. It's not just the friends to see but all the family members of the friends as well.

Anyway, the first stage of the project is now well under way and is here if anyone's interested:

Al-Ma'mal Retrospective

Once this has been brought up to the present (and funding permitting) the material will be expanded and turned into a book.

Bizarrely this has coincided with several offers of gainful employment coming spouse's way too, so seems like its back to the life again yo... .. er... to quote Eminem. It also means we can replace a few of those garden plants that sadly didn't make it through the last two years ...... I might even buy a bird table....

What i really missed..

2010-04-06T11:55:00.010+04:00

Now that spring is well and truly upon us I am discovering that what I really missed in the UAE was getting my hands dirty. Yesterday's marathon stint in the neglected back garden left me with dirt up to the elbows and a potent mix of crushed slug, worm and centipede pieces under my fingernails. Weeding and pulling up the dead stuff inevitably raises pieces of broken Victorian glass or china and there are always some new plants that have been blown in from elsewhere. We also discovered that the fox who spends most sunny mornings asleep in our neighbour's garden, actually lives behind our fence.

Despite compulsive itinerancy resulting in various stages upon which to play the global village idiot, my basic Britishness is confirmed.whenever I commune with my back garden The springtime delight of looking out every morning to see what new bud or blossom or bird or insect has appeared, never fades with time and this spring there was the added excitement of the compost. After two years of festering untouched, what we pulled out of the compost bin was so rich and lovely I could only feel deeply sorry that I wasn't a plant.

Of course this doesn't mean that I didn't look at all the coverage of Art Dubai but I have to say I was a bit disappointed. As always, the majoarity consisted of the hagiographic delights of the local press, with a smattering of largely usual international suspects. Sharjah seems to have upped its game generating an impressive amount of column inches for the new Al Maraya Foundation and Barjeel Art Collectiion but I couldn't find any new writers or new points of view. The most disappointing thing was the almost zero coverage of Al Bastakiya Art Fair. I did get a few live texts from friends visiting Art Dubai saying 'too much ****ing calligraphy' and 'don't think the Saudis have been this hot since Osama'...... which is arguably not funny, but it made me laugh!

Sharjah (and RAK) to the rescue

2010-03-12T16:29:00.001+04:00

Have been happily reminded that it's the arty time of year in the UAE. First I got an email from a friend in Sharjah asking if I could do a quick edit job. Then completely out of the blue, another friend asked if I could do a job related to a RAK event. So have actually been doing some work for a change which is brilliant. It's good to be involved in this again too and it reminded me to start checking out the coverage of Art Dubai, the March Meeting, Al Bastakiya Art Fair, Tracking the Emirates and all the other stuff that happens around this time. I just hope that there are a lot more reviews this year than there used to be because obviously I won't be writing any! I will definitely miss being there for all this though, it was the highlight of my UAE year.
Other than these bits of work, I have been mostly on nurse and nephew minding duties after my sister got kicked in the head by one of her horses. Not nice. 19 stitches, crooked neck and two black eyes. I'd stick to smaller and more predictable animals if I were her. I'm not willing to risk anything more serious than a kick in the head from a tortoise.

Sick of being sick

2010-02-14T17:56:00.011+04:00

This is going to be another moanfest so if you don't want to know the score look away now....

I am really feeling the effects of my first winter in 2 years. The snow was great and then some more snow was nice but now that the cold and the wet and the grey are going on and on and on and on, my body is having problems coping. I have been ill in one way or another since the beginning of 2010 and the last straw came this weekend. On top of the 3 week sore throat and bizarre cough that only strikes once a day at precisely 3.10am, I suddenly got gout. Yes gout!! What is going on?? I thought this was a disease of overweight, rural, port drinking old money landowning types and bon viveur farmers? Apparently not. It seems that my complete absence of lifestyle is contributing to extreme dehydration. ie. continuous cold symptoms plus continuous central heating plus zero physical activity which results in an apathy that makes putting water in a glass and drinking it seem too much like hard work.

On the job front there was an announcement last week that the Cultural Olympiad (cultural programme to accompany the 2012 Games), had been quietly dropped. So no more prospects there then! Since my last post I have filled in two proofreading tests for a part-time job on a school leaver's salary, applied to work freelance for an online business that proofreads (?) student essays and sent desperate emails to various people trying to generate some interest in my unique skills set. Resounding silence all round so far.

It's grim. Reminds me a bit of Thatcher's 80s which is doubly disturbing. I managed to leave the country for much of that but leaving again now is out of the question so I guess it's payback time. Rather appropriately the Linton Kwesi Johnson song, 'Inglan' is a Bitch', has been thrown up on random a disturbing number of times recently. Unfortunately no one I've come across seems to quite relate to that sentiment. Everyone has their own more specific bitch - the immigrants, the politicians, the banks. In some cases I've been the bitch and have already offended several (now possibly former) friends by culturally ill advised comments relating to burn up on re-entry to this sceptred isle. Maybe I should stay in more...

PS. If anyone in the UAE still reading this drivel is considering coming back to the UK in the near future, DON'T!!

Double dips

2010-02-01T16:11:00.003+04:00

I am still unemployed but am becoming rather more philosophical about it now. In fact am considering myself fortunate for being able to retire in my 40s. My social life has definitely improved and although I don't have the lifestyle that I would like to accompany my early retirement, I do have a PhD in living well on a budget so it's not too bad.

I will of course continue to tout my ass around the market place even if it is just to reassure spouse that I still have earnings potential to contribute to the marriage. However, my prospects are looking grimmer this week because the UK is apparently in danger of a double dip recession. I know all about double dips. Having not had a cold for 2 years I am now getting double dip colds all the time. One ends and within 24 hours of leaving the house that telltale sore throat is with me again.

Apart from double dips the other main conversational trends in the UK these days seem to be migration (more hysterical than 2 years ago), the 'broken society' (political shorthand for election on the way) and paganism (challenging Islam and evangelical Christianity for the fastest-growing-religion-in-Britain prize). Of course some things stay the same and the old favourites as always are the weather, sport, paedophiles and the property market.

Tony Blair's appearance at the Chilcot enquiry caused a conversational ruffle even though everyone knows it's a waste of time and public money. It is very interesting to see just how raw the Iraq issue still is and how much anger it still generates. The appearance and subsequent press coverage meant there were about 24 hours where it felt like the last 8 years hadn't happened which was very odd.

On the art front I gave a talk this week about the UAE art scene which was fun and have a couple of potential shows - one in May and one in October - so those should keep me occupied. I really need to risk the triple dip cold and venture out into the wilds of London exhibition land too....

In the meantime, here's a pic that encapsulates the contemporary British weekend....

No news but snow news and still no job..

2010-01-09T14:46:00.006+04:00

It’s the coldest snowiest winter for decades and the whole country has ground to a halt as has news reporting about anything else. I don’t care because I am loving every flake that falls. After two years in the UAE getting a winter like this is an absolute treat. Of course if I had to do anything, other than the 5 min walk to the gym or the supermarket, I am sure I would not be enjoying it quite so much.

However, I am starting to get very frustrated about my unemployed status. It seems that my last two years of experience in the UAE is completely irrelevant to any job I apply for here. The cultural and arts sector in London is huge and I am sure that most jobs advertised are oversubscribed. So I assumed that some recent international experience covering policy, production and publication would actually give me an advantage but of course it doesn’t work like that. Employment seems to be on the basis of committed insularity which means that potential employees know how best to operate within the UK network. I know this makes sense and it’s the same everywhere. All that really changes is the size and depth of the pond but this experience of coming back to the UK is markedly different from my two previous re-entries.

On returning from Japan it was easy to find work, partly because I spoke Japanese but also because there was a big Japanese community in London so there were plenty of places to look where my experience was likely to be valued. When I returned from Jerusalem it was also easy to find work. I was there during an interesting period and had also managed to pick up a whole bunch of very useful new skills. As is usually the case with the Middle East I had also met people who knew other people who made sure that I met the right people when I got back to the UK.

This time, however, there is really nowhere to go. There is such a strange and complete disconnection from the UAE. It’s as if it only exists when you are physically there. It feels like I dreamed the whole thing and then woke up with some new but completely useless knowledge that I cannot apply outside of that environment. The UAE embassy doesn't even have a cultural desk which is quite ironic given the amount of energy spent promoting it over the last two years!

I just hope something comes up soon otherwise I can see myself heading to the refuge of the eBay shop. By the time I’ve flogged all the stuff I’ve accumulated from everywhere over the years, I’ll probably be in the market for an environmemtally friendly eBay coffin.

Missing Dubai..

2009-11-30T23:19:00.004+04:00

Got back from the US trip a week or so ago and London has been pissing down with rain ever since. Combined with the inevitably dramatic next episode of the family soap and the slight matter of having no job and thus zero income ... yep... reality is kicking in big time!

Luckily my mind has been slightly taken off all of this grimness by the kind of drama in Dubai which is really making me wish I was there! First, people one wouldn't have expected to lose their jobs did and then it was revealed that Sheikh Mo didn't buy any new racehorses in Kentucky this year.... er.... I mean that Dubai World can't pay its debts as scheduled. The news was mostly covered in the UK in the usual slavering and hysterical fashion and I lost count of the glaring factual errors even in the so called quality press (FT being the honourable exception). I also lost count of how many times I read 'playground of the rich', 'desert sands shift' and that old favourite 'dark side'. Will somebody please rescue British Journalism?

Anyway.... what all of this means is that the exchange of gossip, rumour and speculation in the UAE right now must be absolutely unmissable.... and I am deeply sorry that I am missing it. It was what made living there most worthwhile! Well ... and the weather in winter. And the art of course....

Beaches, bays, seals and sunsets..

2009-11-20T06:57:00.007+04:00

The Pacific horizon seen from the dramatic, rocky beaches of a 1000 mile (ish) coastline with mountains behind is a combination that makes the central Californian coast unique and special. Add loads of wildlife, the Big Sur River, creeks, waterfalls, pine, redwood and eucalyptus trees and it really is a mega fix for nature junkies. This is the fourth time I’ve been here and it is still as beautiful although the effects of last year’s wildfires and subsequent landslides are still visible. A lot of the trails in the parks are still closed and there are repairs and reinforcements along the coastal Route 1.

This part of the trip was really easy. We know this road so well we didn’t have to think about it and we spent a lot of time just walking on beaches, looking at rocks and sunsets……

Or sitting by the Big Sur River…..

We also spent time with the elephant seals near Gorda Springs….

And the sea lions, cormorants and herons in Monterey…..

We also went on a boat trip out of Monterey Bay where we got to see a humpback whale, a bunch of dolphins, zillions of jellyfish and a sun fish.

Arrived in San Francisco and went out to celebrate the fact that we’d made it across the whole of the USA from East to West without any major problems and amazing weather. Apart from a few hours of rain in Kansas and three days happily watching the world not go by in snowy Denver, it was sunny and clear for the entire two months of the trip. Now sitting in hotel in Newark, New Jersey right where we started after flying back across the continent from San Fran.

Avoiding cities and interstates made this trip pretty relaxed most of the time and staying in small towns made it a much more interesting experience. In the middle of the country almost everyone we met seemed to vote Republican including one woman who actually said ‘Fox News is the Truth’ and a lone Democrat who assured me ‘There are no liberals in America’. We also found some of the quackest (and creepiest) TV religionists in the middle too, some of whom seem to think the Bible was written by Nostradamus.

I was intending to see and write about a lot more (presumably still) ‘liberal’ art on this trip but it didn’t happen. This was partly because we were on the road and not spending much time in towns except to sleep and eat (and canvas political views in motels, restaurants and bars…). However, I think it was mostly because the spectacle and enormity of the landscape was so all encompassing it seemed to become the art itself or at least make human creation temporarily redundant. So I guess there will have to be more art ..... on the next road trip! We could start in Boston and head west from there taking the Northern Route instead ......

Zion to Vegas to SLO ...

2009-11-15T09:28:00.002+04:00

The drive from Bryce to our next stop of Zion National Park was on the two scenic highways of 89 and 9 both characterised by mountainous scenery, intermittent plains and occasionally an arc h to drive through.

Zion has solid, vertical rock faces that seem to go straight up to the sky, very different to the delicacy of Bryce. The only way of entering the park from the East is through a dark, narrow, mile long tunnel going straight through a mountain. The tunnel is illuminated by carved ‘windows’ in the side of the mountain and although going through it was pretty freaky, it was amazing looking back at the side of the mountain and seeing the windows from the outside.

After the solitude of Bryce, Zion seemed quite hectic. There was a constant stream of traffic on the park driveway and a lot of people on the mostly paved trails including two busloads of Chinese tourists and a high school busload too. So we didn’t really do much except stare at huge rocks, sit by the river and get rained on by Weeping Rock where droplets of water cascade gently from an overhang. Outside of the park, however, there are several other hiking trails so we took one long, and very hot hike through a backcountry desert area surrounded by mountains.

One of the most enjoyable things was actually just chilling in the town of Springdale which forms the western entrance to Zion. There are of course lots of motels serving the park but they don’t take over because Springdale is a really pleasant and funky little town with a lot of personality and some great restaurants. This was a marked contrast to the horrendous tourist town creation of Ruby’s Inn at the entrance to Bryce which we studiously avoided by staying 10 miles down the road in Tropic.

From Zion we left on Route 9 and then joined the I-15 where we drove through a corner of Arizona for about 15 miles before crossing the Nevada state line. We were heading to Vegas baby…..

The last time spouse and myself were in Vegas was nine years ago and we had lots of fun. We stayed two nights at the Hard Rock Hotel then so we stayed two nights at the Hard Rock Hotel this time too. The difference was that last time we got married so this time was an anniversary celebration. The Hard Rock Hotel is truly wonderful for musical obsessives like spouse and myself and after six weeks of cheap motels, staying in a huge corner room with glass walls on the 11th floor was absolute bliss. We had lots of fun this time but it’s pretty easy to have fun in Vegas. It’s such a wacky town all you need to do is sit with a long, cold drink in an assortment of locations and just watch the wackiness go by. I gambled a whole dollar in a slot machine at Caesar’s Palace and promptly quit after getting 6 dollars back so don’t suppose I’ll ever develop a gambling problem.

From Vegas it was a short whizz through the desert to California and a night in Bakersfield which brought us back down to earth with a crash. The town seems to have tripled in size since we were last there and we drove around for ages in rush hour with no map frantically looking for a motel. When the ‘Americas Best Value Inn' sign suddenly appeared amid the exhaust fumes I almost wept with relief. The evening then improved dramatically when we discovered Pizzaland. Bakersfield may have grown but it still seemed like the whole town was in there watching the football, drinking beer and eating good pizza.

From there it was a relatively short hop towards the central Californian coast and having been to California on three previous trips this part of the journey was very familiar. Pulling into San Luis Obispo (one of our favourite towns on the planet) felt like coming home but it also felt a little sad because it meant we were entering the last stage of the trip and we don’t want it to end…. ever! Can’t we just drive around seeing cool stuff until we just drop dead by the roadside???

Bryce Canyon

2009-11-07T07:52:00.001+04:00

The next morning we were back on Route 12 and pretty soon arrived at a destination that almost everyone we spoke to had advised us to visit – Bryce Canyon. There are no adjectives, in English at least, that can begin to convey the jaw-dropping awesomeness of Bryce Canyon. The first day was amazing enough and that was just taking the Queens Garden and Navajo loop trail around what is called the amphitheatre.

Bryce is characterised by hoodoos which are vertically eroded limestone formations. The old Indian legend is that the people who lived here were bad and so Coyote turned them into rock and there they stand (or sit) to this day for all to see. There are two types of limestone but other minerals and anomalies of geological history combine to create not only shapes but a subtle and beautiful harmony of colours.

On our second day we drove the whole 18 miles of the park stopping at overlooks like the Natural Bridge and hiking the short and easy Bristlecone Loop at the southern end. This was just a warm up for the magnificent Fairyland Trail at the northern end of Bryce. It’s quite a tough trail over 4 miles which switches elevations so it goes up and down a lot before ending at a feature called Tower Bridge.

There is an alternative return route but Fairyland was so magical we walked the whole 4 miles back as well. Partly because it’s a tough trail and partly because of the season we only saw another two people over the entire 5 hours or so it took us. Most of the time our only other company was the ravens and even they disappeared for much of this trail so it was like being the lone explorers of another planet at times. In fact the whole experience was pretty much out of this world.......

UT-AWE

2009-11-07T07:05:00.001+04:00

The first night in Utah was spent at the Green River Budget Inn which was an old independent motel in the town centre. Green River was a perfect example of a phenomenon we have noticed in a lot of these small US towns. As you enter the towns there are a whole cluster of newish looking chain motels accompanied by fast food places and in the town itself there are inevitably several derelict independent motel buildings and restaurants. Visitors no longer need to go into the town itself and this has a really negative effect on the economies of some of these small towns.

The manager of the Budget Inn told us that people don’t trust old looking motels any more either. This is such a shame because independent motels always have more character, are generally cheaper, have thicker walls and are downtown so you can actually walk somewhere to eat and get to meet a few locals at the same time. It also means you get to see bizarre things like the real missile placed ornamentally in the park opposite the Budget Inn.

From Green River we slightly backtracked to the national park of Canyonlands before heading west again. This was a nice stop with views over canyons and mountains and a great view through a big natural arch. There was actually another park nearby full of natural sandstone arches but we spent so long in Canyonlands we decided to give this a miss and move on.

