Dear Artvehicle,
Greetings from the Emirates, the land of mega shopping malls, seven
stars hotels and architectural spectacle equipped with its own brand
new World (a man-made archipelago of 300 islands laid out in a shape of
a world map, where Israel and Palestine have been replaced with a
clutch of celebrity islands). If God created world in six days, how
long is it going to take the developers to complete The World using
thousands of migrant workers living in labour camps and working 24/7? -
I wonder.
One of the many curiosities of this country, such as an underwater
hotel or a ski slope in the middle of the desert, is the contemporary
art biennial held in the neighbouring with Dubai Emirate of Sharjah.
Its eight edition presented under the title "Still Life. Art, Ecology
and The Politics of Change"—so conveniently broad, slick and generic
that one could think it had been chosen by the publicist
(Brunswick)—nevertheless featured a number of works standing out for
being genuinely site-specific and created rigorously in response to the
local context and the concept of art and ecology. These included newly
commissioned pieces by Lara Almarcegui, Tue Greenfort, Dan Perjovschi
and Peter Fend.
The biennial's spectacular set piece was Gustav Metzger's Stockholm,
June (phase 1) , involving 120 cars simultaneously blowing combustion
fumes into a large square plastic structure. It was staged in Sharjah
for the first time ever, 35 years after Metzger presented its model on
a conference in Stockholm.
As I later discovered, it wasn't the only performance staged at the
show. During the opening I've meet a young and very attractive woman
who was using one of museum rooms as her studio, producing cubist
collages from recycled wood. She introduced herself to me as Donelle
Woolford but her work was credited in the catalogue as Joe Scanlan.
Intrigued, I did some googling and discovered that Woolford, a young
African-American painter was in fact a fictional character created by
artist Joe Scanlan as his female alter ego. But where was Joe? And who
was that gorgeous woman playing the lead in his elaborated identity
game? I have to admit that I got trapped and I'm still not entirely
sure whether the person I've met was a hired performer, Donelle or
perhaps Joe after a major plastic surgery.
On less anecdotic note, my favorite work in the show was a somber
community-specific project by e-Xplo (comprising Rene Gabri, Heimo
Lattner, and Erin McGonigle) and Ayreen Anastas unveiling the harsh
reality behind Emirate's glamorous facades. Using recordings of migrant
workers singing, the artist created a parcours of sound installations
giving the voice to those deprived of any political rights despite the
fact that they represent over 80% of local population. Following
e-Xplo's instructions, I've spent almost an entire day walking around
the city and wondering whether the Middle East will be finished on
schedule.
8th Sharjah Biennial Still Life: Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change
Dates: 4 April - 4 June 2007
www.sharjahbiennial.org/en
RN
Image by Rafal Niemojewski