Art/War

I visited Manchester’s Cornerhouse and Birmingham’s Ikon gallery in the same week, and was set on fire with neurological sparks seeing the art about the Middle East.

Cornerhouse has 3 floors of Iraq-based artists who collectively remind us, like my grandparents did, that life in wartime does not stop and hide in parenthesis. Artists carry on thinking about art, and how to make it, and the ones selected for this show express their plural ideas in all kinds of media. The variety alone is exciting; the Iraqi context, undeniably, adds power to the imagery.

[singlepic id=197 w=320 h=240 float=center]Roshna Rasool calls these old computer keys Luck. It’s not only funny, it’s intriguing. Were people lucky to have computers? Or to see them destroyed? To add to interpretive meanings, one has to notice that some keys have an Arabic character. And that there are two of these sculptures, one white and one black.

[singlepic id=196 w=320 h=240 float=center]Brhm Taib Ameen’s chiaroscuro photographs are rich, sumptuous and look like paintings – Ha! The days are gone when we use to say the opposite!

[singlepic id=195 w=320 h=240 float=center]I rarely have patience with video art, but this piece by Sarwar Mohamad Amin is a haunting story of dying traditions and the unwaivering commitment to desperately make a living. Emotional.

Rozgar Mahmood Mustfa’s Nylon crackles and breathes, while opposite it, a video of a handsome sleeping man by Hemn Hamed Sharef crackles with the noise of plastic sheets. Smart! [singlepic id=194 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Jamal Penjewy’s series of photos Iraq is Flying is really joyful! These are images that transport you to the place. I got an awareness of the ‘feeling’ of the country. [singlepic id=193 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Memories and War, by Zana Rasul Mohammed. Really beautiful… Schooling may be halted by war, but culture can be treasured in boxes and shared when safe. I loved it. [singlepic id=192 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Even though there was little actual documentary art in the show (and the choice to make it absent was a total success on the part of the curators, I think), the knowledge that the work is created by artists who live amidst the misfortunes of battle, grants the works a more poignant aura. Meanings certainly seem more prolific and appealing seen here. The same works in a white cube gallery with no emphasis on provenance would not be so alluring. Provenance, as in an auction house, adds value.

I intended with this post to compare these artworks with the equally interesting ones (but with a hugely different remit) currently on show in the Ikon gallery, but I’ll need another post to rave about them. Soon!

#Activism #Sculpture #Subversion #UK