We spent that night in the tiny town of Hanksville in a rather pricey (but swish) motel called the Henry Mountain Hideaway which seemed to be the only accommodation in town. We actually had to telephone the manager who then drove down to the motel to take our money and give us the key. The whole transaction was completed inside the only store in the town which he also seemed to be the manager of. We needed some food for dinner so he got some more of our money. I guess this explains why he was driving a Bentley.

The journey through Utah was stunning from the start. From the I-70 we took, highway 24 south and then continued south on Highway 12. There really isn’t very much in this part of Utah except small towns, big mountains, multicoloured rocks and desert landscapes. Occasionally there are some cows or horses but that’s about it apart from the moon which seems to be visible for most of the day as well as night. We passed through Capitol Reef park and had a couple of nice stops. One where we just parked in a layby and walked around a rocky desert area with the Henry Montains in the background and another official trail through a very echoey steep sided canyon.

When we got as far as Boulder we stopped and stayed at the Circle Mountains Motel which will be our smallest and cutest motel experience for sure. It was actually one of three rooms in a building next to the owner’s house and had obviously been decorated personally and with great care. As much as I like motels this was a nice change from the format and a restaurant serving classic American 'home cookin'he town was just a short walk past the ranch as the sun set .........

The perfect storm..

2009-11-04T07:32:00.006+04:00

Coming into Denver, Highway 285 magically turned into route 30 which couldn’t have been better because we were visiting an old friend of mine who just happened to live off route 30! I hadn’t heard or seen anything of this friend for almost 25 years and then a few months ago he found me on Facebook. There are people from my past who I would really not want to find me on Facebook, but I was absolutely delighted to hear from this guy so Denver was a must.

The weather was fine when we arrived but a snowstorm started later that night and the next morning everything was under 8 inches of snow. It snowed for most of that day and all through the following night and all we could do was grin as the car disappeared under a thick, white dome. It was absolutely fantastic. We did nothing that first day except sit around in my friend’s lovely, peaceful apartment, listen to music, attempt to remember what happened 25 years ago and generally catch up with each other’s lives.

The next day, my friend had to work so spouse and myself decided to go downtown. We couldn’t actually move the car so we headed out on foot looking for a bus. In the end we found a cab which got us to Nine Mile station and we took the light rail into central Denver.

The seats on the platforms were the only colour other than white for most of the journey and even Denver’s giant blue bear was a little snowed under. We took a bus down to Colfax (which has got to be Denver’s greatest street) and spent a lot of time in a music store called Twist and Shout where we found some vintage concert posters as well as new (and old) music. Walking back up Colfax we saw a lot of interesting looking places and a rather impressive icicle display …..

When we got up the next day, the sun was out and the snow was already melting. The perfect storm was sadly over so after checking that the interstate going west was clear, we rather reluctantly got back on the road. We went part of the way back via the eastern end of Colfax where there are a lot of interesting old motel buildings and two old theatres, the Fox and the Bluebird, which are now regular Denver music venues. Next time we'll go to a gig..... or two....

Normally interstates are pretty dull but the I-70 crossed through part of the Rockies and it was breathtaking. The mountains towered above the road on all sides and there was a particular section as we exited a tunnel that is one of the most beautiful natural sights I have ever seen.

We spent that night in the small Rocky Mountain town of Eagle which had a lot going for it. Fantastic location, good restaurant with excellent food, views and a huge log fire. The mural painted Eagle Grand Motel was in spitting distance too. Unfortunately our room was freezing cold with a crap heater but what was infinitely worse was being next door to the resident loony. He had the TV blasting all night while he was crashed out, presumably after taking his prescription meds which he had informed us about earlier. When he was awake he was either running a manic monologue about Bible College or singing disjointed fragments from late Neil Young and Fleetwood Mac albums. From his age and appearance we concluded that he had probably taken too much of the brown acid and didn't get his memory back until the 1970s.

We got up the next morning cold, tired and homicidal but the beauty of the I-70 that took us the rest of the way out of Colorado meant that we were feeling good again as we crossed the State Line into Utah accompanied by Townes Van Zandt…..

New Mexico to Colorado

2009-11-01T03:43:00.005+04:00

It may only have been for one night but in the end we did stay in Texas! The town of Dalhart is in the top west sliver of Texas sandwiched between OK and New Mexico. We had a good night’s sleep after a great burger in a local eatery full of men in cowboy hats. Back on Highway 54 the next morning we soon crossed the state line into New Mexico. After a flattish start it opened up into mountains but once again it was the sky that seemed to dominate everything. We got into Albuquerque on a beautiful evening with low cloud just hanging over the Sandia Mountains which sit at the eastern end of the city.

We actually came in on the New Mexico part of Route 66 which still constitutes Albuquerque’s central street. Lined with shops and motels there are a lot of classic old signs and some very distinctive buildings. There is a unique merging of Art Deco and Pueblo Indian architecture so you get a lot of single story traditional sandy coloured houses with rounded edges

The Old Town at the western end of the city is full of old buildings and an ancient church protected by huge bunches of chillies hanging each side of the door.

We stopped off in ABQ for several days to get a break from the road, to go hiking in the Sandia mountains and to have an art, music and book shop fix. Although our first hike took us up through cacti, huge rocks and the start of a fir forest, we didn’t get all the way to the mountain ridge so for the next hike we took the tramway up 10,000 feet instead. There was snow all across the top and magnificent views across the city on one side, plains and more mountains on the other. A hike through the snowy forest on the ridge was magical but needed a lot of breathing stops. At that height you really start to notice the change in the air. The mountains are called 'Sandia' (which means watermelon) because some of the rock can look very red. We noticed this in evening particularly but also when we were up close in the cable car.

After our one dedicated night on the town, we went to the Standard Diner for a huge and excellent breakfast burrito which cleared our rather fuzzy heads. The diner had a lot of interesting photos and paintings including a series of retro atmospheric, neon-lit motels some of which were excellent but rather absurdly overpriced.

The rest of the day was spent roaming around town on foot or by bus and included a visit to the very impressive Albuquerque Museum of Art. It was lucky timing because there was a special exhibition of contemporary Albuquerque art. Some very, very good stuff but no cameras allowed and no catalogue either so I can’t give any samples. Out of about 40 artists only 5 or so were actually from Albuqerque. The others were from all over the US with a few international artists too which is a good advert for the city's art scene. The museum also had an excellent permanent collection of art from New Mexico. It was fascinating to see how 20th century art movements and styles had been interpreted through the prism of this area and how much the landscape plays a central and unifying role.

On one of the Sandia hikes we got chatting with a couple who had lived in ABQ for 17 years and they invited us to stay with them. After some rather dubious motel experiences we were delighted to accept their offer and had a really nice evening in their house before retiring to our detached motel suite in their yard. (Thank you!!) They also gave us some great advice about the next stage of the trip and I will be eternally grateful for their suggestion that we take Highway 285 all the way to Denver. What a fantastic road! It went past mountains, plains, small towns, sand dunes and even had a ‘mystic road’ section which is apparently the location of choice for visiting UFOs.

Into Colorado

There had obviously been overnight snow in Colorado and much of the route after crossing the state line looked like this.

The first town we stopped at was Antonito which sits under a mountain and has a very old (and famous) light gauge railway. We got chatting to a guy who had saved us from getting a parking ticket and he said that most people in Antonito were from families that had been there as far back as 1598.

There was a mural showing the history of the town which could have been the history of America and there was another painted all around two huge silos. Unfortunately my camera battery died after the first few pics but we walked around for some time and probably met half the people who live there in the process. There was definitely something special about Antonito.

From there we went to Salida which is on the Arkansas River and is surrounded by mountains. It has some of the oldest original buildings in the area and is a really pretty town although it hasn’t always been like this. Apparently it used to be a bit of a dump but artists started to move in during the 70s and now it is stuffed with galleries, arts and craft shops so I guess there’s hope for Paducah yet.

One place in particular, the First Street Studio, had a great space out back with a sculpture in progress made from dentist’s equipment by John D. Auclair who we had an interesting chat with. The gallery in front also had some very good sculpture by Chris Byars (gallery founder and first artist to move into Salida), as well as excellent photographs and some other odd and interesting things.

The next morning we got back on the beautiful 285 and started seriously hitting the mountains ..

Kansas U turn..

2009-10-29T03:07:00.001+04:00

In the Great Plains areas of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas I was constantly reminded of all the old movies about the American West that aired on British TV in the 70s. Cowboy hats everywhere, thousands of cattle in huge flat fields, painted ponies, palominos, mustangs, Broken Arrow, Dodge City, Shawnee, Cherokee and Cheyenne.

The Great Plains states are where a lot of this history unfolded and it is still cattle country. It is also where many of the Indian reservations are which means you will occasionally see Vegas style casinos which are technically illegal in these states but legal inside the reservations.
You also see a lot of small oil pumps dotted along the road from Oklahoma and throughout the fields that dominate Kansas. Huge open spaces interspersed with tiny towns whose power stations loom out the distance like huge battery packs. The only other things that appear with any regularity are gas stations and truck stops and I still haven't been able to make a decision on the trucker's choice.

The drive from OK took us quite a long way into Kansas. As far as the town of Hutchinson to be exact. We then checked into a cosy and friendly motel where we did our huge pile of laundry for the absolute bargain price of $2. Down the road at the excellent Lone Star restaurant (with a great modern country music soundtrack) we had a steak and a beer. Suddenly we realised that in the tired haste of the previous day’s decision to head north we had completely forgotten the fact that we had both really wanted to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Looking at the map we realised that we couldn’t be in a better place to change our minds. Route 54 from Hutchinson took us almost directly to Albuquerque passing back through a sliver of Oklahoma and the North West corner of Texas. So the following morning we turned back and headed south west.

For the first time so far in this trip we hit a bad weather front but not the worst part of it. Also it was moving in the opposite direction to us so in the end we had just under 2 hours driving in heavy rain. On such flat ground there was an amazing 360 degree view of the whole weather system we were under and I will never look at clouds in quite the same way again. Being able to judge the speed, height and density of every layer of cloud so closely meant you could see everything that was coming from a great distance. When a thin but consistent, line of light finally appeared on the horizon we knew we would soon be driving out of it.

It was truly awesome and just this taste of it convinced me that I would possibly have become one of those mad storm and twister chaser people had I been born in Kansas. Talking of twisters we came out from under the cloud in the town of Liberal, Kansas where we found this….

.... and apparently the Land of Oz itself is just to the left of this sign. I may not have got to Oz but I was definitely in Kansas so why T-Mobile kept sending me text messages saying ‘Welcome to the Isle of Man’ I will never know….

Not even 24 hours in Tulsa...

2009-10-23T03:36:00.004+04:00

The last part of the drive out of Missouri ended up being a bit like Groundhog Day (the movie that is...). We had already crossed the Oklahoma state line when I realised that I had left my wallet in the motel in Monette. Fortunately it was only 50 miles down the road so we drove back, retrieved the wallet and then started the drive out of Missouri again. The advantage is that I knew what was coming so in drive two I got a few pics I wouldn't otherwise have had like Granby - the oldest mining town in the south west.
For the second time we noticed how bad the roads got as we crossed into Oklahoma and this continued until the other side of Tulsa. I don’t know what OK State spends its money on but it certainly isn't highway upkeep. Ironic really given that a road - Route 66 - is at the heart of the Oklahoma tourist industry.

We ended up taking Route 66 out of Tulsa faster than expected because we couldn't actually find the things we wanted to see. None of the maps we got from the info office were detailed enough to get a sense of where things really were and in some cases they didn't even correspond. Useful signs around the city itself were notable by their absence and there didn't seem to be central downtown area like most US cities. The last straw was a wrong turn into a one way street after which we fled Tulsa. It didn't help that we'd had a crap night's sleep in a very big motel, with very small rooms, a very uncomfortable bed and very noisy plumbing.

We headed to Chandler and enjoyed the few old Route 66 signs along the way and had a great lunch at the Rock Cafe. Ended up staying in Chandler's old Motel Lincoln but that wasn't a great night's sleep either and at this point of the trip it was decision time. Did we detour south to Austin, Texas which had been highly recommended by several people, or did we go up north through Kansas and get to the next friend stop in Denver with plenty of time to spare for the Rockies and National parks in Utah.

After a good look at the map we decided that Austin was just too far a detour south and so Kansas it was... but not before checking out the Route 66 Interpretive Centre where you can lay on beds and watch short videos on subjects relevant to the 'Mother Road'.

The idea and design of the centre are great and there are some superb photographs but the videos seemed a bit limited. The centre is new and they have the technology but they just need more content. Hopefully as they get more organised (and get more funding) they can bring in more history of the time and the importance of the road to the internal migration west. It would be great if they could do a video about the changing styles of US cars over the years and maybe even get a few more rela ones like the police car in the hall.....it is a museum dedicated to a road after all.

The final stop in Oklahoma was the uber modern 'Pops' which is surely the coolest gas station in the world. Dedicated to the fizzy drink it has hundreds of different flavours, types and colours of bottled soda and they also provide the internal decor....

MO trees.. rivers... lakes..

2009-10-20T07:43:00.001+04:00

Our stopping off point in Missouri was the Mark Twain National Forest and the Ozarks but we didn't have much info about these. From the map it looked as if Route 60 went straight through the forest so we just stayed on that and hoped we would see signs for potential hiking areas. Eventually we saw a sign for Pinewoods Lake so we turned off and at the end of a tiny road found ourselves completely alone with a large lake. There was a rough trail around the lake so we walked the whole perimeter and didn't see or hear anything except wind through the trees and the occasional woodpecker.

Next stop was the tiny Ozarks town of Van Buren which hasn’t cleaned up since the election...

… but according to the delightful guy in the Hawthorne Motel......

... Van Buren becomes a party town in the summer when loads of tourists turn up to take boats out on the (very strong) Current River. It certainly couldn't be called a party town in October although there was a slight air of excitement in the deli and grocery store down the road which seems to be the focal point for the whole town. In fact they were even selling CDs by local bands so I bought a couple and it has to be said that Van Buren rocks. The variation on the Powdermill CD was definitely more engaging than Shund which sounded a lot like all the other bands doing that kind of angsty metal. Shame really because there were also two very short jams featuring a mandolin and jaw harp and if they threw that into the rock mix it could make it unique in its genre.

The river is absolutely central to tourist (and local) activities which explain why we couldn't find many forest trails to hike off Route 60. However, we then discovered an easily accessible part of the ancient Ozark trail which was a beautiful hike through tall autumnal trees and once again we had the whole place to ourselves.

We also went to see Big Spring which appears from nowhere, is amazingly green and provides the Current River with more than 80% of its water and Blue Spring which really is blue although that didn't come out in the photos.

We then drove west on 60 again through seemingly endless trees and ended up in Monnet for the night where we had a great evening at the Bayou restaurant. It was a Saturday night and I think the entire population of Monnet must have been in there.

Sticking to Route 60 all the way through Missouri did make it seem as if the state is one huge forest. It was a nice drive although it was a little sad seeing road kill armadillos. Driving anywhere outside of cities there are always dead animals along the roads and I can now identify road kill from 50 metres. It’s been mostly squirrels, raccoons and groundhogs but occasionally a falcon or a deer and we're now in armadillo territory. I guess this explains the constant presence of turkey vultures above the highways as well. They must have been particularly pleased by the invention of the internal combustion engine!

From Mammoth To Missouri

2009-10-16T07:26:00.002+04:00

Having not had to think about where to go, eat, sleep or get online for a few days, getting back on the road was a bit of challenge. However, after the initial shock and a short period of mutual snarling we found ourselves heading into Mammoth Cave. This is the longest cave complex in the world at over 300 miles (and still counting) and it was awesome. I’d never actually seen stalactites and stalagmites before and it was fascinating to hear how they are formed and about the reactive properties of limestone in general. It was also fascinating to discover that the temperature of any large cave remains at a constant average for the area around it regardless of the season, so Mammoth Cave is always at the average temperature for Kentucky.

After a very nice drive out of the Mammoth Cave Park (with sightings of wild turkey, deer and what we think was a coyote) we got back on the road heading west eventually stopping at the Econolodge in Russellville. At $75 this seemed rather expensive compared to our usual choice of cheapskate, seedy motels but it provided a good breakfast (unusual in motels), a flat screen TV and free, if erratic, wireless access. The following morning there was light rain, the roads were empty and the clouds were hanging low over the autumnal trees, hills and fields of south western Kentucky. Accompanied by an excellent soundtrack of modern Americana donated by our friends in Frankfort, the drive out of Russellville was quite dreamy….

Our next stop was supposed to be Paducah and we did stop there… briefly. I’d been told about a programme that had actually paid artists to go and live in Paducah’s empty buildings to try and kick start creative regeneration in this rather depressed and unattractive town. It sounded like a great idea so I was interested in seeing how it had worked out. Unfortunately there wasn’t a sign off the main drag even indicating a downtown, let alone an art area or even its famous quilt museum! So all Paducah seemed to be was a huge, cheap, drive-thru strip mall and by the time we realised it was too late to go back and look for a turning that may, or may not, have taken us to a bunch of artists! However, we did end up accomplishing something. Part of the plan for this trip was to pack very little, buy clothes from charity stores as we went along and then return them to charity stores before we left. So we were delighted to spot a large Salvation Army store in Paducah where I bought a sartorially criminal but very warm coat for $5!

Nice drive from there too and ended the day in Charleston, Missouri after crossing the bridge over the mighty Missisippi....

