Bianca Bonomi, The National
Anthony Haden-Guest is to the world of art commentary what Hans
Ulrich Obrist is to the world of curation. Both operate in fields
traditionally excluded from the monographic series of art history, which
prioritises an interest in the artist and the art over the
distribution, dissemination and exhibition of these works. Both have
pioneered interest in their relative areas; both are celebrated as
prolific and engaging individuals.
As a writer, reporter and cartoonist, Haden-Guest has contributed to
the world's most lauded publications; as a bon vivant and socialite, he
has become part of the art world of which he writes. Rumoured to be the
inspiration for the British expatriate journalist Peter Fallow in Tom
Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, he has documented his findings in, among other titles, True Colors: The Real Life of the Art World and The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco and the Culture of the Night.
Having written extensively on the art market, Haden-Guest is bound up
in the global arts scene and has watched the growth of the Middle
Eastern cultural movement with keenness. "I've been going to the Middle
East for many years," he says. "I covered the Lebanese civil war and so I
started going to the region extensively from 1980 onwards. I'd go and
see the galleries there and was interested in the wealth and scope of
the art on show."
For Haden-Guest, the clichéd view of Arab art as "white and gold and
ornamental" doesn't ring true. "In reality, it is far more complex than
that," he says. "For instance, identity plays a strong role, whether an
artist is Egyptian or Lebanese, whether they have spent their working
career in London or Paris and how those European influences factor into
the work, how different cultures complicate it."
Initially "sceptical" of the burgeoning art fair scene in the region -
"I thought it was just a way of channelling in the big petro dollar" -
Haden-Guest quickly came to see it as an encouraging reflection of the
level of cultural activity in the region. There are also, he argues,
excellent rationales for Art Dubai, in terms of bringing in Indian
collectors and showcasing emerging artists producing work locally.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that collectors in the Middle East, like
those in China, are very motivated to collect work by artists from their
own cultures, something Haden-Guest sees as " a good and healthy
thing". "Not forgetting what Aidan Salakhova, who started Moscow's first
commercial art gallery, pointed out to me once: 'This is the Russian
Miami. They have six flights a day here.'
"I find Art Dubai of particular interest," Haden-Guest says.
"Contemporary art fairs tend to have an identikit aspect, the Big Four
most unmistakably. We talk about the 'globalism' of the new art world
and, yes, it has grown bigger in every way and, yes, the technology of
communications makes mountains of data available 24/7 and, yes,
uber-artists are global in the same sense as soccer-players and
conductors. Abu Dhabi to me seems to have the international art market
covered, so that you are more likely to see all the big western and
American names on display there.
"At Art Dubai, I saw no Damien Hirsts on the stands, no Richard
Princes, no Murakamis and just one Warhol. Art Dubai is a regional fair,
and it is all the more interesting for that. It is stronger on Arab
art, with some very good Iranian art. It's not just another
cookie-cutter fair selling blue-chip art. They are seriously showing
what is being made out there in the region."
Which of these regional artists is Haden-Guest most excited about?
"Rokni and Ramin Haerizadeh are extraordinarily good. I also like the
work of Lebanese artist Walid Raad and Ahmed Mater, a Saudi doctor who
is, geographically, right at the centre of what western media might call
the fundamentalist culture. His work, particularly his X-ray pictures,
challenge existing parameters of art practice in the region. In Sharjah,
highlights included a painting by a Syrian, Saban Adam, and In A Strange Place,
a 2009 video by the Turkish filmmaker, Kutlug Ataman, of himself
walking blindfolded and barefoot through a desert. I am also keen on the
Palestinian photographer Tarek Al Ghoussain, who has produced
existential shots of himself, again, alone in the desert."
Does he believe that the movement of western curators and art
directors to the region and the opening of centres such as the
Guggenheim and the Louvre in Abu Dhabi are a natural progression and
integration of the arts scene, or a worrying distillation of the talent
already in the region? "Arts professionals are the condottieri of our
time," he says. "But they can't be lumped together. They should bring in
good ideas from the international art world but also develop what they
find locally. Change and movement are, generally speaking, all to the
good."
What of the pressures on regional artists to produce work for a western market? Have shows such as Saatchi London's Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East
demonstrated that the west expects - and perhaps even demands - a
particular type of work, focused on the issues covered in western media,
namely gender and terrorism?
"There will always be pressures on artists, but real artists produce
art," Haden-Guest says. "They respond to their own culture and what they
know in the art world. Middle Eastern artists don't need to produce
work for western markets. Their markets are very healthy, so they don't
need to be reliant on appeasing London or New York collectors. I think
if they continue to be true to themselves and develop as such, they will
find plenty of collectors in their own cultures, which will translate
globally."
Via The National
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