An-nisa NPG Visit (2)
What i understood from talking to Humera in response to some of the work we were looking at is that there is a distrust of work that is overtly created from ‘ego’, with the self at the centre of the work, and that the perception is that Western art (whatever that means now?) is dominated by this and that Muslim artists, because of exposure to ‘Western’ values are losing their connection to spiritual values. This is apparently being widely debated within Islamic circles- very traditional ones I assume. She reiterated the fact that art should be transformative and that it is now impossible to create work that has those longed-for traditional values as ‘we are not in that place’. So either there is a lot of reproduction of old style work or new work that is attempting to reference it but is breaking with those values. She questioned some of the work I was showing the girls last session from the ‘Word into art’ book and suggested that some of the artists in the book were examples of muslims who has lost this connection.
Personally I like it when it all gets mixed up, I enjoy hybridity and the questioning that comes from all this… If this is a created universe, then this very process of ‘loss of values’ is part of that creation, part of the journey. i really enjoy getting her perspective though, she is a formidable and very inspirational woman.
And finally.. we had a very exciting end to the day, since there is a recent arrival at the NPG of a new portrait , Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, with such an amazing narrative. The first portrait of a freed and named African slave (who may have been a prince, was a learned Muslim from a family of powerful clerics) . He was kidnapped while slave trading himself , taken to the US then identified as a learned man and saved by a British missionary and brought back to the UK where he achieved celebrity status, wrote copies of the Koran from memory for translation. Interestingly, relating to what I was saying earlier, he resisted having his portrait painted for a while since he was worried that he would be ‘made an idol’ and they had to reassure him it was just to ‘keep him in mind’. It is a beautiful painting, he as such a soft face. His beard is only half grown (they shaved it off when they captured him, to humiliate him probably – the curator said) and he has a copy of the Koran around his neck. Looking at him I started to forgive him for being a slave trader in the first place and developed a romantic story of personal transformation through having been enslaved himself. O, the stories we make up – I read later that the money was raised to return him home and he took up business again – as a slave trader! I felt very conflicted but still compelled to find out more
The NPG are trying to raise a further £100,000 to keep the portrait in the country. Seeing the groups and other reactions to the fact that it was in the gallery, I really hope it can be kept. One gets tired of seeing all those powerful white men in the more historical galleries..and what a story, if controversial…..always the best ones.
