- Venue
- Saatchi Gallery
- Location
- London
Having visited the Saatchi Gallery within Sloane Square on the opening day of the ‘Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East,’ (the exhibition being held at the gallery between 30th January and 6th May 2009), I was thoroughly in awe at both the diversity and varying range of artistic processes within the exhibition, from the hollow foil ‘Ghost’ installation of Kader Attia to the simplicity of Shadi Ghadirian’s photographic forms, concerning the role of women within society, and the objectification of their personalities. The exhibition is the second to be shown at the Saatchi Gallery, which re-opened in the 70,000 sq.ft. Duke of York’s HQ building on Kings Road in the heart of London. The show itself incorporates the work of 19 of the ‘region’s most exciting artists’ in accordance to the Saatchi press release. It was felt by Saatchi that ‘new artists from the Middle East have been largely overlooked internationally because of the widespread political conflict that dominates the region’, this introduction of the artists, many for the first time within the UK, allowing western culture to see a projection of Eastern narrative, thoughts and perspective.
I was particularly interested in the work of Ghadirian due to the contrast she draws upon between Eastern and Western culture, her Ghajar series ‘pointing to a culture clash of tradition and progress’, while her ‘Like Everyday’ images ‘challenge the international preconceptions of women’s roles within an Islamic state’ [in accordance with the Sunday Times] in which she strives to show a simple, striking narrative of her own personal experiences ‘as a modern woman living within the ancient codes of Shariah law’. I find her work to be the most accessible within the gallery due to the approach she uses within her ‘Like Everyday’ series, choosing Middle Eastern, universal stereotypes which the majority of the public are aware of within today’s society. Her images portray a ‘one-dimensional interpretation of housewives’ [Saatchi Online Gallery] reducing their identities to mere domestic roles. I at first however, merely thought that the context behind the series was to portray a general view of domestic housewives within Islamic culture however each image portrays and exaggerates a ‘misogynist typecast’. For instance the work with the inclusion of a colander represents a ‘woman who’s all mouth: a neighbourhood gossip’, the work on the other hand with a broom hiding a woman’s face stands for the ‘doormat’, a woman of ‘timid demureness’ whilst the straw shows a ‘wizened and worn’ face, the object essentially personifying both the character and temperament of the woman within society, as well as the domestic chores they are bound to by their culture.
A particular quotation I found within the press release at the Saatchi Gallery, I felt truly summed up the initial feelings of the series of works by Ghadirian, “My first momentary reaction on seeing the face of a veiled Muslim woman replaced by a rubber glove is to look away, embarrassed, maybe even fearful…Imagery and Islam can be a combustible mix…but this is art…autopilot attitudinising by westerners like me about Islam and the Middle East is stupid. It is a product of fear and malign machinations by people in both the Middle East and the West”. I felt Ghadirian was able to clearly get across the idea that both the Eastern and Western cultures are similar in many ways, with the Sunday Times going on to say, “The truth is that Muslims wear rubber gloves and visit prostitutes just like us…their world is, like our world, many different things”. Her Ghajar series even goes as far as to show a mergence of cultures between the east and the west, in which today’s young Islamic women living within Britain are unsure as to whether to stick to their traditional roots within their culture or to embrace the contemporary lifestyle which the West is constantly updating. In accordance to Shadi Ghadirian she cares little about commenting about women within society but instead creating a narrative to simply show and portray ‘all the aspects of the Iranian woman’. She states, “It does not make a difference to me what place the Iranian woman has in the world because I am sure no one knows much about it…It was very natural that after marriage, vacuum cleaners and pots and pans find their way into my photographs; a woman with a different look, a woman who no matter in what part of the world she is living, still has these kinds of apprehensions.”
She depicts a repetitive routine within ‘Like Everyday’, in order to highlight as she stated above, the domestic situation that women of marriage buy into, her works covering such issues as women being seen as ‘second class citizens’, with the hidden face not only showing tradition but the ‘censorship of women’ within her culture.
However, having read a particular review by the Telegraph I was struck by the idea that displaying a narrative is not deemed to be enough to make an artist, since they are merely taking the stance of a tool for society to display our surrounding world through their artistic methodology, it is the skill and ideas of the artist that counts, “Iran has always been a country full of artistic flair and innovation, but I’m not sure that Shadi would have come up with such poignant and representative images had the political situation been different”.
However, without society and the many topical issues going on within the world such as the contrast of the Western and Eastern culture surely such exhibitions would not be able to take place, with such classical artistic geniuses as ‘Rembrandt’ historically documenting the events and issues going on at the time within his era. Society and art have been interlinked throughout the centuries, and if it had not been this particular issue that Ghadirian had focused on then it would have been another; her skill is undeniable within the work since she is able to create striking, simplistic images, with a variety of underlying contexts highlighting a variety of topical issues within Eastern culture.
~
I used a variety of sources to gain a balanced view of the exhibition:
Press release for the Saatchi Gallery, Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, [2009], Publisher: Saatchi Gallery, Published: London
The Sunday Times, Picture by Picture Guide – Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East, [2009], Publisher: The Saatchi Gallery in partnership with Phillips de Pury & Company, Published: London
Saatchi Online Gallery, Shadi Ghadirian: Selected works by Shadi Ghadirian, Source: Online [Saatchi Website], Published: 2009, Website: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/shadi_gha…
Press release from the Sunday Times Magazine, Islam Stripped Bare, [2009], Publisher: Sunday Times Magazine, Published: London
S. Ghadirian, Biography concerning her work, Source: Online, Publisher: S. Ghadirian, Website: www.shadighadirian.com
L. Baring, “Confusion in sharp focus”, [2007], Source: Online article, Publisher: Daily Telegraph, Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3664763/Con…