Frankfort, Kentucky

2009-10-15T07:29:00.002+04:00

When we got to a friend’s house in the Kentucky state capital of Frankfort, they were still in Europe but due back in couple of days. They have a really nice house and it was great staying there and being able to walk into Frankfort and check things out. The first day we went for breakfast at the White Light Diner and it was definitely the best Eggs Benedict I have ever eaten.

The historic district is really nice and on the last day we went for a tour round the old capitol building which is full of fascinating architectural, arty and historical stuff including a bizarre and very rare harp piano. In the lobby there is a staircase which is beautiful as well as being an incredibly ingenious piece of engineering and you can visit the original senate and house of represenatatives complete with spittoons, ink pots, quills and copies of historical proceedings, letters and legislation from very politiclaly interetsing times! Round the corner the Kentucky Historical Society is also a fascinating trip and I finally discovered the meaning of the line in Sixteen Tons that says: ‘I owe my soul to the company store’!

However, the place where we probably spent most time in Frankfort was the truly wonderful ‘Poor Richard’ bookstore. The bookstore is arranged over two floors and there are lots of old prints and paintings filling almost all the available wall space. The second floor is crammed full of dusty old books, maps and magazines with old ceiling fans spinning delicately above.

We were in there for about three hours and could have stayed longer but it was closing so we had to adjourn the Coffee Tree café next door. Discovering there was going to be live music we came back later and had a fantastic evening listening to an excellent piano, double bass and sax trio who played a very tight mix of jazz, blues and gospel. Owing to the fact that spouse and myself constituted about 50% of the audience we ended up chatting to the musicians quite a lot which was a lot fo fun. Only the bass player is a full time musician, the pianist tunes pianos for a living and the sax man is a sociology professor.

However, Kentucky is probably more famous for racehorses than anything else and it was inevitable that we would see some horses along the way so here they are….

.... apparently, it is not unusual to see rather large planes from the UAE parked up at Lexington’s rather small airport…

Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia

2009-10-13T04:34:00.008+04:00

Going south from the Skyline Drive, we crossed straight onto the Blue Ridge Parkway which was first set up as a scenic driveway in the 1930s. The first US national park was actually Yellowstone, set up way back in 1872 and there are now hundreds of national parks monuments and forest all over the US. Apparently, many of them were furiously contested by logging and other companies with business interests in the land and its resources. As a consequence individual Acts of Congress were used to create each park which made them untouchable. It’s a shame that such far sighted political will has become so compromised in more contemporary environmental debates.

The Blue Ridge side is less developed in terms of trails and lodging than Shenandoah Park but there are several roads leading off the parkway to small mountain towns so it’s pretty easy to find cheap motels. It’s also much more interesting because you get to see and meet some real places and people. The Buena Vista Motel was great and downtown was only a short walk so we were able to go out for dinner and then walk back watching a full moon rise above the mountains. We also found out exactly how many people live there.

Further down the parkway the Blue Ridge Motel in the Meadows of Dan was also a treat.

This tiny town was an absolute gem consisting of little more than a couple of stores, a farmers market, a restaurant, two gas stations and a church.... although there were probably more further up the road! I never cease to be amazed at just how many churches there are in this country, especially when you are out in the more rural areas. There seem to be hundreds of different denominations and a dedicated dictionary to work out exactly who they all are could be very useful. There are Baptists, Unitarians, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians, Apostolics, Charismatics, Nazarenes, Presbyterians, Evangelicals, all sorts of Bible Churches and Assemblies and a constantly expanding collection of Baptist splinter groups like the Primitive Baptists. Then there are the Fundamental Millenarians and the Foursquare Gospels… whoever they are.

Most of the churches have signs along the roads sometimes humorously advertising their presence as in ‘Invest in Heaven, God’s stock is up’. However, seeing ‘Prepare to Meet God’ on a huge billboard as you enter a four lane highway can be a bit disconcerting! How some of these small communities can sustain so many different churches is a complete mystery to me, as is the amount of money that seems to be generated through some disturbingly cynical TV evangelism.

Anyway …. back to the heaven sent and Act of Congress sanctioned, Blue Ridge Parkway. Much of the parkway goes through the Thomas Jefferson National Forest so you are surrounded by tall trees on both sides of the road for much of the route with mountain views stretching off into the blue distance at almost every twist and turn of the road.

I enjoyed this much, much more than the Skyline Drive and most of the hikes are short which means you get all the gain with none of the pain as in the Yankee Horse Trail. This was a rocky, waterfall very close to the road and it still had the old railway tracks from when it was a logging station. It also had an amazing chunky rock.

There were a couple of longer trails further on including the beautiful Otter Creek Trail which meanders along the bank of a rocky creek before going up into the forest, past huge volcanic rock formations and then back down to the creek. This was definitely another Virginia Trail highlight as was the Blue Ridge Music Centre where we got to see some excellent live music. There is a musical heritage trail through Virginia and the Centre explained a lot of the origin and development of Blue Grass and Mountain music. The centre will become a state of the art museum next year which is good news for ethno-musicologists and musical obsessives everywhere. The museum reminded me of another US trip we did in 2002 which took us on the jazz, blues and country music trails all the way up from New Orleans to Chicago through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. There were a lot of signs for churches down there too and the only other signs you saw were for prisons so I guess the only other option is the military!

Another musical diversion ended up being the town of Floyd where several resident master blue grass and mountain musicians are teaching (sometimes for free) in order that the traditions are continued. They are supplied by Floyd’s own instrument maker and on Friday nights the town’s central street is open to musicians. There are actually small performance bays built into the sidewalks! There are also numerous artists and craftspeople who live in the surrounding areas and they are slowly moving into The Station which is a new but small area of shops, galleries and studios.

We finally turned off the Parkway at Galax, heading West again towards our next friend stop in Frankfort, Kentucky. We didn’t have a rattlesnake moment on the Blue Ridge parkway but we did have a few anxious visibility moments. If you are above or below the clouds you’re fine but at that elevation in between….

These boots are made for hiking...

2009-10-10T19:42:00.001+04:00

My last serious hiking boots disintegrated in Algonquin Park in Canada in 2006 and apart from the mega hike in Fujairah earlier this year (which I managed with a new pair of trainers) I haven’t needed new ones…. until now. So it was great to find a store selling all sorts of cool stuff related to being in mountains just outside Waynesboro.

Five minutes up the road from the store was the entrance to the Shenandoah National Park which is a huge area in the Appalachian Mountains filled with forests, waterfalls, peaks, vistas and over 700 miles of hiking trails. The Skyline Drive cuts through the whole area and has lots of places to stop and look at views across the Shenandoah Valley and other mountain groups within the Appalachian range.

The only disadavantage is that getting out of the park to cheap motels involves serious driving so we decided to stay in cabins inside the park for three nights instead. This is much easier to acces the Trails and the new boots were well and truly tested, up and down rocky paths, through leafy forests and across stony creeks. The views at the top were awesome and at times we were really up in the clouds.

The fall colours were just starting to turn which meant that we got to see the variation without the crowds that descend in a week or so when the colours are fully out. It’s great being there midweek too as there’s no problem finding somewhere to stay and you almost always get the trails to yourself, especially the hard ones.

The Cedar Falls Trail was by far the hardest – very steep and very rocky – but there hasn’t been much rain this year so the water levels in the falls were pretty low. In general the more rain there has been the more spectacular the falls are. However, a very close encounter with a rattlesnake made the Cedar Falls rather more exciting than we’d anticipated. The snake fell down a rock and landed next to spouse’s foot. It was so sleepy that spouse assumed it was dead so didn’t panic. The snake then made a move towards the falls, rattled half-heartedly and slid into the water. It curled up and floated round for a while then made a spectacular if bizarre dive, straight down into the fall.

There were a lot of other wildlife encounters when we were out on other trails especially deer.....

... chipmunks, squirrels, butterflies, very hairy caterpillars and we also caught a glimpse of a young black bear which was a real treat. In the end we only managed about 6 or 7 of the trails but a couple of them were pretty long and 6 hours hiking feels like a hell of a lot when you haven’t done it for while but this is always worth the pain....

In and out of New York ...

2009-10-05T03:51:00.000+04:00

From Newark we took the short train ride to Penn station New York where we got the smallest and most overpriced hotel room in the world. The closet was too small to fit either of our bags in so they stayed in the room where they took up about 50% of the floor space. But hey… it’s New York, we hadn’t reserved and the UN happened to be in town so we blamed them.

The last time I was in NYC was about 10 years ago and it’s very interesting seeing how the city has changed (and how I’ve changed!) but one thing that still shocks is the sheer number of homeless. There are some serious and vocal mental health issues on the NY streets and seeing homeless people in wheelchairs or with walking frames or other obvious physical difficulties seems much more common than I’ve seen elsewhere.

After the tiny hotel room we spent a couple of nights at a friend’s place in Brooklyn Heights and he can just see the statue of liberty between two huge cranes from his back window. This is not as bad as it sounds.

We went out for a several walks around his neighbourhood and it was weird looking over the water to where the twin towers used to be.

Just under Brooklyn Bridge we happened across the local ‘Art under the Bridge’ festival which is an Art Trail that takes over this area and includes work in some of the huge old dilapidated warehouses there.

It was great to see some of this and we also came across the car we wish were hiring.

We didn’t hang around in New York for long but while we were there we asked everyone we met where they would go if they had two months and were heading to the west coast. From a mix of their suggestions, our own ideas and the places we have friends we began to put a route together. Then we headed out to Hamilton, New Jersey to pick up the car (much, much cheaper than hiring it in New York) and hit the road proper.

First destination was a friend in Fredericksburg, Virginia but before arrival there we spent one night in a classic gas, food, lodging strip off Interstate 95 just outside of Elkton, Maryland. I LOVE motels and the cheaper the better. They have everything you need – a bed, a fridge, a TV and complete privacy unlike hotels.

You can sit there mindlessly flicking zillions of TV channels and get a good overview of political views in the US. I also find the commercials fascinating and very revealing about the culture. The ones for medication are particularly educational. In the US it seems there is a pill for everything. You don’t have to change your diet or your lifestyle or inconvenience yourself in any way..… just take the pill! However, they are legally obliged to also list all possible side effects including death but these are raced through at such incredibly high speed they are barely understandable. It was a lot of fun flicking between these commercials and the live health care debate.

Fredericksburg, Virginia is famous for being a huge Civil War battlefield. In fact this whole area is littered with Civil War history and battlefields. It’s a very pretty town on the banks of the Rappahannock River but is such a tourist spot it’s hard to see beyond that or find a normal shop! The place is full of antiques and historical memorabilia, old plantation houses and George Washington’s mother’s house. Mary Washington also gives her name to Fredericksberg’s university.

Another old university town, Charlottesville, was our next scheduled stop. We were intending to spend a couple of nights there especially because Charlottesville’s art centre and galleries always have open evenings on the first Friday of every month. However, this was not to be. We arrived and found that every single hotel, motel and inn was booked solid. There was a U2 concert so thanks to bloody Bono we ended up a 30 minute drive away in Waynesboro . Because that was actually nearer to where we were heading we didn’t go back. Instead we just went directly from there to the most beautiful and wonderful Shenandoah Valley……

Newark doesn't completely suck....

2009-10-01T16:26:00.001+04:00

Newark, New Jersey has a big airport serving NYC so most people don’t stay here unless they arrive late or are actually coming to Newark for a conference because it does seem to have a lot of conference facilities. However, another reason people don’t stay is that everyone thinks Newark (and New Jersey in general) sucks! In fact the only positive reaction I got was about the great view of the NYC skyline if you are in the right place in Newark which fortunately we were!

This was sunrise over NYC from the 10th floor of the Newark Best Western and was a very nice start to the trip. A walk downtown was also very pleasant and I don’t think Newark deserves such a bad press. It has a good museum (which unfortunately doesn’t open till midday) and quite a few old and architecturally diverse churches and other buildings. Reminders of Newark's industrial past are very visible especially in some of the huge old iron railway bridges. It also has a great performing arts centre with a whole walk of fame consisting of bronze paving slabs showing everyone famous who comes from New Jersey. Everyone knows about Bruce Springsteen but Jack Nicholson, Sarah Vaughan, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Tony Bennett, Whitney Houston and too many others to remember are all from New Jersey.

Although we were up too early to see much else, we did bump into Patrick Alexander, the proprieter of the Cutting Zone....

He opened up his barbershop 11 years ago after a stint in the US army and as well as cutting hair he paints. Other members of his family paint as do several of his friends so…. he turned his barbershop into an art gallery so he could show all their work. He also has a keyboard and amp in there so he and I guess anyone who can play are welcome to come in and belt out a few tunes as well. So along with the view, the architecture, the walk of fame and the iron bridges Ther Cutting Zone is definitely another Newark highlight.

Relocated again... temporarily

2009-09-25T18:38:00.010+04:00

If anyone out there is still reading this, my apologies for the long delay BUT I have been very busy with:

The E17 Art Trail Blog

... I even got paid for it. Rather annoyingly I am still waiting to be paid for a job I did in the UAE in March! So 6 months and counting. Will I get ever it??? Place bets now...

Anyway..... I am now re-locating again. This time it's only for two months but it's the BIG EAST - WEST US ROAD TRIP. Planning this trip kept myself and spouse sane while marooned behind the high walls of a university campus in Sharjah without a car for 10 months. Given that spouse and I are still unemployed, we concluded that now is the time to head out on the US highway.

So.... .. watch this space because I will try and blog about the whole trip and the art I find on the way. Hopefully it will be as off beat and underbelly as possible.... it is definitley not going to be the MOMA and the Metropolitan dahhhling!

Araam – Breathing Space

2009-08-13T18:15:00.030+04:00

Araam – Breathing Space
Zarah Hussain & Halima Cassell at the Mid Pennine Gallery

This is the first exhibition I have seen since being back in the UK but the themes and content very much connect to some of the areas of interest I was able to explore in the UAE. Both artists in this show are British with roots in Pakistan and both consider aspects of this identity in their work. However, my primary interest in both of these artists is how each contemporises the ancient and complex art of geometry.

I am familiar with Zarah Hussain’s previous work where watercolours or acrylics were used predominantly as mediums for classical geometric reproduction. This show is very different. It consists of six, large oil on gesso panels with a seventh in progress in the gallery itself. Two small multi-sided pieces are redolent of her earlier work in that they conform to classical geometric discipline and aesthetics but all the others contain varying degrees of diversion. The work was all completed this year and each piece is displayed in the order it was created. This chronological sequence essentially allows the viewer to follow Hussain’s unfolding argument with geometric orthodoxy.

After the two small pieces comes the most obviously breakaway piece in which elements of each geometric motif are drifting away from their central core. This gives a palpable sense of disintegration and expansion. The next panel seems to contain the essential argument in itself as if some reassembling was necessary after the dilution in the previous panel. However, while many of the individual geometries are more robust, the very act of placing them in non-tessellated and sometimes overlapping positions is another subversion of traditional form.

The next panel is circular and again contains overlapping motifs, but this time they are very mixed. Some are basic and almost transparent geometric sketches, while others are densely complex both in colour and form. There is a freedom here which suggests that the argument has been resolved but the disparity is slightly disorientating and prompts much closer scrutiny to find an underlying structure holding it all together. However, it is the last piece that makes the biggest visual impact. This final square panel contains 25 identical geometric shapes with a colour code running through each line that seems both ordered and random at the same time. It demands attention and plays visual tricks but perfectly exemplifies the end of a process in which traditional has been meticulously transformed into contemporary. The artist has so mastered and understood the rules of geometry that she is now able to manoeuvre independently within the boundaries that those rules create. It is interesting to compare this development in geometry with the other 'Islamic' art of calligraphy. Hussain has essentially arrived at the kind of conclusion that has for some time, allowed contemporary calligraphers much greater freedom of stylistic interpretation.

Halima Cassell’s work in this show is representative of her wider sculptural practice so does not all directly reference geometric pattern. There are a range of objects in wood, stone and clay including a tall wooden totem evoking pregnancy. Although obviously linked to the subject, the phallic element of the structure dominates and this made it hard to take completely seriously. A number of small clay and smooth stone pieces suggest possibilities or ideas in progress rather than conclusions and this works perfectly in the context of the whole show. Both artists are working in residence at the gallery and there are concept and design sketches on the wall giving a sense of the process before the work reaches its final form.

What I love about Cassell’s work, however, is the incorporation of geometry into 3D sculptural forms and the remarkable way in which she can make clay give the impression of being wood. From a distance it is not apparent that a bowl-like sculpture with internal raised geometric patterns is carved from clay. Similarly a large round piece appears as if it could be made of wood.

Applying a carving technique commonly used on one material to another but with an outcome that fuses both, is a fascinating process in itself. These objects were definitely highlights for me and I also liked the more random pieces that could almost be found objects, especially the jagged chunks of wall with matching holes.

Hussain and Cassell approach the subject of geometry in very different mediums but both interpret their subject to connect across time and culture. Some of Cassell’s objects may appear to be modern and functional, but all they are made to contain is the beauty of their own design. Hussain’s paintings emerge through a contemporary creative prism and delicately reveal a fresh perception of this sublime and complex form.

Zarah Hussain http://www.zarahhussain.co.uk/

Halima Cassell http://www.halimacassell.com/index.php

Mid Pennine Gallery http://www.midpenninearts.org.uk/galleryhome.htm

Was it all a dream??

2009-08-04T20:25:00.006+04:00

I have now been back in the UK for over a month and it is rather disturbing that the past 2 years in the UAE seem to have left no trace whatsoever. I have only thought about it twice - once when a plane flew low enough over my garden to read 'Emirates' on its undercarriage and once when I saw the UAE listed in a money transfer office full of Pakistanis in my local high street. If it wasn't for the evidence of this blog I would find it hard to believe that the last two years had actually happened!

