Bridging The Divide Between The United States And The Muslim World Through Arts And Ideas: Possibilities And Limitations

Session II World Of The Artist: Venues And Institutions

Moderator Vishakha Desai, President of The Asia Society, opened the session on venues and institutions by noting that whereas the first session focused on the creation of art and the artist’s view of his or her work and identity, this session would consider how art is perceived by audiences. Before an audience can appreciate art, however, content is mediated by various kinds of gatekeepers — museums, galleries, government institutions, and cultural organizations — which impact not only what is seen or performed, but also how it is received.

Prior to discussing venues and institutions, Desai recalled the ongoing discussion over the definition and value of the term “Muslim art.” There was some consensus that artists, particularly those working in Muslim–majority countries, do not necessarily feel a need or desire to be identified primarily as “Muslim.” Yet for the purposes of this conference, proposing and then examining the term, rather than accepting or rejecting it automatically, is useful. In fact, using the term in the positive context of a festival celebrating the arts could help overcome negative portrayals of Muslims, which in recent years have been dominated by traditional and at times extreme versions of Islam.

The power of art lies in its ability to transcend specificity and, at the same time, speak of a specific time and place; Desai termed this ability a “duality” rather than a contradiction. She reminded participants that art varies according to the characteristics of the audience: who sees it, and who does not; how it is presented and reviewed; who talks about it, and in what context. For example, the June 5th opening night performance by Youssou N’Dour7 began with a Qur’anic chant performed by Muslim American New Yorkers from three different ethnic backgrounds. The experience of seeing N’Dour perform in the context of the Muslim Voices festival and after a Qur’anic chant would differ greatly from seeing him perform in Dakar as a native Senegalese musician, or seeing him perform at Carnegie Hall as he did in 2005.8

Bruce Lawrence, Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of the Islamic Studies Center at Duke University, spoke on the question of where art happens in the Muslim world today, looking at the types of spaces — private, public, and commercial — in which different types of art are created, produced, and displayed, and considering the impact that the type of space has on artists and the art they produce. He began by noting that while preparing his remarks, he asked a Muslim artist friend, “Where does art happen in the Muslim world today?” His friend answered, “Everywhere.”

Nevertheless, outside discussion of art in the Muslim world focuses not on the present, but on the past. Even President Obama’s June 4th speech in Cairo referred to “majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.”9 These are all historical art forms. Where is the praise — or even the awareness — of the dancing, storytelling, street art, hip hop, films, and satirical art that contributes to the contemporary Muslim arts scene?

A March 2009 review of Wajahat Ali’s play “The Domestic Crusaders” on beliefnet.com says, “As majestic as the history of Islamic art is and as celebrated as it is in today’s world, it has never been able to really extract itself from history,” illustrating the common misconception that art is something Muslims used to do in the past, but no longer do today.10 Shahed Amanullah, the reviewer, praises Ali for working to “expand the meaning of Islamic art in today’s world” by creating a consciously contemporary American Muslim play, but describes efforts by other contemporary artists as meeting with “limited success.”

One type of art being produced today is that of the Muslim Diaspora. Although Diasporan art can be found in as many places as there are Muslim communities, from Europe to North America and from South America to Asia, the Internet is one of the major sites for the production and discussion of contemporary Muslim art and one of the major homes of Diasporan art. The Internet has amplified awareness and raised the profiles of several contemporary Muslim artists, including the London–based, Egyptian–born calligrapher Ahmed Moustafa11 and the Dubai–based Indian painter Maqbool Fida (M.F.) Husain.12

The traditional publishing community has also helped raise awareness of the modern Muslim arts scene. For example, London–based Black Dog Publishing recently published a book titled Contemporary Art in the Middle East, which aims at “showcasing the most explosive, dynamic, and provocative art coming out of the region” to offer “a new way of looking at one of the most complex and misunderstood areas of the world.”13 Lawrence asked participants to continue considering how to create opportunities for the production, display, and circulation of contemporary Muslim art.

Desai offered two observations in response to Lawrence’s remarks. First, she encouraged participants to examine the Internet both as a “post–institutional” context for art and as an institution in itself, whose precise contours and characteristics should be examined. Second, she noted that “Muslim art” is not alone in facing the challenge of being defined as art “of the past.” Asian art and Indian art are also often described by outsiders in this way.

Theodore Levin, Professor of Music at Dartmouth University, spoke next, addressing the mediation and regulation of artists’ access to audiences through galleries, museums, government ministries, markets, festivals, and other institutions — locally, nationally, and internationally. Today, Levin observed, a broad range of social, economic, and political forces regulate artists’ access to audiences: forces of centralization, decentralization, and recentralization. He agreed with Lawrence that the rise of the Internet has transformed cultural flows. The web might be seen as the modern analogue of the souk — a contemporary marketplace. Any artist with a phone or camera can put himself or herself online, setting his or her work up against the institutional arbiters of taste. For audiences, the Internet facilitates access to culture while promoting diversification of taste.

