Jeddah

Dear MENAAC Members,

Last week I was in Jeddah, invited by the Saudi Arts Council to attend the opening days of the annual exhibition Jeddah
21-39, which takes place there.
It was the first time I visited Saudi Arabia and I have to admit that I now feel I had condemned myself thinking of Jeddah
as a footnote in the book of other Middle Eastern narratives. I could have never imagined how this fervent microcosm, a
contemporary patchwork of generational gaps, contradictions and diverse systems of beliefs has remained so invisible
but also how it has resisted the apotheosis and meltdown of mediocrity, which has so beautifully quashed into average
plenty other places.
The main exhibition Earth and Ever After was conceived around the idea of the Earth as a living organism, with each
artwork offering a distinct perspective on cultural systems, behaviours and practices, world views, ethics and social
organisations that relate humanity. From religious systems to consumerist junk, and from personal takes on history, tradition and society Earth and Ever After attempted to demonstrate our obsessive desire to create meaning, to create structures of understanding, to conquer abstract ideas, to extract content out of all possible contexts. The multi-layered and
complex works seemed to have a double function. While enjoying the essential official approval, they also carry out the
role of exposing all of those unthinkable ideas that are still, seemingly kept under wraps. It seems to me that mutating
ideas will inevitably tranform the larger structure that provides meaning in the country and a new space of cohesion will
certainly emerge.
Zahrah Al Ghamdis installation was formed out of the idea of disappearance of layers of earth and the transformation of
natural landscape into built environments. Exploring the geological history of Saudi Ghamdi thinks of the processes that
shape modern environments, particularly relevant to the era known as the anthropocene. I was thrilled to see her extensive body of work separately, which consists of totemic sculptures that contain concrete parts, sand, ropes, Bedouin
textiles and stones. Her sculptures reminded me of Adrian Vilas Rojas remarkable installation in the last Sharjah Biennale only that Ghamdi completed these projects of hers six years before Adrian!
Lebanese artists Ali Cherri work Paysages Tremblants (On Things that Move) 2014 consists of territorial maps and ink
on paper alongside a film of a seismograph and a performance. Although in first sight the work explored the moments of
earthquakes, tremors and vibrations on the surface of the earth unpredictable natural disasters in other words, a closer
inspection revealed the subtle connection between what is perceived as a natural catastrophe and its relation to a
man-made event such as an act of terrorism, the failure of a security system in a nuclear power plant or a financial crash.
The subtle sublayer in his work is exposing many of the partially hidden messages conveyed by the works on display.
Mona Hatoums work, which is mostly seen in western museums and exhibitions, takes a completely different meaning
when the entire context changes and they become part of other narratives and other histories. Coat Hanger and Plotting
Table, on display here. The political concerns are highly amplified, the notions of exile, displacement and vulnerability
but also deformation and partial destruction that are pertinent in her practice is revealing of how all materialisation is
inherently and by default provisional. And in this case, this can be thought through the angle of the illusion of an unbroken
surface of the local socio-political context but also the current turmoil, the violently transitional moment the entire region
is experiencing through conflict and exile.
My other highlight from the show was Maha Malluhs Keep Cool, which was inspired by the first generation of Saudi
Arabian air conditioning unit, known as the desert cooler boxes. Desert coolers marked the foundation of modern Saudi
cities. By cooling air through evaporating water the coolers used less energy that modern AC units, yet their water usage
was a problem in a nation with limited water reserves. The impossibility to approach the units blasting cold air in the
gallery is touching upon many issues that define Saudi at the moment, not only the environmental challenges the country
is facing.
Athr, probably the most influential gallery in the city presented a solo exhibition by Ayman Yossri Daydban. Show me the
Light included a selection of works by the Palestinian artist from the 1980s together with a more recent new body of work.
His experimental practice of the 80s, presented in a maze-like structure in the gallery was revealing. Daydbans tactile
paintings, which had been censored in the past, were on display this time. Commenting on censorship of artworks, the
artist himself censors his latest body of work by cutting holes in a series of reversed film posters covered in oil, a poignant
still subtle act of disobedience.

The Whole Truth by Lawrence Abu Hamdan is also on display in the gallerys roof top space. It is a sound and visual
installation that uses the lie detector machine as the starting point to explore the moment where the machine takes
control over a persons life, presenting the material, technological and political qualities of voice and sound.
Simultaneously Athr presented two projects that took place in Jeddahs old town. Al Mangour: Loved and Beloved by
Ahmad Angawi is a project that explores the complex structural and aesthetic forms that characterise the Mangour tradition, a craft and integral feature of Hijasi architecture. Documenting and analysing the complex woodwork patterns,
Angawi deconstructs the elements that define traditional architecture, shedding new light to the ways in which notions of
duality pertained this craft. Functionality and design, inside and outside, revealing and concealing are notions behind the
Mangour craft.
In the old part of town, Emy Kat presented a photographic exhibition from his For Mental Spaces series where he documents abandoned spaces, spaces of history that are collapsing with a nostalgic element portrayed in his large scale
prints.
Jeddah thrives with art. Galleries and independent - mostly ephemeral - spaces hosted exhibitions by younger artists,
planting new ideas in a context where they are needed most. Utterly unpredictable, yet intensely familiar, Jeddah unfolds
its hidden contents behind the glossy facades of unfinished shops, the irregular speed of its sprawling highways, the
permanent neglect and eternal expansion of its unique urban identity. From the permacool controlled aseptic environments to the chaotic randomness of the streets in the heat of the day, Jeddahs anarchic utopia proliferates in its
rooftops, its unregistered empty shops, the sections of the old city that rot, the disused palatial complexes that have
fallen from grace, its dark empty flats lit only by projectors at night, the makeshift nightclubs, the unknown production of
masterpieces.
The sense that concepts and artworks can undergo censorship, convert the otherwise familiar ritual of attendance to
evidence of a risk taking progress. Politics and religion, novel gender practices, fleeting images of bodies, politics,
mental maps and directions passed on on a piece of tissue paper, here they can momentarily exist, get recorded and
disappear. Old and new, permanent and temporary, official and unofficial become interchangeable almost simultaneously. In Jeddah I encountered the most intense political conversations, the most meaningful ideas by artists, curators and
gallerists, the most interesting female voices and learned lessons from them about emergencies, about how to be proactive, how to be subversive, how to be incompatible, how to be able to codify messages, how to understand the codes,
how to instigate a politics of systematic disarray and how to launch a new language in an establishment that pre-empts
all of the above.
In a city which metabolises itself in a reverse function abandoned centres undone not by industrial decline but by
continuous production of wealth, Jeddah exists in the sub-systems of the new and what is left behind. It is a buzzing
territory where brilliant solutions will softly cut, bend, tear and transform the illusion of any previously understood order.
Jeddah was an incredible surprise, and now I have become a fanatic of this citys processes, its progress, its present and
its future.
Without any hesitation, I would recommend you to experience the adrenaline of inspiration Jeddah is and Jeddah is
about to become.
Best wishes,
Vassilis