Catching up with friends who have had major changes in their lives is a stark reminder that I have been elsewhere. Similarly the fact that we are loving the rain (a pleasure we can't share with anyone else in this country) also points to a semi-detached status. However, any sense of where we have been for all that time is almost completely absent. It's like having a mild form of amnesia.

Perhaps when I start working properly again and especially if I start reviewing some arty stuff that has a UAE connection, my memory may return..... or maybe I just need to find a taxi ....

Home and Dry

2009-07-06T20:30:00.005+04:00

It is good to be back and getting wall to wall TV coverage of Glastonbury and Wimbledon was a bonus. The UK weather has been disappointingly glorious since our return but there have been a few showers and storms and all sorts of clouds. It's that constant variation in the sky and the atmosphere that I missed most in the UAE so I am really enjoying it. Our house is fine and just in need of a bit of paint and TLC but the garden was so overgrown it was like a small field. I actually felt a bit guilty getting out there with the shears and wantonly destroying several reclaimed insect habitats but there can be no territorial compromise with flying ants. The long running soap opera that is my family continues and I almost couldn't take the omnibus edition that greeted me on arrival. However, I live far enough away not to have to deal with it on a daily basis so equanimity can be retained!

What is best, however, is the 5th E17 Art Trail. In the first one in 2005 there were about 40 artists but this year there are an amazing 180 different individuals, groups or projects proving that cultural and arts development has not only been happening in the UAE. The last Art Trail I did in 2006 was an installation in a local museum garden and they have agreed to let do a completely different installation in their garden again. This alone would have been a neat transition back to my pre-UAE life but it gets better..... the E17 Art Trail this year has manged to get 3 Arts Council of England Commissions - 2 for new art work and one for an art blog which covers and records the work in this year's Trail. Guess who got the commission for the blog?? OH YES :)

I was worried that it would be difficult to plug my UAE experience back into the UK but within a few weeks of being back I am in a very nice place. As well as being happy with both the conceptual and material aspects of my planned installation, I am also able to get completely immersed in the locality again by using the blogging and writing skills I would not have had without the UAE experience.

It also means I win a bet with spouse about who would be the first to earn some money back in the UK....

So Farewell then UAE ...

2009-06-14T09:21:00.005+04:00

Well... this it is.... we depart the People's Great Jumhurriyah of Sharjah today then spend some time in Dubai with friends before disappearing into the grey clouds of British summertime.

It is hard to believe that two years have passed quite so quickly even if time does go faster as you get older (a proven scientific fact). It has been a mixed experience but we end up leaving with a relatively good UAE story. After a disastrous start (due in large part to spouse's crisis-engineering employers) we have now managed to recoup our early Dubai losses. I guess we were just ahead of the curve and had our financial crisis about a year before everybody else. As a consequence we are now well into economic recovery although this is largely thanks to Sharjah and means that we don't have to panic about looking for jobs for a few months. So we will just chill out and settle slowly back into the London house and do very little except the basic manual labour associated with long overdue house and garden maintenance.

I will also be able to think about my own art! The constant pressure to earn money here was just not conducive to artistic output. In two years I produced four average prints, reworked some old paintings and created four towers of trash. Ironically (or perhaps not!) it was the Towers of Trash that gave me two of the highlights of my time here - exhibiting at the Creek Art Fair in Dubai and then at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi. Three of them live on - one is now in Germany, one in Ethiopia and the final one has found a loving home in the Environmental Sciences department of the American University of Sharjah!

Another real highlight was working on the Sharjah Biennale which gave me a lot to think about creatively on so many different levels. I have blatantly stolen ideas about processes, materials, concepts and ways of communicating that I will take back to the UK with me and present as my own! I don’t yet know exactly how this and all my experiences over the past two years will come out in my creative work. However, the best thing is that I go back to the UK knowing I have a rare period ahead of me where I simultaneously have the two key commodities of time AND money! This means that I can sift through it all at leisure in my own space and then just focus on externalisation and production. I have (mostly) enjoyed being a facilitator, promoter and reviewer of other peoples art and culture over the past two years BUT I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to just being an artist for a while again!!

I will keep up this blog especially if I see or do anything that relates to the UAE when I am in London or elsewhere. If I get to Venice before November I'll write about the (Dis)United Arab Emirates Pavilion and will obviously post any new UK Dubai bashing articles on the UAE Community Blog :). I also have no doubt that I will now start hearing stories from Pakistani taxi drivers in London who have cousins in Dubai all of whom I will obviously have met ........

Scraps at Total Arts gallery

2009-05-24T15:12:00.009+04:00

As we all know one of the most sublimely beautiful areas in Dubai is Al Quoz - grimy, dusty, mechanical and packed with warehouses, factories, storage depots, wholesale outlets and galleries!

As we all also know there are risks to living in an industrial zone and reports of warehouse fires are frequent. The most damaging one in March last year caused a massive explosion and fire resulting in several casualties, 3 destroyed warehouses and a thick cloud of toxic looking smoke. Luckily none of the galleries were close enough to the site of the fire to be seriously affected and since then it seems that fire safety precautions have been dramatically improved ...... or there's been a blanket ban on reporting fires in Al Quoz :).

This tragedy is the background and inspiration for the current exhibition at Total Arts gallery that has to rate among the most memorable I have seen in my two years here. Total Arts was founded by architect Darius Zandi and artist Shaqayeq Arabi and was the first gallery to set up in Al Quoz way back in 1996. After the fire Zandi and Arabi visited the burnt out warehouse and were so affected by what they saw they began a long process of transporting things from the site back to the gallery.

The result is Scraps, an installation composed entirely of materials, artefacts and incidental objects found at the site with site photos projected against two of the gallery walls. The scale of the installed pieces varies from huge warped sheets of corrugated metal suspended from ceilings and used to create artificial walls, to small and fragile fragments of paper or cloth.

Some pieces stand on plinths like highly original sculptures, most amazingly a collection of hundreds of pairs of metal scissors all melded together by the heat of the fire. A partially collapsed bicycle stands precariously upright surrounded by different piles of objects fused in plastic, metal and wood. There are melted tins, jars, knives, safety pins, toothbrushes, bicycle pumps, a cash register, a sewing machine and many other everyday objects rendered almost unrecognisable by the furnace they emerged from.

Many of the smaller finds have been transformed into installations in their own right. One wall is covered with blackened food trays set with piles of melted forks and spoons and a metal sheet is covered with knife blades. A series of boxes contain a curious mix of objects, scraps of documents, textiles and electrical wires.

The whole thing is a sensory experience crystallised by a soundtrack of muffled explosions and the all pervading odour of burnt metal, wood and plastic. It manages to address several different levels and aspects of its own particular local context as well as referencing wider points of aesthetics and art history - a dual achievement still very rare in exhibitions here.

It is also a unique and moving memorial to those who died.

Scraps runs until end August at Total Arts Gallery, Al Quoz

Ajman-ski and fish

2009-05-20T09:03:00.011+04:00

Last week I ticked the Ajman box .... this means that I have managed to visit all 7 Emirates during my stay here.... OK ... so Umm Al Qawain may only have been a trip to Dreamland but it counts!

Ajman was only a fleeting visit for one evening but we packed a lot in. First there was dinner at the Casa Samak almost on the sand at the Coral Beach resort. Unfortunately it was buffet night so the food was rather grim but apparently the normal menu is excellent and as the name suggests fish is a speciality. However I don't really see how it can beat the Al Sheraa fish restaurant in Sharjah which is an absolute treat. I went there with a group of friends after an afternoon at the biennial. There is a menu mostly of fish nobody had ever heard so we ordered a few different kinds which were served whole for everyone to share. They were gorgeous and the shrimp was sublime. If you know what you're doing you can even go and select your own fish. Highly recommended although Coral Beach obviously trumps it on location!

But back to Ajman. After dinner we went for stroll down the corniche which is very lively, full of people (and cruising cars) and real buzz. Then to the huge Ajman Kempinski which is completely over the top and has bizarre rules like not being allowed to go in the sea after sunset even just to paddle! I took off my shoes and made determined moves toward the shore but was stopped by security before the water hit my toes. I loved the geometric parquet in the lobby. This was the first thing I noticed but the next obvious thing was the couple who didn't look like they were married casually waiting for the elevator enroute to a very temporary room rental.

It was another of those great UAE contrasts. From the corniche packed with movement, barbecues and great weekend atmosphere - South Asian bachelors, assorted families and a lot of local families - to the opulence and decadence of the adjacent 5 star. Another lovely anomaly is that the wholesale Al Kahool outlet is right opposite the palace which made me grin. But what was most striking were the Russians. The hotels were full of them and there was even a fur coat shop in the lobby of the Coral Beach resort. Down the main drag there were shop signs in Russian too. There were the usual quota of inebriated Brits who are found anywhere there is an Al Kahool outlet but in Ajmanski they shall be mercilessly crushed by the competition from their Eastern European neighbours....

My taxi driver is also my gynaecologist..

2009-05-02T16:32:00.011+04:00

I have got very used to the deliberations of taxi drivers on the childless state of spouse and myself. There seems to be no concept of privacy about family matters which means that I have had the same conversation in about 70% of taxis I took in Dubai and possibly 80% in Sharjah! The drivers are usually, though not always, Pakistani and the conversation is conducted at varying levels of English with bits of Arabic thrown in. After "madam where come from ?" the next question is always:

"you husban’??"

followed by:

"you baby? 1? 2? 3?"

Answering 'no' to the baby question inevitably opens up an insistent line of reproductive enquiry. On establishing the existence of a 'problem' the next question from the driver is invariably:

"you problem? husban' problem?"

.. and so a most sensitive and intimate subject becomes a perfectly normal and acceptable conversation with a total stranger!

Over the past two years I have been told more than once that under Islamic law I can divorce and get a new husband who will “give me baby”. I have also received the phone numbers of “very good doctor” in Pakistan. The funniest one was a driver who asked if my husband worked very hard and then came home and went to sleep. When I said yes, I was earnestly informed that this was “big problem” because "for make baby husban' must wake up".

The most harrowing was a driver who had 7 children in a village near Peshawar. He was so upset by how he perceived the situation that he actually started to cry and said that if his children were here he would give one of them to me.

I only ever got one offer of a more physically direct contribution to my motherhood but I pretended not to understand and didn't give the driver a tip .....

In most cases, especially when language options are limited, the journeys end with an acknowledgement of the powerlessness of humanity and the absolute necessity for trust in the will of god. Allah karim can only ever be the safe conclusion!

These and other experiences and conversations with taxi drivers will be among my strongest memories of the UAE. I have heard stories about the lives and the politics of every part of Pakistan and know which buildings in Dubai are owned by which members of Pakistan's ruling families. I have heard tales of arduous road trips between Abu Dhabi and Sudan or Yemen via Saudi Arabia and across the Red Sea. Drivers like that who have been here many years have taught me a lot about the UAE and how it has changed. Over 18 years one driver had descended from being in the Abu Dhabi Air Force to driving a cab in Sharjah. I heard similar stories from Yemenis and Bahrainis who were in the police force but gradually squeezed out as policy shifted to employing more UAE nationals. Some of these stories are bitter, some reveal fascinating facts about crime and corruption while others leave you suspicious that the driver is omitting a key transgression of his own which resulted in the forced career change!

Living here may have made me redefine my working definition of freedom (i.e. an integrated public transport system!) but its absence gave me access to a whole fleet of social, cultural and political commentators, storytellers and UAE historians. It also provided a lot of surprisingly personal human contact that I would not otherwise have had.

Of course there were the absolute nightmare taxi drivers as well. However, they were a minority and generally consisted of those poor b******s seemingly fresh from the village, who hadn’t been in the taxi for more than a few days and appeared to have had no training, no orientation and certainly no suggestion that listening to a woman with a map might be a good idea……. it's those ones that make freedom seem like an integrated public transport system. By integrated I mean inter-emirate too. I miss being able to lose several hours staring out of train windows at passing landscape while listening to the infinite possibilities of 10,000 MP3 tracks on random .....

Bellissimo..

2009-04-29T13:16:00.002+04:00

In relation to a post on April 9th about not being paid I am delighted to say that I checked my bank account today and one of the Italians has coughed up! It was not immediately apparent which one but a little research revealed it was Il Giornale Dell'Architettura. So thank you very much! Better late than never and I am sure it had nothing to do with the earlier blog post and associated comments ....

My four days of the Dubai dream...

2009-04-22T18:34:00.009+04:00

This week I am house and cat sitting for a friend who lives in a Dubai dream villa! Each day starts with a majestic descent of the wide marble staircase then padding gently across the huge antique Persian rug in the hall I sweep into the light and spacious kitchen. While the coffee is brewing. I fix breakfast, collect the newspapers by the door and then head through the patio doors for the poolside. After a leisurely breakfast I take a light morning swim, a long and luxurious shower in my own bathroom and only then do I think about turning on the laptop.

The laptop even has its own room overlooking the front garden and in between emails, articles and updating proposals, I watch the birds delicately flitting from tree to tree. I then head out to all the meetings I've arranged over these four days to discuss my new project. The project gets an amazing response from everybody I pitch it to and I get lots of good advice and contacts as well as unconditional offers of support. I also get to see a lot of new exhibitions, every taxi I take has a lovely driver and I don't get stuck in any traffic!

I return to my fabulous villa, write up my notes and then spend an hour or so swimming in the cool, freshwater pool while the overhanging bougainvillea branches drop flowers gently into the water......

In the evenings I catch up with friends I've hardly seen since moving to Sharjah and go to a book launch where I see lots of other people I haven't seen since leaving Dubai. The four days really remind me of what is good about Dubai and what I miss about it but mostly they reveal just how much easier life is when lived from a spacious villa with a pool set in a beautiful secluded garden!

It really got me thinking that its time for a career change. Hmmm..... will start investigating how I can become a professional international house and cat sitter.....

Fujairah Rocks... real rocks....

2009-04-12T08:42:00.011+04:00

Went on mega hike in Fujairah mountains at the weekend. We had been talking about doing this for ages but the friend with the car had been too busy. He finally had a free weekend so we all got up ridiculously early for a Friday and headed out from Sharjah on an almost empty road. Somewhere between Masafi and Fujairah we pulled off the road, parked up, stuffed 4 litres of water in each of our backpacks and got walking.

We started on a dry river bed and then went up and up and up. All the potential paths up are essentially water runs and as you get higher you can see exactly where all the different streams come down. Easy to see how sudden heavy rainfall could cause flash floods and make it a very dangerous place to be. We were really lucky with the weather. It was perfect for hiking. Overcast enough to block out the worst of the sun but not dense enough to pose any serious risk of rain.

There was really nothing much up there except goats, a few birds, trees and cane reeds, a light scattering of wild lavender and some other mountains shrubs and flowers. We did also see a couple of tiny lizards, some cool psychedelic orange wasps and a lot more flies than expected when we got out the food! However, what was most amazing was all the water. We came across a lot of tiny springs that just appear out of nowhere and then disappear back into the ground after just a few metres. The biggest one had actually eroded three downward tiered pools and it was weird to see a toad living in the biggest one along with some toad spawn, other pond like creatures and a dead beetle. It is so barren up there otherwise this was really unexpected. I guess the springs all go down into an underground aquifer somewhere nearby. Maybe they end up in Masafi bottles. So next time you buy a bottle of Masafi just remember the toad got to it first!

There were a lot of holes in the sides of mountains, some were tiny but others looked like quite large caves. We couldn't work out if these were naturally occurring or had actually been gouged out at some point. When we got up to the highest point there were a lot of large rocks that were so deeply red they looked as if they had been painted but the rock types were pretty varied so there was a range of colours in general. I am not great at identifying rock but I found a small piece of something full of shiny gold bits which could have been Dubai bling rock. Otherwise it was granite and many softer shale-type rocks which created a lot of loose scree and gravel. This made coming down quite hard especially because we took a different route down which ended up being steeper than the one we took up. This got quite challenging at times and I have an impressively large bruise on my ass to prove it but I am really glad I got to do it especially knowing that I will outta here in a couple of months. So thank you to friends with cars! Getting a taxi driver to wait at the side of a road in the middle of nowhere for 6 hours just wouldn't have been the same!

This ain't no way to make a living..

2009-04-09T09:34:00.007+04:00

Since the coolest job in the universe could only ever be temporary it came to its sad but allotted end. Since then I have been scrabbling around for work again which is as much of a pain in the proverbial as ever. Life for a freelancer is not easy here. Especially in the arts field despite all the hype.... and as for just turning up and being an artist forget it! Without considerable independent means you are constantly looking for the next project that is going to provide an income and they are so few and far between you never actually get to that position where you have enough behind you to buy materials and rent a cheap studio space ... err... not that they exist ... yet!

It's harder when you know it's temporary as well. This means you don't actually have a long term vested interest in the location itself so motivation is difficult to sustain. This is compounded by the absence of the kind of wider (and personal) support system that takes time to build up.

I have also discovered that the life of a freelance writer completely sucks. I now understand friends in this field who said they spend most of the time chasing up invoices. I have actually given up on two lots of money I am owed for articles ... both organisations based in Italy as it happens. It may seem churlish to have a go at Italy given the earthquake and all ... but Flash Art International suck and don't ever mention Il Giornale dell’Architettura in my presence unless you want a black eye.

What makes me most angry is how they just go silent. No answers to emails, no apologies, no nuffin'! If they at least emailed to say a) your article was so crap we can't use it or b) they decided not to publish the 'special feature on the UAE' so we can't extract payment or just c) sorry we're charlatans and we're not going to pay you... I would feel soooo much better!