Levin turned to American cultural and other non– profit organizations as one important venue — of production, dissemination, and mediation — for artists today. In part thanks to the Internet, there are more opportunities than ever for Muslim artists to learn about and connect with American organizations that work to promote Muslim cultures and avoid the “clash of civilizations.” Their interests and approaches are diverse; some organizations promote contemporary art while others create libraries and try to preserve traditional art forms. Many try to build cross–cultural understanding in a literal way by supporting art that is a fusion of Western and Eastern styles.

Levin recognized that for many artists, accepting the support of Western foundations comes with a catch. These institutions sometimes frame grants in a way that is obliquely political — by supporting schemes that emphasize artists’ national or religious identity even when the artists themselves are uncomfortable with these designations. He also noted that one key term had not yet been raised: Orientalism. He asked participants to consider what role Orientalism plays in these foundations’ and other institutions’ efforts, noting that this concern arose in his work as the executive director of Yo–Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project.14

Levin went on to discuss how artists, like multi–national corporations, produce different versions of their products for different markets. Muslim artists lead dual or even multiple professional lives, performing for the world music audience and their own national or other communities. Often, the music that is performed for Western audiences under the rubric of world music is more sacred in focus and traditional in style than the music appreciated — either aesthetically or politically — in artists’ home countries. For example, Abdurahim Hamidov, the Uzbek dutar player who performed in the “Salaam Suite” that accompanied Youssou N’Dour’s opening night performance, requested political asylum in the U.S. in 2007.15

Levin concluded by observing that international audiences do not solely enjoy “backward–looking” art from the Muslim world. International venues have also provided great opportunities for “forward–looking” art, while in certain places in the Muslim world, state cultural authorities hold a near monopoly on artists’ access to audiences. This monopolization puts pressure on artists to conform to official standards, or risk losing access to audiences — or worse, risk being branded politically subversive and face persecution. He closed by citing the example of Mark Weil, the prominent Uzbek director of Tashkent’s Ilkhom Theater, who was murdered in 2007 for what seems to be political reasons. His plays, which included reworkings of classics like “Oresteia” and explorations of socially controversial topics like homosexuality, had received international acclaim, and he had received funding from American NGOs.16

Sabiha al–Khemir, art historian and former director of the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha, Qatar, spoke next, using her experience as a scholar, museum director, and arts consultant as a case study to illustrate how venues and institutions mediate audience access to art. Al–Khemir was born and raised in Tunisia and later studied in the United Kingdom. She described Tunisia as a bilingual culture, in which “the other” is also part of oneself. Studying Islamic art in London broadened her sense of her Islamic identity — her awareness of belonging to a multi–faceted culture spanning from Indonesia to Islamic Spain. While in Tunisia she had found herself looking west; in the United Kingdom she found herself looking east.

In her role as founding director of the Museum of Islamic Arts in Doha, al–Khemir was compelled to use the Western discipline of art history to form the collection and shape the identity of the museum — a process she described as looking at something internal from an external perspective. Although there is great diversity in Islamic art, there is also real coherence. This coherence needs to be investigated, decoded, and understood from within an Islamic perspective, rather than solely from an external one. By virtue of its position as both inside and outside, the museum, which opened at the end of 2008, offers a space for this investigation, as well as an international platform for dialogue.

Al–Khemir is currently working on a series about Islamic art, including art created online, for PBS, the United States’s public broadcasting service. She sees programs like this as opportunities to overcome what she considers Islamic art history’s tendency to focus more on history than on art. She also recently published a novel, The Blue Manuscript (Verso, 2008), which traces the history of a 10th—century Quran, written in gold on blue vellum, whose pages were later separated and sold as individual sheets. The novel interweaves the stories of the original (anonymous) Muslim calligrapher, and the modern–day Western art historians who travel to Egypt in search of the missing pages that will allow them to reconstitute the book. For al–Khemir, the story of her novel was a metaphor through which she could examine the relationship between East and West with respect to culture and history. The juxtaposition between ancient and modern also lay at the heart of this project, and she suggested that participants further consider this dichotomy, given the common assumption that the Islamic world has not made the transition to modernity.

Discussant Jon Anderson, Chair of the Anthropology Department at Catholic University, proposed to draw a distinction between the high art and culture considered the “domain of princes” and what he called “down and dirty” art produced without the recognition and support of intermediary institutions and venues. He referenced Levin’s observation that the Internet “liberates” art from art history, and noted in conversation with al–Khemir that art history itself is a discipline whose tenets are constantly rewritten.