But never mind... the departure date is drawing ever nearer and so I guess it's quite appropriate that my next project is not based in the UAE at all. However, if this potential project is going to work I will definitely need some help from people I've met here ... and the usual inshallah's all round of course!!

The Fantabulous Sharjah Biennale

2009-04-02T11:04:00.009+04:00

The advantage of the Sharjah Biennale is that it’s there for long enough to take a leisurely look at although I’m not sure how much human traffic it gets once the frenzy of the opening week is done. That said I was loitering suspiciously in Sharjah last Saturday and there were quite a lot of visitors going in and out of the Sharjah Art Museum.

This is just one of the Biennale venues but contains the most work in one place. It is also an amazing building. It has sloping floors which make walking around a slightly disconcerting experience a bit like being in one of those optical illusion prints by Escher of never-ending staircases. This architectural feature is actually used by two of the artists. Ayse Erkmen created a false room with the lights hanging at an angle. However, because you are viewing it from an angle it seems as if the false room is the one with the correct proportions. Karin Sander created a track around two corridors along which a chrome ball can run simply because of the downward slope of the floor. The only problem with this is that someone needs to switch the ball onto the other side of the circuit when it reaches the bottom so that it is in constant motion. I have been there several times now and not once have I seen this happen. I guess not all the security guys were told that this was part of the job!

There is a lot of stuff to see and you really do need time especially to check out all the video work. Liu Wei’s Hopeless Lands is a short and disturbing video about Chinese farmers who now eke out a living from urban trash. Seeing hundreds of people swarming around the back of a lorry as it spills its contents onto a massive dump site is an image that will stay with me for some time. By contrast Liliana Porter’s Fox in the Mirror, in which music is played by an orchestra of ceramic, plastic and wax figures, was a lot of fun. Definitely a dark edge to it but overall highly entertaining. Not sure what Zebra by Haris Epaminonda was about other than spectrum but enjoyed the constant drifting refrain of Bach’s Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1 in G Minor. Actually the only thing the visual aspect of this work brought to my mind was an ink jet printer commercial but I guess I missed something.

Fernando Jose Pereira’s, Remote Control-Remove Control in its own reconstructed Icelandic hut ended up being less interesting than it sounded. That was actually the case with several other works. The concepts and ideas underpinning them ended up seeming more impressive than the work itself. That said it was nice to briefly feel the icy chill of an Icelandic day in the middle of Sharjah!

Basma Al Sharif’s video We began by measuring distance received one of the Biennale artist prizes. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually seen it all the way through yet so can’t comment but it’s reserved for a complete and slow viewing next time I’m down there along with Primoz and Novak’s fictional documentary Going South and Ghani and Kelly’s, Smile you’re in Sharjah.
Over the road in the Serkal House are videos by Sharif Waked and Nikolaj Larsen. Waked uses the now familiar media image of a suicide bomber’s last broadcast but his protagonist reads excerpts from One Thousand and One Nights thus avoiding the usual horrific denouement. This mirrors the origin of the tales themselves in which Scheherazade narrates one tale after another to King Shahrayar in order to save herself and her tribe from execution. It is quite mesmerizing listening to the tales and very frustrating when suddenly the tale switches and you don’t get to hear the end.

Nikolaj Larsen’s work consists of two videos projected onto facing screens. On one screen Indian migrant workers based in Sharjah stand staring into the camera. On the opposite screen their families back in India do the same. Watching these simultaneous screenings in the space between, where the viewer can see both but they can’t see each other, was a very intimate and actually very moving experience. I cannot recall having been moved to tears by a video installation before! Maybe it was just one of those days.

I reviewed the biennial for a US arts website (here: Absolute Arts) but other things that stood out that I haven’t mentioned elsewhere were a room full of Robert Macpherson’s assorted work, Yonamine's sandbag installation and Hiroyuki Masuyama’s light boxes. Nadia Kaabi Linke’s hanging paint fragments making a map of the UAE cast beautiful shadows on the surrounding walls and Hayv Kahraman’s meticulously composed Domesticated Marionettes were also perfectly placed for maximum impact in their big space in the Serkal House.

The overall mix of mediums, styles, concepts, materials and spaces means that there is probably something for everyone here, even if you don't have much time, and the kids will love The Box!

One other observation though is maintenance. Admittedly keeping all this going for two months is difficult. It’s not just hanging pictures on a wall and leaving them there! So expect a few un-replaced light bulbs on certain installations, the odd lack of transmission on headphones and no doubt a few other mechanical and technical hitches to come before May 16th!

Whatever…. Just GO! You’ve got over a month ….

Review - Art Dubai and Al Bastakiya Art Fair

2009-03-22T10:09:00.036+04:00

I spent most of the current UAE art and culture frenzy in Sharjah at the Biennial (about which I’ll write later) but spent a couple of days at Art Dubai and the Al Bastakiya Art Fair (formerly Creek Art Fair – there’s a lot of re-branding about at the moment!).

The first thing I saw in Art Dubai was an old friend, visually speaking, which was Nelson Leirner. His wacky assortment of Mona Lisa memorabilia mounted in small separate frames covering a whole wall was immediately recognisable as his. Last year he covered a whole wall with manipulated Sotheby's catalogues and on talking to the Bolsa de Arte people I discovered that this work had actually been bought by Christies which is pretty funny in itself. However, the idea to feature him alone this year didn't really work. It needed some variety to balance his singularity and without that the work seemed to become like caricature.

Wandering around this year I didn't see much that truly grabbed me but I really liked the Trojan horse style building by Gigi Scaria at Sun and Sun Contemporary Gallery and the big painting at Michael Schultz by Huang Min which placed modern tourists in front of a traditional painted Chinese scene. The Mario Mauroner Gallery had some interesting works on paper by Barthelemy Togno and an epic installation by Fabrizio Plesso called Armada Rosso. This was a big bank of thick coppery metal shelves containing skeins of red wool. The base shelf was composed of a line of TV screens showing a looped video of waste water from the dyeing process running like a river of blood.

I saw a few things from Dubai galleries this year that I hadn't seen before and which were great. From the Third Line, Ala Ebteker's Ahmadinejad jacket made me laugh out loud and if it were mine I would definitely wear it although I may have to insert a caption that reads ‘I now kill bloggers too’. Ahmedinejad (a.k.a Imadinnerjacket) really should have been a comedian rather than the ruler of a country that truly deserves much better leaders. We would all have been so much better off but it’s never too late for a career change. Farhad Moshiri's latest work was there too but that is probably covered by some of the comments below.

Art Space’s installation by Ahmed Matar of a magnet and iron filings representing Mecca was brilliant in its simplicity and consequently made an impact on a number of different levels. It was also a very fresh image relating to the region as the key marketing trends are starting to wear very thin. Zena Al Khalil's furry and confettied kitsch Kalashnikovs at Tanit are a shining example of how rapidly an easily overplayed idea can become novelty art. In fact a lot of what I saw this year from all over seemed to fit into that category.

There seems to be a general disinclination to think too much and then claim subversion or irony while hoping the global attention span of a goldfish means you get away with it. This is starting to result in some pretty trashy product. It really does seem to have become more product than art and in relation to regional product if I see one more woman in an abaya/scarf variation image I'll scream. Particularly if it's juxtaposed with something western and especially if that happens to be Coca Cola as in the work of one artist in Al Bastakiya. Get over it... as a friend of mine remarked.

The honourable exception to this was Waheeda Malullah's short video piece Colours which was showing in the Bidoun Art Park and as usual there was a lot of good video work down there which I didn’t have time to see. Why oh why can’t you buy DVDs of work showing in the Art Park? It’s a captive market so you can inflate the price and proceeds can then be distributed accordingly! I thought this at the Dubai Film Festival as well. There were several films I would have bought including some that I actually saw and really wanted to show other people.

Talking of video it was the video installation pieces at Art Dubai that I found most memorable this year. Having had a lot of experience in the field, I loved the idea of Kutlug Ataman's multi-video English as a Foreign Language at Francesco Minini, but completley failed to understand why the Abraaj Prize piece was rated so highly.

Ferideh Lashai's three-part video at Al Bareh Gallery was a development and extension of her piece last year in the Art Fair formerly known as Creek. The work has been extended in terms of both medium and scope now re-telling a whole story rather than being a straightforward but innovative projection piece. In the Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery 'Oil Paintings' were apocalyptic projections of burning oil fires onto painted canvas. They were fascinating to watch and provoked a lot of questions and interest. I actually quite liked them but did wonder about their gimmicky nature. Fantastic for atmospheric exhibitions in darkened rooms and likely to attract the curious hordes but would I buy one? Probably not.

Arguably a work in the Agial Gallery (I didn't get the artist's name unfortunately) encapsulates everything I’ve moaned about above - stereotypes, gimmicks, kitsch, novelty etc. but I loved it. Several heads with faces obscured to various degrees in a now definitive militant visual were painted on an up-ended mobile vegetable stand of the type you see all over the Middle East. The stand was painted with gold and flowers and even had small light bulbs across the top depicting the constellation of the plough. Maybe it was this material authenticity that made it so different and the fact that it was also reminiscent of European iconography. It seemed to have a bit of everything - politics, religion, several kinds of history, low-end economics and astronomy used in a way that even managed to reference celebrity.

Others that stick in my head are Haunch of Venison, the Kalfayan Galleries, the October Gallery and Kashya Hildebrand for Anja Jensen and particularly Gohar Dashti. I also liked the minimalist plasticity of Lee Bae's reworking of old themes at Hakgojae. Maitha Huraiz’s work Behind Closed Doors at Elementa stood out and this was confirmed on seeing that the same piece had sold several copies down at the Bastakiya. There was actually a lot of photographic work relating to the region especially Iraq and Palestine including some great Gazan interiors by Taysir Bataniji at LA Bank and Rula Halawani's oddly angled images of checkpoints and the wall at Selma Feriani. This all tied in nicely with the Mapping Palestine exhibition curated by Art School Palestine which included a series of seminal Palestinian video shorts in the Bidoun Art Park.

A lot of work this year seemed to touch on environments in the widest sense– interiors and exteriors, urban and organic. In many cases these elements were mixed up particularly in Bastakiya where one of the highlights was the Guy Flichy Gallery exhibiting Monica Zeitline and Bryan Nash Gill. Juxtaposing Gill’s nature based, muted print and sculpture works with Zeitlines busy urban collages worked really well.

Another highlight of Bastakiya was Bo Tasle d’Heliand whose images of the Turkana people in Kenya had a Google earth perspective and used earth and other materials from the locations depicted. Unfortunately, it was hard to appreciate their scale and detail in the small and rather dark room they were crowded into.

I didn’t go to many of the talks in Dubai this year. In fact the only one was about Online Art Journals in which I obviously have a vested interest. Sadly the chance of being paid to write about these events this year fell through after a dispute about money with ..… an online art journal! It was widely agreed that Flash Art International really should consider being more generous with its contributors.....

The (Dis) United Arab Emirates Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

2009-03-09T11:49:00.012+04:00

The UAE is the first Gulf country to be offered its own national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Taking place from June to November 2009 this is a fantastic opportunity for the UAE to showcase its most talented artists and promote itself as a creative leader in the region. Assembling the best from each emirate (and we all know who they are really ... ) will be an invaluable exercise in cultural presentation to an international audience largely unfamiliar with the artistic output of the UAE. As such it is essential that a strong, positive and cohesive national pavilion is created......

Er........ apparently not!

There will now be two pavilions: the official 'UAE Pavilion' organised from Dubai and an additional 'Abu Dhabi Pavilion' otherwise known as the 'Adach Platform for Venice'. According to the usual maelstrom of rumours, this parting of the ways seems to be a product of hissy fits on both personal and federal levels and has also affected which artists will feature.

The UAE Pavilion will remain in the national pavilion category while Abu Dhabi has inserted itself (presumably at great cost) into the 'collateral' category which focuses on a particular theme.

What an embarrassing waste of an opportunity. Unless of course the underlying conceptual intention is to convey the deep cultural significance of petty inter-emirate feuding to a global audience.

It will certainly be confusing for the geographically challenged who will judge the UAE's cultural output on the officially named pavilion curated by Dubai while wondering where the country of Adach is. Those who do realise they are witnessing the UAE divided will be confused and most certainly amused at the absurdity while several will never take the UAE seriously again. Not a great entrance to the most prestigious art event in the world is it??

I don’t usually do this but…

2009-03-05T14:59:00.006+04:00

I’ve just come back from a trip to Jerusalem. It’s my first trip there in four years. Going back to Jerusalem and catching up with the situation is never a surprise but always a shock. The dramatic increase in checkpoints, new sections of the wall and the expansion of settlements means that Jerusalem is more or less encircled. This physical reality renders the idea of it being the future capital of a Palestinian state absurd. In fact what I saw and heard on this trip left me with the uneasy conclusion of the complete and utter impossibility of a Palestinian state on ANY level.

The disconnection and complications of movement of either people or goods between Palestinian cities, let alone internationally, make it economically unviable. In several cases the wall now separates villages from their agricultural land and water resources ensuring their destitution. The absurdly time consuming and circuitous routes that Palestinians with West Bank or Gaza ID now have to make to get in and out means also that each city becomes a kind of prison for the terminally exhausted.

An eye specialist friend told me that many with eye injuries from Gaza had to travel from Gaza to Egypt then to Jordan and then by land from Jordan to Jerusalem. The time this took meant that it was impossible in many cases to save sight. Meanwhile Gaza to Jerusalem direct by road is a mere 78km.

Increased ambiguities in terms of both support and effectiveness of the PA plus the added complications of Gaza make it politically unviable. Interestingly some still believe that the release of Marwan Barghouti may be the political unifier. However, no one knows when that will be, there is less and less to unify around and an increasing perception that all leaders except Hamas are merely Palestinian administrators of Israel’s occupation. This perception does not result in a corresponding increase of political support for Hamas.

Perhaps what is most disturbing is that a Palestinian state no longer seems to be viable in the national psyche. Lives are conducted within cities largely cut off from one another and public focus has shifted to survival in these immediate and experienced urban environments. Combined with the oppressive reality of the wall, making Palestinians invisible not only to the Israelis but also to each other, even the idea of a state seems to have atrophied.

It’s so strange to see something that now requires a short introductory seminar to be comprehensible to anyone with a life. It is actually so complex that the effort required to understand it is way beyond reasonable but without that effort there is only a very simplistic way of interpreting it. I guess it was always a bit like that but now there is nothing in between. It's like some kind of bizarre mathematical equation that only works in extremis. Maybe it's an example of complexity theory.

Whatever it is hearing Hilary Clinton talk about the inescapability of a Palestinian state was like listening to someone who hadn’t attended the introductory seminar....

Emirati Expressions Exhibition

2009-01-30T10:49:00.010+04:00

This is the biggest show to date of Emirati artists and Abu Dhabi has gone for it a big way. It runs until April 16th at Gallery One in the Emirates Palace Hotel, features 64 artists, a programme of events and an unusually impressive website! The show was organized by Dubai’s Art Connection and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), and was curated by Anne Baldassari, director of the Musée National Picasso in Paris.

Baldassari has transformed Gallery One into a walk-in black box and the spotlighted work seems to glow in the context of entirely black walls, floor and ceiling. The smoked mirror across the end wall adds an extra subterranean disorientation reminiscent of ghostly fairground attractions. This is particularly appropriate for Husband 1 and Wife 2 by Maisoon Al Saleh depicting two skeletons dressed for their wedding but the dark and gothic sensibility I have noticed before in Emirati work is also evident elsewhere in this show. This is mostly in the form of atmospheric digital composites but Jalal Luqman takes it to another level by housing his tormented figures in huge industrial metal frames.

Other works that looked very comfortable in the darkness were Jamila Al Suwaidi’s ‘Astro-photographs’ of lunar and solar eclipses and other astronomical events, and Abeer Al Tahlak’s transparent multi-layered installation with superimposed text. Some of the painting benefited from the darkness but it was good to see work by veterans Dr. Najat Makki and Abdel Rahim Salem alongside newer painters such as Wasel Safwan. It was also a relief to see contemporary art pioneers Hassan and Hussein Sharif especially given doubts about the participation of any Flying House artists in this show.

Several of the artists in this show had also participated in Suhoor: an Emirati Exhibition in Dubai last December and many were showing exactly the same work. In most cases it was the best of the work from the Suhoor show but the repeat performance was a bit unimaginative. The most notable addition to this previously shown work was Reem Al Ghaith’s impressive wall installation Dubai: What’s left of her land? a piece that will also feature in the Sharjah Biennale later this year.

Much of the calligraphy also had a contemporary twist. Mohammed Mandi’s painted works on leather looked like prints, while Nassim al Majed used brass and Italian glass mosaics to create script on Indonesian volcanic rock. Faiza Al Mubarak’s ornate and chunky book-like sculptures also contained a very tactile and interesting mix of materials and the larger sculptures, like Azza Al Qubaisi’s metal works and Mohammed Yousef’s smooth wooden thumb, provided some quirky dimensional diversity.

There seemed to be a lot of photography, not all of it memorable, and a predominance of work influenced by technology and graphic design. This perhaps reflects the greater availability of education in these subjects in the UAE and graduates from the American University of Sharjah’s, School of Architecture and Design were particularly well represented. One of these was Khuloud Sharafi whose series of mixed media works depicting Umm Kalthoum were one of the show’s highlights. Umm Kalthoum’s image is ubiquitous and has often been used in art from the region which makes new depictions a risky undertaking. However, Al Sharafi’s simple association of her image with the audio technology of her time worked very well and using a transfer print and etching on an old vinyl record was inspired.

Also inspired was a video made by filmmakers collective The Circle which featured cut up sound bites from interviews with all the participating artists. In an environment where local artists have had little public exposure and where art is a relatively new career choice, the video and exhibition combined provided a very personal introduction.

Emirati Expressions: Art from the heart of the Emirates

Gallery One, Emirates Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi

Until 16th April 2009

Thanks to Govind Dhar for photos

Let's hear it for shouting ...

2009-01-02T11:56:00.005+04:00

Prompted out of my post-New Year apathy by a comment from Moryarti posted on my previous blog entry, I am happy to report that a three pronged deposit recovery strategy has been successful. After a couple of extremely civil visits to the office we started setting dates when were coming in and expecting to get the cheque. We then called shortly before each appointed time and date to make sure and on being told the cheque still wasn't ready we started some serious shouting. Over a few days we relentlessly bruised the eardrums of every single hapless member of staff in turn. The final call contained the word 'rent committee' several times and by the end of that day we received our first ever call back informing us the cheque was ready! On our way to a friend's house on Christmas Day we dropped by the office and the Al-Sharafi Santa and his little helpers gave us the goodies!

Thanks to all on UAE Community Blog for advice received! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Groooooaaannnnn....

2008-12-20T13:49:00.006+04:00

As usual the period of unusually rational exuberance evident in my last post has given way to the normality of some constantly nagging financial bullshit that has to be dealt with.

Although we have been out of Dubai for a month now we still haven't got our 5000DHS security deposit back nor the last advance rent cheque. We have pleasantly visited the office, phoned numerous times as is the norm here in the absence of any of those promised calls back, but still no cheque. There are no outstanding issues with the flat we vacated and the cast iron evidence is that the flat has already been rented out to someone else.... or so our sources tell us.

So what to do. We called what we thought was the head office only to discover that it the same office we are already dealing with. Everyone there we speak to says it is the responsibility of the man who told us he was waiting for 'head office' to a) inspect the vacated flat ... er ... presumably done before the new tenants moved in? and b) to prepare the cheque. Incidentally this man has now stopped answering our calls.

Have posted question about this on UAE community blog but it is one of those UAE things that I can never get used to... that constant feeling of slight nausea because you know that however good things seem to have got there is always another fucking battle just around the corner.

I love Sharjah ..

2008-12-10T13:04:00.004+04:00

Sharjah rocks! It is so weird. It's just down the road from Dub but is like being in a totally different country. I feel like my feet actually connect to solid ground in Sharjah. In Dubai I always felt like I was walking on ice somehow and was never quite sure how thick it was. Even the taxi drivers are different. They have all the same problems but seem less stressed out than Dubai taxi drivers despite the nightmare of central Sharjah traffic.

Also Sharjah has got off to a very positive start in a way Dubai didn't for me. Completely out of the blue and starting the week I actually moved here, was a gift of a job working with the Sharjah Biennale and Bidoun Magazine. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that this is the coolest job in the universe and I can hardly believe its mine! As a consequence I have been allah kareeming and ulhumdulillahing all over the place which goes down very well in Sharjah. What;s more the job is based right in the middle of Sharjah's arts and heritage area which is just ... well.. ..ulhumdulillah.... see what I mean?!

Another positive is of course the weather... numerous thunderstorms last week and lots of lovely rain! I know it didn't rain much in Dubai last winter (apart from the three days that George Bush came), but the only time I heard thunder in Dubai was that weird day they seeded the clouds!

So .. I don't actually miss anything about Dubai yet although next week is the Dubai International Film Festival and I'm sure that taxi-ing in and out of Dubai most days is going to be a complete pain in the proverbial. But I sneaked a press pass again which means I get free tickets so I ain't complaining!

Art Paris Abu Dhabi

2008-12-07T11:54:00.003+04:00

This year’s Art Paris-Abu Dhabi seemed very different to last year. However, I’m not sure if this is just my perception or if there really was an objective shift in focus. It definitely seemed less ‘European’ but perhaps this is because one of the first gallery stands in the main hall was the UK's Waterhouse and Dodds. This stand contained a who’s who of regional big hitters and earners. Farhad Moshiri – check, Shirin Neshat – check, Parviz Tanavoli – check, Charles Hossein Zenderoudi – check. Yawn – check.

Most prominently displayed was Lalla Essaydi’s triptych of a figure reclining in an interior with everything covered in Arabic script. Displayed below, was the centrefold of the National with the same image reproduced as part of a feature on the art collection of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Zayed which magically appeared two days before the opening! Worries that sales would be affected by the global downturn was evidently not something Essaydi had to worrry about nor probably any other artists in MBZ's collection!

This start set a slightly weary tone for my trip around the fair this year although a few other things did register. Enrico Navarra had an event-specific graffiti work drawn on paper around the wall of one part of its stand. This was absolutely inspired and I sincerely hope that it was snapped up for the MBZ collection.

Patrice Trigano, had several works by photographer Julien Leclerc including one mesmerising image of a bullfight. The merging of the component parts of the image was reminscent of Picassos ‘Death of a Female Toreador’ although it was a defintive victory for the toreador in this case. Another work which was essentially a study of wet sand, was also mesmerising in its textured and shadowed simplicity. Both of these images were like strong silent types providing a reassuring antidote to the political noise of some of the middle eastern work.

This perception of noise also struck me at the Tamenaga gallery showing the work of Cheng Jiang Hong and Kyosuke Tchinai. Both artists were obviously absorbed in a purely creative process which reconstructed and reinterpreted parts of their own art histories. There was a narrative thread in Hong’s work which almost read like a book and Tchinai had merged all the most recognisable features of traditional Japanese technique into images that were 2D but sculptural in their impact. One image in particular was so breathtaking I understood for the first time in my life why people spend money they don’t have.

After this I wandered aimlessly around the rest of the fair feeling slightly guilty for being irritated with ‘modern middle eastern art’ although perhaps it’s just the Iranians I’m bored with. Ahmad Mualla’s huge painting at Green Art Gallery was stunning and Lara Baladi’s beach collages at B21 are pure entertainment.

Guy Ferrer and Bernard Pras, the only artists being shown by Nathalie Gaillard, were also memorable. In a context where many small spaces are often overstuffed with multiple artists and styles, a minimal display technique can be very effective!

Squatting and Exhibiting in Dubai

2008-11-13T09:56:00.009+04:00

Countdown to Sharjah has entered final week and I am re-visiting a bizarre combination of two periods in my life - squatting and being a student.

Spouse has secured furnished apartment in the People's Great Neighbouring Jumhurriyah so with assistance from Dubizzle and the Spinneys noticeboard I have been furniture souk central all this week. As of two days ago I have had no fridge, cooker, washing machine, bed or sofa. This means I am sleeping on a mattress on the floor and living primarily off of Korean pot noodle. Given the absence of any other form of entertainment since the TV left, I am also playing a disturbing amount of PC games.

When I was a student PCs didn't exist so entertainment consisted mostly of music which I still have here except it is now all on one small device. So all I need is a case of warm beer and a carton of Marlboro and I could pretend to be 21 again......probably not a good idea.

Given these circumstances it is amazing that I managed to scrub up well enough to attend the opening of 'Women in Art IV' at the Courtyard Gallery this week. I have three paintings in this show (above) which ends on November 20th and then its off to Sharj 2 days later. I'm really glad that I could end my time living in Dubai with an exhibition.

PS. If anyone wants a cheap as chips dining table, desk, office chair and bookcase let me know!

Day trip to Islamic Civilisation

2008-11-04T16:06:00.004+04:00

In line with my imminent move to the centre of the known local cultural universe, I just paid a visit to the Sharjah Museums Department. Sharjah has more museums than the rest of the Emirates combined and in the past year it really seems to have been getting its act together.

Arty types are more likely to know about Sharjah because of the biennale which predates any substantial ‘arty’ offerings from Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Even so I have never understood why Sharjah and its assets don’t get more press or other coverage.

I suppose it’s partly because Sharjah doesn’t have the manic self promotional tendencies of its neighbours and has nothing to prove in the cultural arena anyway. By contrast both Dubai and Abu Dhabi seem desperate to promote their respective ‘visions’ of the UAE’s cultural future and their roles in it. Unfortunately, the words ‘vision’ and ‘future’ are not much use to somebody who needs a regular injection of ‘reality’ and ‘present’ and this Sharjah visit gave me a good dose of both.

The museums department now has an educational section for promoting Sharjah’s museums of archaeology, natural and social history, calligraphy, art, aviation and several more. Although these institutions are always good for attracting stray tourists, the focus of the educational department’s outreach is decidedly local. This means nationals, residents, schools and universities. There are family activities, school activities, cultural awareness programmes and some very cool stuff to see especially in the jewel in the Sharjah crown, the new Museum of Islamic Civilisation.

The museum only opened last June and contains a fascinating and extensive collection of historical, scientific and cultural artefacts. Some of these have been donated or purchased especially for the museum but the majority apparently constitute the personal collection of Sharjah’s ruler.

The first floor is dedicated to science and technology. This includes astronomy, navigation, medicine and chemistry and I was delighted to see a whole cabinet of astrolabes. I like astrolabes and this is the first time I have actually seen one for real! They are amazing inventions but are also works of art and craftsmanship in their own right.

Another delightful surprise was the ballistics and weapons section which I don’t want to ruin by describing too much. Let’s just say there are certain aspects that animal rights activists may object to, although the animals used in early biological weapons programmes probably survived.

The second floor is dedicated to the art and craftsmanship of the Islamic world. There are pieces of ancient text and Quranic script carved into wood and stone. Ceramics, metalwork, glass, models of gardens, ancient buildings and architecture.

It was very refreshing to be in a building full of old stuff displayed well and relevant to the location. In fact this trip confirmed for me that Sharjah truly is the centre to which all futures must refer if they wish to maintain a connection to their past. Go Sharjah!!

Land, Art and the Environment

2008-10-26T17:03:00.027+04:00

Last week I was lucky enough to be involved in a panel discussion and exhibition at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi. Organised by the Abu Dhabi Authority of Culture and Heritage and the Goethe-Institut Gulf Region, the exhibition runs until November 1st.

The panel was chaired by Konstantin Schreiber of Deutsche Welle TV and featured artists who work in some way with environmental issues. The main artist, German photographer Petra Petrick exhibited a series of photographs called ‘German Desert’. The images are desolate, barren and beautiful just like real deserts but actually taken at the abandoned sites of former open cast coalmines in Germany.

Khorfakkan artist Abdullah al Saadi exhibited a wall length panoramic scroll of the Khorfakkan coastline created while in a boat looking back at the coast. His work monitors the change in the landscape as new buildings, especially hotels, arise and aspects of the natural landscape are removed. In some cases this includes parts of mountains.

Muna al Ali arranges potted plants in various stages of growth to comment on the inevitable cycles of life and decay to which we are all subject. The first time I saw this installation called ‘Dialogue with Nature’ was in the Creek Art fair last March. At that time all the plants were very healthy looking but now the dialogue is communicating something much less optimistic.

My work consisted of three ‘Towers of Trash’ which also featured in the Creek Art fair last year, and two ‘Artificial Landscapes’. These are painted on recycled board and depict landscapes but in a totally artificial way using unnatural colours, perspectives and materials.

Mohammed Kazem had several photographs in the exhibition illustrating the rapid urbanisation of the landscape around Dubai and more abstracted work using details of the urban emnvironment.

In the panel discussion itself the artists talked about how their work relates to changes in the environment around them and reflects and interprets these changes. Petra Petrick’s haunting photographs are testament to industrially devastated landscapes and Abdullah al Saadi is chronicling contemporary landscape loss. My work tries to address the fact that there are long-term consequences of having one of the highest amounts of waste per capita and Muna al Ali reminds us of the inevitable!

While the undeniable benefits of development are visible, the negatives, particularly in relation to the environment, tend to be invisible in the short term so are easy to ignore. However, none of this work is meant as an unambiguous criticism of development or Dubai but is more a mechanism to raise questions about issues of land use, environmental sustainability and even public health. Ultimately the environment is the great leveller. We are all equally dependent on it for our survival not only as individuals but also as a species. From a creative point of view it has been the inspiration for some of the world’s greatest art, greatest music and greatest poetry. If it changes we change with it and as Muna’s work suggests, a dialogue with nature is probably easier while it still seems relatively healthy!

Critiquing Art at the DIFC

2008-10-17T18:11:00.007+04:00

The first of four panel discussions arranged to coincide with the photographic exhibition ‘To the Holy Lands’ was held last week at DIFC. Entitled 'Critiquing Art: factors in critiquing art within the Modern Middle East' the panel explored some of the cultural dynamics associated with art criticism in this region.

One comment made about the purpose of the forum was to bring like-minded people together to begin a dialogue that underpins the UAEs current art boom and ultimately contributes to its sustainability. This is a noble aim but I don’t get out as much as I probably should so unfortunately didn’t recognise most of the people in the room! It would have been very useful if there had been a participant list available especially one with affiliations so that we all know who the interested parties are.

Another aim was to explore the difficulties of critique in a media environment that tends to cut and paste the press release and where public criticism of any kind is considered negative. There is a rather large gap between this context and the occidental view of criticism as a separate discipline necessary for creative and intellectual development.

One question raised by panellist Stephanie Sykes, Communications Manager of Art Dubai, was ‘Who makes the best art critic?’ Another panellist, artist, critic and curator Talal Mualla seemed to think that artists themselves were in the best position to be critics. In his view, the way in which artists relate to wider cultural, political and historical contexts enables them to situate and interpret the work more accurately.

This may be true but it does not necessarily mean that artists are the best critics. They have a vested interest in promoting their own craft and their understanding and respect for the creative process itself can reduce their critical judgment of the final product. However, this approach probably makes them ideal critics in the environment under discussion!

It’s a shame that this issue wasn’t explored further but it got me thinking about the definition of art critic. To paraphrase from my new favourite book ‘Art Criticism – a User’s Guide’ there are several types of critic:

The Advocate – promotes artists he or she admires and compares others unfavourably
The Theoretician – interprets the context of each work rather than its form or content
The Progressive – welcomes and promotes innovation and new forms
The Ideologue – interprets through a structure of political or social commitment
The Traditionalist – reviews what is new in terms of its relationship to the past

Related to this my book also says there are several types of criticism - thematic, geographical, technical, chronological and theoretical – none of which sound particularly nasty to me. In fact all of the above just seem to be flexible structures or at least starting points for forming an opinion. Despite its name art criticism is not automatically 'critical'.

Given the creative mergers and acquisitions of globalism and technology over recent years it is tempting to think that approaches to criticism must also shift but maintaining some structural consistency amid often chaotic change is probably more useful. That said there is too much happening to be covered by traditional means anyway and changes in the nature of communication enable artists, or anybody else, to say essentially what they like. However, this is most often small groups of people talking amongst themselves so issues of quality control are probably moot. Ultimately, established and traditional authorities of art criticism are likely to prevail until new ones emerge strongly enough from new global settings to challenge them. This relates to the other big unexplored question for me which was ‘Who is it for?

The panel was essentially about Middle Eastern art and while it is always worthwhile to get good information out there in any language, most of it is in English. If the dialogue is about developing and sustaining creativity in the Middle East where are the Arabic commentators? There are loads of Arabic blogs and forums out there so surely some of them must be about art and culture in the region. If anyone knows please tell me. I won’t be able to read them but I know people who can and it would be good just to know they are there!

The other discussion are as follows:

October 15th - 'Digitally Restoring Photographs: practical techniques
October 22nd - 'The History of Photography and Contemporary Photography in the Gulf Region'
October 28th - 'How to run an exhibition: Art Management'

'Let's Talk' Grey Noise at the Jam Jar

2008-10-13T09:27:00.009+04:00

For me the most interesting thing at Art Dubai last year was the Pakistan Pavilion. The work seemed very fresh and was generally brain engaging in a way that much other contemporary work there was not. Because of this experience I was looking forward to seeing the collaboration between five young Pakistani artists from the Grey Noise Gallery in Lahore and the Jam Jar in Dubai.

'Let’s Talk’ came about after a meeting between Hetal Pawani of the Jam Jar and Umer Butt of Grey Noise. The exhibition represents a dialogue between the five artists and the work is linked as if it were a conversation. The central pillar of the whole concept is a small catalogue containing actual email dialogue and images the five artists exchanged when the show was in the planning stage. It is essential to read this catalogue, not only to help you understand what you see, but also because it creates a strong sense of personal involvement in the show.

The catalogue provides a basic structure of the conversation being had in the work. After that it is up to you to work out exactly where and how the different layers of the conversation intersect. This is challenging in itself because it is not always obvious. Just like a real conversation there are things that are unsaid, slight tangents and unresolved points. However, when juxtaposing the conversation being had by the work with the emailed exchanges between the artists, the show becomes a complete and cohesive entity. Silences in one and omissions in the other also become comprehensible.

The strongest conversational thread in the work is music or sound. The show starts with Lala Rukh’s sound collage containing elements of nature, politics and traditional music. Following on from this is Ayesha Jatoi’s line of sound words running the length of the opposite wall ending in the word ‘boom’. A full stop is provided by a very simple abstract red and white print entitled ‘Where is my God’? Turning the corner you see six small white graves each containing a different book. The interesting mix of titles spans a time frame of more than 10 years but the most recent is the biography of Benazir Bhutto. The creator of these works, Ayaz Jokhio, is strangely absent from the catalogue discussion.

Next is one of Mehreen Murtaza’s large prints evoking sci-fi, technology, creation and myth, an image that does not seem to relate directly to the conversation but is understood when placed in the context of the email exchanges. Her other print relates more directly to the sound motif but also explores faith and technology as instruments of control.

Around the next corner ‘Echo’ and ‘Sleeper’ by Fahd Burki are not what you expect to see having read the email exchanges and this intensifies the feeling that you have established an intimate relationship with the artists. The connection to the conversation in terms of sound is obvious but there are other more subtle undercurrents that can also be divined from the information you have been given.

It’s difficult to elaborate further because the presence of the catalogue is so central to the experience. It becomes like a puzzle, which you have to solve and the more effort you put into it the more rewarding it is. It is a nice redefinition of interactive - one in which exclusively mental rather than physical processes become the ones interacting with the work. What is perhaps most amazing is that you get all this from only eight pieces of work and a rather diminutive catalogue! So the show may be small but it is perfectly formed.

That said you do leave wanting more. Although you can keep reflecting on the concept and the different ways in which the conversation works, you want it to develop. Perhaps into another room, with another catalogue, different artists and a counter argument! However, this would be a different show and it probably needs to remain small because another thing I found was that it was hard to see the individual pieces in their own right. They became secondary to the larger concept and it was that, and the mental challenges associated with this show, which remained rather than the work itself. Nevertheless, Pakistan is still up there on my ‘to do further’ list!

Sharjah on my mind

2008-10-07T13:19:00.005+04:00

After a few weeks of frantic scrabbling around for new gainful employment in Dubai I have come to some conclusions. First is that I may have done it from scratch once but I really don't have the energy to do it all over again. After what happened with my previous job I don't have the motivation either.... and it is this which presents the biggest problem.

I have also found that my previous job was done in such a vacuum it doesn't seem to translate to anything outside of it. So my year of working on a pioneering culture and arts project in Dubai is irrelevant because I cannot use the knowledge gained to get another job. This is very disturbing. If the experience is irrelevant here, what possible use can it be elsewhere? There is a metaphor in here somewhere but I haven't worked out what it is yet.

Another thing is that there is some confusion about what 'freelance' means! The reaction I got from my employers when informed that my job had disappeared was 'but it's ok, you're freelance right?' When you start a project with an end date in spring 2009 you don't expect it to disappear in Autumn 2008! In this scenario 'freelance' just seems to mean an employee who is effortlessly and guiltlessly disposable (tho' the G word is probably redundant in this context!).

Anyway I have thrown in the Dubai towel, given notice on the flat and am relocating to Sharjah. Spouse has already made this move to a new job with rent paid. We figured that we could keep the flat on in Dubai and he could come for weekends but now I am not earning that is impossible so Sharjah here I come. Who knows we may even recoup some of the financial losses incurred by Dubai!

I am sure that things would have been different if we had been a) luckier and b) 10 years younger! The people I have met who seem happiest here are generally under 35, have a car and have no property or other financial commitments elsewhere unlike us. In some ways they remind me of myself in Japan in the mid 80s. Tokyo was a boom town, the money was flowing, my income was highly disposable and it was absolutely fantastic!

Aaahhh.... the good old days...

Art and national Identity

2008-09-21T14:59:00.026+04:00

Before I came to the UAE I knew there were at least 10 Emirati artists. I had their names and images in a book published in 1982 by the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States. However, on arrival in Dubai I faced a major problem - there was no National Museum or Art Gallery so no obvious place to find them. It actually took me six months to find a local artist but it is amazing that just over a year later, I am now aware of more than 200 and have actually seen the work of well over 50.

In Dubai until October 6th is an unprecedented government sponsored exhibition featuring over 100 works by 22 local artists. The artists range from veteran painters to a new generation of photographers and graphic designers. There are also literally second-generation artists such as the son and daughter of the UAEs most well known artist Abdul Qader Al Rais.

The conservative tendency in visual arts has been an association with ‘heritage’ as a means of defining identity, generally meaning falcons, dates, horses and camels. A younger and more global generation is obviously rather less enamoured of this limiting image of the nation and ‘nationality’ in art seems rather antithetical to the contemporary international climate anyway. So it was very interesting to see how much would emerge from this show that was distinctly ‘Emirati’.

The venue is the classically styled Bastakiya villa no 69. The first works you see are by Reem Al Ghaith and are familiar from the Dubai Next show at Art Basel. There is a palpable sense of dislocation in her three huge prints of a solitary figure inside a frame or seemingly reflected in a mirror against a backdrop of various Dubai locations. They also make an impression by sheer virtue of their size despite being obscured by several stone pillars. So the initial impact of this show is clearly Emirati.

The only other works in the courtyard itself are nine small sculptures of animals and figures made out of scrap metal by Mohammed Abdullah. With the exception of one in the shape of a mosque, these could have been done anywhere, as could the abstract paintings of Ahmed Sharif and Mohammad Al Qassab in room one. Four collages by Ali al Adnan were definitively regional featuring historical cultural figures from the Gulf including one Emirati. Accompanying these were Karima Al Shomeily's very direct photographs of partially obscured female faces which also had a very local flavour.

In the next two rooms, Khalid Al Banna’s work with its contrasting textures and shades of black, white and grey and Alia Al Shamsi’s photographs of modern mannequins and mechanical fortune-tellers addressed aesthetic universalities. However, Khalid Mezaina’s quirky graphics epitomising a fun and funky side of contemporary Dubai were a great example of modern generational sensibilities. Mohammed Al Habtoor also picked up on this feeling but without making a specific visual connection to the locality. His big cartoon faces suggested Disney on acid to me but provoked much discussion and were very popular with the younger generation. He will be having his first solo show when this one is over.

Similarly, Summaya Al Suwaidi’s photographic images contained nothing distinctly local in content but did seem to be staking a claim for some kind of new local genre of their own. UAE gothic perhaps? The unsettling atmosphere in Lateefa Maktoum’s consumate study of perspective could also fit this category.

Farid al Rais, daughter of the UAE’s most famous artist Abdul Qader al Rais had five works in the show - two large acrylics and three smaller pieces traditional in style if not wholly in content. Her brother Musab al Rais also had five large painted works in a different room. Both are influenced by their father’s work to the extent that all I can see is variations on his earlier themes but I guess this makes them second generation practitioners of a pioneering local style!

Of the other work in the show that connected physically to the locale, Alya al Sanad’s faces covered in sand are sensual and intense while photographs of vague figures taken through a dirty windscreen are like stills from a UAE road movie that hasn’t been made yet. In one of four video works Khalil Abdul Wahid filmed a short journey through his windscreen with visibility so bad at times due to fog or rain, that I’m sure he was risking a serious accident. It was quite a relief when he put the windscreen wipers on. Along his route there were several turnoffs for Sharjah, all of which he avoided - I guess he didn’t want to make a traffic movie.

There are two more rooms and six other artists in this show who I haven't even mentioned here including two who featured in the Meem Gallery Summer Exhibition and two exhibiting for the first time. So there is more to be seen and a lot more to be said. Overall the show demonstrates that local artists are creating very diverse work bearing little relation to the traditionally favoured images of the past, and are interpreting and revealing a very different present. They are essentially producing what will be the creative ‘heritage’ of the UAE in a few decades time. However, it is unlikely that you will be able to chart these developments by walking into a single public institution any time soon. Considering that you will be able to walk into a Louvre and a Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi and a Berlin State Museum in Dubai, this is a national tragedy.

Another tragedy, or perhaps mystery, is that despite the official support for this show there has been very little publicity and no information seems to be available on the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority website or indeed anywhere else. Hopefully, there will at least be a few other reviews before it closes on October 6th .... maybe prompted by Dubai Eye's Siobhan Live which did an hour long segment about this show on September 22nd!

'Suhoor, an Emirati Exhibition'
House 69, Bastakiya District,
Until October 6th

Roads Were Open / Roads were Closed

2008-09-14T12:47:00.009+04:00

The advantage of being unemployed is time. September marks the beginning of the post summer season and all the galleries have new shows so I may get to see them all this year!

I started a few days ago with a trip the Third Line showing its war themed exhibition ‘Roads were Open / Roads were Closed’. This exhibition features five artists interpreting either direct or indirect experience of the Palestinian and Lebanese conflicts. The exhibition’s focus is on exploring how we register trauma and perceive conflict. However, the work is also very much about how artists interpret history and preserve or package national and political, as well as personal memory.

As you enter the gallery, Palestinian Layla Shawwa’s ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ is a striking start. The huge slingshot complete with large stone sitting on a stand in the middle of the gallery floor is an immediately recognisable symbol of military asymmetry and moral triumph. The piece and its ironic title acknowledge this standard interpretation but Layla Shawwa’s point is more complex. In the absence of any forward movement, the symbol now stands as an impotent victim of its own mythology. It becomes a memory around which an uneasy internal dialogue revolves rather than being the external symbol of strength that it once was.

Photographer Tarek Al Ghoussein is also Palestinian but born in Kuwait and living in the UAE. As a consequence he is not directly exposed to the conflict but still needs to process and interpret his connection to it. His photographs, all taken in the UAE, depict huge and featureless concrete walls reflecting both the reality of the Palestinian situation and his inaccessibility to that reality. He also photographs barren desert spaces sometimes juxtaposing the two themes. When placing himself in the images he is inevitably dwarfed, either by space or by containment.

Fouad El Khoury documents a month of his life in Lebanon in the summer of 2006 when Beirut came under serious bombardment following the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. The technique is a series of prints that show his diary page for each day. Sometimes the whole page is situated inside his house surrounded by the normalcy of household items. Other times the text is superimposed on events taking place outside the house, sometimes images familiar from news reports during that period. At the same time as news of what is happening in the nation is reported in his diary, a parallel tragedy is unfolding in his personal life as a relationship fails which makes a nice if obvious juxtaposition of the personal and the political. The whole photo series covers an entire wall of the gallery and makes an impact as both visual and emotional archive.

A very different approach is taken by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige whose multi part project ‘Wonder Beirut’ documents the earlier civil war period using the ‘Story of the Pyromaniac Photographer’. This was Abdallah Farah, a photographer commissioned by the Lebanese tourist board to take postcard images of Beirut in the late 1960s. With the onset of the civil war in 1975, he systematically burned or altered the slides and negatives he used for the postcards to reflect the damage of battle. This results in some fantastic images with parts melted and blackened but retaining postcard colour intensity at the same time. Others such as the ‘Battle of the Hotels’ show sequences of the same postcard image gradually being destroyed.

Another part of the project relates to Abdallah Farah’s many rolls of film, which were never developed, first because of a lack of materials and then out of choice. Each roll is carefully dated, some as recently as 2000, and their contents documented so you are able to read the images but not see them. This part of the project is called ‘Latent Images’. Latency is apparently an engineering term meaning the time delay between the initiation of an action and its results. So the consequences of the action remain unobserved in the present. An exhibition about conflict seems the perfect home for such a notion!

This show runs until October 2nd. Thanks to the Third Line Gallery and artists for the images used here.

Ramadan Kareem

2008-09-11T12:18:00.008+04:00

I have spent the entire day so far feeling quite irrationally happy. This is very pleasant indeed and rare for me in Dubai. I can't remember the last time I had a day like this. It's irrational because there is no obvious reason for it... I didn't win any money, get a new job or sell a painting and it's the wrong time of the month for any extreme hormonal tendencies

That said I think it may have actually started yesterday at around 3.00 in the afternoon when I felt the earthquake. Having lived in Japan for a long time I knew what it was immediately. Once I realised that it was just going to be a nice gentle little shake I started grinning from ear to ear and thoroughly enjoyed it. This may seem like a weird reaction to potential death and destruction but what can I do?

At the time of the quake I was writing my first exhibition review since being back. Having written nothing for over two months it was very hard work and I didn't actually finish it until 10.00pm. It's a review of Roads were open/Roads were closed which is at the Third Line Gallery until October 2nd. I will post it here shortly but from tomorrow it will be up on the US arts site Absolute Arts.

I just hope that this feeling continues for a while longer because however irrational it may be it's still happiness!

The Grinch who stole my job…

2008-09-03T12:06:00.008+04:00

I now know how I feel about being back and it ain’t good! On Monday morning I discovered that my part time job that became a full time job and then went back to a part time job has now become a no time job. Yes… I am now officially unemployed.

Although I'm happy with the job I did and can console myself with valuable insight gained into the chaotic and brutal nature of local cultural politics, it still sucks! I am now back to square one contemplating the work search all over again except with zero enthusiasm for any further contribution to this voracious and slightly schizophrenic machine!

As if this didn’t make the first day of Ramadan 2008 memorable enough, I discovered Monday evening that my purse had disappeared. The only explanation was that I’d dropped it in a taxi so I called the lost property office of all the cab companies in Dubai to register the loss that evening. The following morning I called them all again but no purse had been found so I then called the bank to cancel my cards. It came as quite a shock when the bank informed me that a cab driver had already called and cancelled them for me! Unfortunately, the bank had taken no record of the cab drivers phone number, name or cab company. So I know that a cab driver found my purse. I know that he was honest and kind enough to cancel my cards even though I find that a little bizarre. So I called the cab companies back and informed them of this development but still none of them had my purse.

So what does this mean? That the companies are lying? That the cab driver cancelled my cards but for some bizarre reason kept my purse? Very frustrating knowing that your purse is out there with no way of getting it back. There wasn’t much money in it - there’s never much money in it - but it is those little personal things that are the real loss.

The only thing that is good right now is that I have been asked to participate in an exhibition at the Courtyard Gallery in November. Beyond that I have no idea but if anyone can point me in the direction of the Bur Dubai dole office I’d appreciate it!

The Dubai Stone and other weighty matters

2008-08-23T16:57:00.010+04:00

I just got back to Dubai after spending much more time away than planned ... just like last year! This time it was the unexpected death of my Aunt which caused the delay and mostly because of the customary two week wait for the funeral which I have always found appalling. I am totally with the Muslims on this one... white shroud and in the ground within 48 hours. Still, at least she was in the illustrious company that week of Alexander Solzhenitsyen, Mahmoud Darwish and Isaac Hayes!

The rest of the trip took in Southern England, Wales and Berlin and was a much needed shut off from just about everything.... especially the sun! It rained and rained and the immersion in infinite shades of grey and green not only made me feel normal again, it also improved my eyesight. I do miss the ocularly restful colours of a gloomy climate! Unfortunately my back muscles made it known that they are rather keener on the climate here.

Anyway, on arrival in the UK I weighed myself for the first time in a year to discover the absolute truth of the Dubai stone. I have put on exactly one stone (6.35kg) since last August and so has spouse. Despite being told by everyone at home that I looked better I am not happy because it makes my existing clothes uncomfortably tight and I hate shopping! It means I can no longer avoid a special trip to the mall for real shopping rather than cinema, meeting people or just getting out of the heat for while.

Am not sure how I feel about being back here yet but did think I'd got off at the wrong place when I saw the papers were full of local corruption stories. What is going on??? Dubai Summer surprises certainly wasn't like this last year!

Picasso in Abu Dhabi

2008-06-21T10:48:00.008+04:00

At the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi until September is the Arab world's first public exhibition of works by Pablo Picasso. Borrowed from the collection at the Musée National Picasso in Paris, the retrospective show features examples of all styles and periods and features 186 paintings, sculptures and works on paper.

I have not really through about Picasso for years. The fact that I can still visualize most of the well known pieces from various periods has resulted in a smug assumption of familiarity that almost meant I didn't bother going to this show. This would have been criminal because this show was an absolute revelation. Seeing such a range of work mostly unfamiliar to me was like seeing a completely different artist and given my own accumulation of years the way in which I perceived the work was also completely different.

The show was hung in chronological order starting with a blue self-portrait from 1901. Most of this early work was figurative including several studies on paper for ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’. There is perhaps a compositional shadow of Van Gogh in the earthy 'Landscape with Two Figures from 1908 and a sculptural influence is already evident especially in a small triptych of three very solid looking heads.

The next section loosely covered the 1920s. The paintings got larger and were mostly of figures in various poses and settings including two unfinished portraits in conventional style, which seemed to have been abandoned half way through. A sense of boredom with these kinds of conventions was reflected in other figures that seemed to become gradually chunkier and more imposing. The most interesting was ‘Seated Woman’ from 1920 which appeared to have started off with at least some classical intentions but by the end the hands and feet were grossly exaggerated and distorted and suddenly the suggestion of a radical change was there. This was also the case with 'Reading the Letter' from 1921. I then went back and looked at the hands and feet of all the other figures finally concluding that an additional motivation for immersion in the joys of human abstraction was because Picasso wasn't very good at painting hands and feet.

The next section covering the 1930s had a huge mix of seated and abstracted female figures, which gradually become more angular as the decade progressed. This use of colour and style in this section were definitely the most familiar like 'Reading' from 1932 although I was amazed at just how much there was. The output in this period seemed to have been more prodigious than at any other time and one big surprise for me was that he seemed to spend the entirety of 1931 doing bronze sculptures of large and distorted heads with hugely exaggerated noses. I had no idea so much of this work existed.

One of the exceptions to all studies of sitting, standing, reclining and general other women was 'Bullfight: Death of a Female Toreador' from 1933. The dramatic and sensual intertwining of bullfighter, horse and bull with a violent end assured for at least one of them was probably the most powerful picture in the show.

Perhaps understandably, there was not much work here from the 1940s. The rate seems to slow down dramatically, the colours turn darker, the motifs spikier and several skulls also make an appearance.

The next surprise was ‘Massacre in Korea’ from 1951, its dramatic impact, enhanced by a compositional layout seemingly borrowed from Manet’s “The execution of Maximillian”. The ubiquitously reproduced image of Guernica has so defined Picasso in relation to war that it was fascinating to see an image referencing a different conflict.

There was not so much work from the 50s and 60s either but what was there suggested a revisitation and amalgamation of the past with some homages – one to Manet and possibly one to Matisse. There was also a one picture with abstracted though explicit female genitalia which I am surprised made it past the censors!
.
One of the final pieces was 'The Young Painter' from 1972 and the childlike simplicity of this painting is a marked contrast to the rest of the show. It's directness makes a big emotional impact and it was hard not to wonder if this was Picasso revisiting a very early version of himself. Apparently it was painted only a few months before his death in 1973 so I guess it is a very appropriate image to end with.

The endless hoops ...

2008-06-19T17:38:00.008+04:00

Anticipating a full time income I have recently been taking more taxis than normal. This has provided mixed experiences but the saddest was a 23 year old Pakistani on his 5th day of driving who broke down in tears when telling me about his family. He is having such a bad time he has told his brother not to even think about coming and has told to warn others against it too.

Another driver of 10 years spent the entire journey giving a fascinatingly detailed account of the pros and cons of every vehicle he has driven in those years concluding with an unequivocal recommendation for the Toyota Corrolla. This obviously carries weight because when you start looking out for them Toyota Corrollas are everywhere.

Strangely, in the past month I have had not one but three different drivers quoting the section in the Quran that presages the end of days. 'When towers rise out of the desert and touch the sky etc ... ' plus global disasters and other bits of Quranic evidence that the shit will hit the fan shortly. By taxi driver number three I thought it politic to be convinced and actually started throwing in a few similar biblical references for good measure. It's quite cathartic when you're having a bad day and all three drivers seemed almost pleased about the imminent end except one who wanted to clear his debts first.

However, these fascinating conversations will have to stop because I have hit a number of related bureaucratic snags resulting in my application to work full time being rejected by the Ministry of Labour.

The first snag is that I don't have a stamped and certified copy of my degree certificate. In fact the last time I actually saw my degree certificate was about 15 years ago when it was consigned to a box in the loft while moving house. Given that my multifarious skills are obvious from my CV it never occurred to me that I would need to prove I graduated. To add insult to injury I have been informed that my university does not even appear on their list of registered universities.

Another problem is that they want references from my previous employers. I have been self employed for 10 years so I don't have former employers, at least not recent ones. However, I am now trying to track some of them down so far without success. I have had what is now apparently known as a 'portfolio career' which is a nice name for a somewhat meandering career path that only makes sense to its owner. Despite fact that I have all the requisite skills for the job my CV is a tricky one to explain in this part of the world.

Abdullah Al Muharraqi at MEEM Gallery

2008-05-26T18:43:00.010+04:00

At the MEEM Gallery you can see a retrospective of the Gulf’s best-known artist Abdullah al Muharraqi, sometimes referred to as the Salvador Dali of the Gulf. Born in Bahrain in 1939, Al Muharraqi studied in Cairo and Damascus and now has an entire hall devoted to his work in the Museum of Modern Arabic Art in Qatar. He also designed most of Bahrain's stamps! The earliest work in this show is from 1967 and goes up until 2006.

As always, entering the MEEM gallery space itself makes a huge impact, perhaps too much in this case because some of the work then seemed disappointing after that initial impression. However, what was most striking was how uniquely ‘Gulfie’ much of the work was. It reveals the Gulf as a harsh existence revolving around the dark terrors of the ocean. The work creates an atmosphere that is so far removed from the current Dubai PR model of the Gulf it’s hard to believe it came out of the same region. I got more of a sense of historic and geographic reality through this one show than I’ve got in an entire year of being in Dubai. That said I do remember being very affected during last December’s film festival by the harsh and menacing atmosphere in several short films made by local filmmakers. So maybe the link is there even if the unease is now for different reasons.

Many of Al Muharraqi's paintings concern pearl diving and divers. Pearls were a significant industry before the 1930s when the Japanese worked out how to culture pearls rather than relying on luck or god to provide an accommodating oyster. The dangers of the pearl divers’ often short lives and the imbalance between that and the life of the pearl itself are obviously things that Al Muharraqi felt very deeply. The most compelling picture in the show is ‘The Divers Tragedy’ from 1973, which gives a cyclical illustration of the life of a pearl and the diver's associated sorrows.

Many of the earlier paintings focus on this subject and very effectively communicate the horror and the dread associated with this kind of life. However, there is thread which runs through the whole show that is way over on the dark side – starvation, decay, vengeance and environmental devastation as in 'Catastrophe' from 1984. Later work, especially from the past few years has strong political overtones. Several of these paintings worked very well - the palpable tensions in ‘Opposition’ and The Nations Game’ for example. However, there were obviously some sensitivities. The title label of one work was actually obscured by the frame and only if you lifted the corner of the picture could you see the title was ‘The Regression of Arab Civilisation’. It could have been a hanging error but I don’t think so.....

'Martyr's Souls' from 2002 didn’t work so well. An otherwise sensitive image related to Palestinian suffering was eclipsed by a small and bizarre depiction of the perceived ethnic cause that could have come straight out of 1930s German propaganda. Other figurative expressions of this conflict I have seen tend to focus on the contemporary realities of the Israeli military but this was like some kind of time warp. Most weird was the fact that it seemed so gratuitous and badly painted it was almost as if somebody else had done it! It was a very strange exception but a definite reminder that propaganda rarely makes good art.

Mushroom Blancmange

2008-05-16T15:27:00.009+04:00

I am starting a full time job in June and am already having doubts. The two days I currently work are spent in several frustrating ways. Figuring out how to nail down blancmange in zero gravity seems to have become the overall project. I draft invitations and requests for information which elicit no response and I send emails containing crucial questions about the nature of blancmange development which never get answered.

I mostly sit in a vacuum watching time and my intellectual faculties slip away. 'Why am I here?' I ask myself repeatedly. If something concrete to do does appear I get as excited as a laboratory rat when somebody rattles the food pipe, but invariably it ends in tragedy (farce, if my pride manages to stay above it!).

It wasn't like this at the beginning. In fact, I think it was my linguistic dexterity that gave the blancmange recipe credibility in the first place. So I guess you could argue that I've brought it on myself. However, I did not expect to be subsequently mushroomed. I am now left completely in the dark and not even fed shit! No wonder a recent regional employment survey found job satisfaction in the UAE was extremely low!

Spare Change

2008-05-06T16:44:00.007+04:00

First of all I would like to thank everyone who has emailed over the last few weeks noting with concern the increasingly jaundiced perspective, telling me to hang in there or just reminding me that they love me :).

Here's a little traffic incident which happened on my way to Trade Centre a few days back. I looked out of the bus window and could see straight down into a huge black Bentley. At the first set of lights the driver reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a huge stack of 500 dirham notes. He sat in his car counting the bundle, kissed it and placed it on the passenger seat. At the next set of lights he reached into the glove compartment again, pulled out another stack, counted it, kissed it and placed it next to the other one.

He turned off at the next set of lights so I'll never know how many stacks of cash were in that glove compartment. I couldn't see his face either so he could have been from anywhere. I cannot imagine seeing something like this stuck in a traffic jam anywhere else and it was mesmerising - like watching a scene from a movie.

As a postscript to the vision fatigue theme two posts ago I am now on 'vision watch'. The latest was in Trade Centre today: "Nakheel - Where vision inspires humanity".

'Vision' is the word round these parts but the regularity with which it is now being used has rendered it completely meaningless and possibly constitutes language abuse......

Another postscript actually.... I don't tend to take things too personally but if anybody comes across a German speaking, Ferrari driving, cement trader in his 40s who thinks all locals are bastards (despite a recent invitation from Mr. A. Sheikh to his private polo club) tell him he's a tosser. He really needs to know!

Damn Daman

2008-04-28T15:54:00.003+04:00

We have just had to renew our Daman health insurance.

After protracted negotiations last October we thought that I had been granted a year's insurance exempt from maternity cover because we can't have children. However last week we discovered that we had actually paid the full amount including maternity for just six months.
This was a shock because according to the document I was covered until October BUT when we looked closely at my health card the expiry date was the same as spouse's insurance taken out 6 months before mine!

We protested to no avail and were then told to pay up for both of us including the extra 3000DHS maternity cover. We said we didn't need the maternity cover but were then asked if we could prove it. Well... no we can't... sensitive issues like fertility test results are given in person rather than certificated but spouse said he would take a test here too if that was the only way.

Oh No... said Daman ... it's about your wife. You may have a problem but she can still get pregnant therefore she has to have maternity cover. Unless she has had a hysterectomy, maternity cover is compulsory until she's 50.

Stunned silence....

So how am I going to get pregnant then?? By divine fucking intervention?? Or am i just supposed to be a total slut?

I suppose they are not actually thinking at all. It's just a bureaucratic requirement and cases to which it does not apply are negligible enough to be ignored. So on top of the absurdity of the issue itself, we still have to pay for a service that is irrelevant and waste 3000DHS in a situation where money is still really tight ... . it almost makes me wish I was slut.

Vision Fatigue

2008-04-24T15:36:00.009+04:00

The latest vision is the one for Bastakia. I wrote an article for Nafas online arts magazine a couple of weeks ago which talked about this and also looked at potential problems. The major one as always is human resources. Who is going to organise, administrate and implement all the projects and plans.

The other big cultural visions are Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island development and the Khor Project in Dubai. Cultural weight is also thrown around by the ability to employ people like Rem Koolhaas, to design whole new cities. Nakheel's Waterfront City is one such project and even has its own death star presumably to match Emaar's death spire.Abu Dhabi has the super ironic Masdar carbon free city and the daily onslaught of advertisements for other developments is really starting to get on my nerves. The Gulf News has given up any pretense of being a newspaper since someone had the bright idea of turning the front page into an advert. 'Be an Octavian' What? Buy a piece of San Francisco / Spanish Reality ... . er.. earth to Dynasty Zarooni - this is the UAE! Even Ajman's getting in on the act with 'visionaries are those who make their dreams come true ... dare to envision' etc. etc. yawn yawn. Is there no one who can still see clearly enough to consider taking a rain check on the word 'vision'?

It is particularly grating in a week where there has been so much talk about national identity and the demographic imbalance including a debate on the UAE Community blog that had more than 90 comments.

I sympathise with the local predicament - it took me 6 months to find a local! However, if there is such great concern about demographic imbalance why all the new cities? Who are they for? All those people who will have to come to implement the other visions I guess!

PS When my subscription to Gulf Property Advertising (formerly News) expires, I'm switching to the National.

Personality Disintegration

2008-04-11T13:47:00.008+04:00

I have now been in Dubai for almost a year and am starting to miss various things that it never occurred to me I could miss... the 16th and 17th centuries for example. By this I mean the ability to walk into a public institution and spend time in the company of some old masters of the Italian renaissance perhaps or some ancient artefacts looted from elsewhere at some point in perfidious British history. However, this is probably a result of relentless exposure to 'contemporary' art over the past month or so.

Another problem I have is the constant feeling that I'm living in some kind of a time warp. With the exception of a few key local programmes radio stations sound like British provincial radio in the 1970s. I have actually given up turning on the radio when I'm cooking dinner in the evening because its either endless sports talk or people who seem to know very little about music history talking bullshit about dreadful playlists! The TV is even worse. Maybe its bad timing but City 7 only seems to show re-runs of Minder.

All of this is turning me a bit radical and is doing very strange things to my sense of humour. The comedy channel for me is Saudi Channel 2. There's usually a laugh within five minutes. This may sound like some kind of orientalist-laughing-at-the-arabs type bullshit but it is truly fascinating and the 10 o' clock news is most informative unlike any local news services. I can no longer get through 8.30 - 9.00 on Dubai One without wanting to blow my own head off.

I am also getting concerned that my personality is disintegrating. I am getting more and more of those days where I am actually losing track of my own identity. I guess this happens without access to people who've known you for years and years and can remind you of who you are. The other identity indicators are the books, pictures and just general 'stuff' that I've accumulated over the years, all of which remains in the UK. I did not realise how much identity was maintained simply by being able to idly glance over my bookshelves once a day or just stare at a favourite painting. Thank god I'd put most of my music collection on an MP3 player! That precious little device is currently constituting about 75% of my sanity.

Do you think I need a holiday????????

Never again ...

2008-03-30T16:28:00.006+04:00

Last month I was asked to write four articles about art in Dubai for the website of a London based organisation called Art Review. When the offer came I was delighted. Somebody was actually offering to pay me for writing this shit ?? Brilliant!

Of course it isn't that simple and the past month has put me off writing for money ever again. First this was a very casual arrangement. No contract. No clear brief and a suggested word count that was half the size of what was necessary.

Then there was the editorial problem. When the person who commissions the articles really wants to be doing it themselves, there is an inevitable editorial imposition of their view, which at times differed considerably from mine. This was particularly acute when changes made seemed to play to certain prejudices while I assumed the articles were there to inform these otherwise.

Another difficulty which was actually a shock to me was realising the extreme western-centric view of what is happening here in terms of art and culture. At one point this resulted in an editorial insertion about what constituted 'progress' which I had to ask to be removed.

To be fair the first two articles were not too bad but tensions crept in at number 3 and by number 4 I just wanted it to be over. Also number 4 was about Art Dubai which was the least interesting for me to write. A big contemporary art fair is a big contemporary art fair wherever it's held. Apart from the flamboyant, dubious, paranoid or just plain weird people that can turn up on preview nights, they are a bit like sales conferences. I wasn't crazy about them in London so the interest value here is only in terms of Art Dubai's relationship with what is happening on the ground and how it contributes to other non commercial development. Of course nobody here seems aware of the notion of non-commercial development but I realise this is my problem and that everybody except me actually embraces this reality! I am trying to change my attitude! I am also trying to accept that 'press release' and 'newspaper report' are synonymous... but that's a tough one too ...

Art Dubai

2008-03-25T18:22:00.013+04:00

Art Dubai held at Madinat Jumeirah is only in its second year but has almost doubled in size. How very Dubai of it! I think it should really be held at Trade Centre because it does have the feel of a trade conference but I guess they can’t force art dealers and collectors to chow down at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf minus al kahool!

There are around 70 galleries taking part from everywhere but the most memorable were the Korean Pyo gallery which had some wacky and surreal paintings of people in urban interiors that said a lot about the psychological effects of rapid change and the modern weirdnesses of interpersonal communication. I just wish I’d taken photos. Brazil’s Bolsa de Arte gallery had a strange collection of subverted Sotheby's magazine covers, carpet aeroplanes and an image that changed as you walked past it. On the art meets science front. the big photos of particle accelerators in the Swiss CERN laboratory by Simon Norfolk were pretty amazing.

Art Dubai has had a phenomenal impact. Last year spawned its fringe - the Creek Art Fair - arts education charity (START) and a UAE arts discussion forum (The Thinking Cloud). This year DIFC launched a whole new ‘Season of Arts’ to coincide with Art Dubai and has a packed schedule of stuff including an installation of giant ants by American Susan P. Cochran. This is a perfect fit for the Dubai vision thing. It’s about civic duty and the whole committed colony co-operating on a large-scale property development.

As we all know reference to any negatives in this happy PR model are rare so I was delighted to see Desperately Seeking Paradise, at the new Pakistan Pavilion at Art Dubai. Huma Mulji’s suitcase installation addresses the dreams of Dubai’s labourers. The suitcase of golden shoes and bread suggests the riches they seek but which they ultimately build for others while the suitcase of showers has a speaker in each shower head, one narrating dreams of employment in Dubai and the other narrating the drawbacks. Seeing this work here gave me hope that there is potential for at least some art to perform the other civic duty of exploring awkward questions.

The Global Art Forums are another element of Art Dubai and the first two days of these looked at Art Patronage in the Business Age. Topics included ‘Building a Corporate Collection’, ‘Working with Corporations’ and ‘Private Passion and Cultural Philanthropy’. The latter strikes me as a bit like carbon offsetting. Pay a little extra to save the planet and feel good about yourself or in this case make a tax free donation to ‘the arts’, feel good about yourself and get your name on the wall of a new institution.

Another project that received a lot of attention was the Credit Suisse ‘Art and Entrepreneurship’ exhibition. This was unveiled to great fanfare at Art Dubai and will go on tour to the ‘art capitals’ of the world shortly. This project involved 20 artists, one of whom wisely wishes to remain anonymous, who were asked to create work based on a Credit Suisse client survey. Sorry??

The focus was apparently the five core values of entrepreneurship. From the artists’ point of view, I assume the first of these was making friends with Credit Suisse and their work encapsulated the ultimate core value of money for old rope. Duvet on a stick anyone? I have problems with calling this art. Isn’t it just product commissioning for an innovative corporate PR campaign?

I did escape the commerce briefly and get some time in a quiet room with some video and hanging plastic people thanks to the Bidoun lounge. This was in the underground Art Park, (formally Car Park) which was a bit like an arcade only with lots of screens showing some excellent video shorts. No price tags or sales negotiation to be seen, only funky cardboard chairs designed by Traffic, free cola and your own personal headphones for you own personal screen. How civilised!

It was only on for a few days so blink and you'd have missed it. The Creek Art Fair is still on however and will be in Bastakia til March 31st. On that night there is a closing concert by Reza Derakshani. Unmissable I'd say!