To ground the floor discussion, Anderson proposed distinguishing between three social contexts for art. First is the local context, in which producers and buyers are directly connected. This context includes urban bazaars in which artists and artisans respond directly to needs of the audience, here understood as consumers. Second is the regional context, in which the link between producer and audience or consumer is less direct. As a result, artists and artisans move from asking questions about the particular tastes of individual clients to broader attempts to discern market tastes and trends. This context includes the 400–year–old industry of Persian carpet–making, for example. Third is the trans–regional context, which Anderson sees as a contemporary phenomenon, in which knowledge is decentralized and located in multiple places, and in which scholars, brokers, and arts experts decide what qualifies as art.

Floor Discussion

In response to Anderson’s suggestion that the “social life” of art occurs in the locations in which it is presented and exhibited, one participant observed that some of the cultural spaces that presented art relating in some specific way to Islam have disappeared over time. These include mints that produced coins for Muslim states like the Mughal Empire in India; chanceries of various Muslim governments which produced documents in calligraphic script; scriptoria, where hand–copied and lithographed manuscripts and books were sold; and souks or bazaars designed not for tourists, but for the ordinary people whose life–cycles and daily purchases were more governed by Islam than is typical today.

The participant also noted that historically, gifts exchanged between royal courts, such as the Ottoman gifts to the Russian court, would have been produced locally. Today, the gold medal given to President Obama in Saudi Arabia on June 3rd — the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit — was most likely produced in Italy. The largesse of Arab Muslim monarchs is now expressed by luxury items produced — and sometimes mass–produced — outside their own countries. The participant asked whether this reflects a broader trend: are people in the Muslim world losing their consciousness of spaces as Muslim spaces as artists respond to a different, more Western set of criteria? Has “Muslim art” — as a genre of art produced in conversation with a specifically Muslim political, social, cultural, and economic context — ended, leaving us today with art produced by people who live in Muslim–majority, Muslim–plurality, and Muslim–minority populations?

Reflecting on the diminished importance of government–supported institutions such as mints and chanceries, one participant noted that the ebbing of historic patronage systems, governmental and individual, is a worldwide phenomenon, not specific to Islamic civilization. In response to the anecdote about President Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, another participant noted that one critical aspect of these state gifts and honors is their reciprocity. In recent decades, American presidents have tended to give generically “American” gifts. However, President Obama’s gift to King Abdullah was a piece by American calligrapher Mohamed Zakariya, who was asked to calligraph the Qur’anic verse 49:13.17 The participant suggested that Islamic art is a meaningful term today, but that its forms and references differ from those of previous eras.

Another participant concurred, noting that some forms of art have waned as the social context that supported them has changed. For example, weaving has largely disappeared along with the decline in the practice of giving robes at the start of the New Year in Iran. On the other hand, music, which was historically almost exclusively available only to royals and the wealthy in the form of live music performed for patrons, has become available to the general public through recordings. Media technologies have also made historical art forms more broadly accessible. In the past, few eyes had ever seen Persian miniatures, which were also commissioned by wealthy patrons for private display; today, many are displayed in books and on the Internet. While there has been a major shift away from patronage systems, this does not equal the disappearance of Islamic art.

Several participants commented on what might be considered defining characteristics of “Islamic art.” One participant suggested that Islamic art frequently includes a marriage of the visual and the verbal — of images and words. For instance, calligraphy as an art form functions as both a textual statement and also as an emblem or image. However, the presence of calligraphy alone does not qualify something as Islamic art. Nor can Islamic art today simply focus on replicating previous forms; this leads to a state of sterility. Historically, Islamic art developed in a context that offered a coherent vision of the world; the visual expression of this worldview gave rise to the arabesque, geometric, and other traditional styles.

Several participants noted that while “Islamic art” may reflect a particular worldview, it has been historically influenced, shaped, and produced by many non–Muslims. One participant noted the influence of Byzantine and Sassanian traditions in Islamic art. Another noted that the mints of Muslim countries were sometimes run by Jews, and that music at Muslim courts was sometimes performed by Christians: neither public nor private patronage was limited to Muslims, although the art produced reflected the majority–Muslim context. The history of these art forms is shaped by the coexistence of cultures, which extended beyond tolerance to the cultural interaction and exchange that created the civilization of Al Andalus, for example.

Another participant noted that the culture of Islam envelops not only previous cultures, but the neo– traditional as well. For instance, in Tunisia the souks still sell clothes and furniture made for modern Tunisians, as well as goods for tourists. Indeed, the duality of functional and non–functional art forms might be considered another characteristic of Islamic art. Speaking from a different perspective, one participant asked whether critical theory has made it impossible to talk about the intention of the artist; the focus instead has turned to reception — how the art produced is understood. The participant suggested that post–modernism has played a substantive role in complicating the idea of Islamic art.

The closing discussion turned to various institutions’ efforts to preserve and rejuvenate “Islamic art” for contemporary audiences. One participant mentioned the exhibit of gold Bactrian jewelry from the time of Alexander the Great, which had been displayed in Afghanistan’s National Museum before the Soviet invasion and which is now touring the world. The exhibit, titled “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum in Kabul,” is stopping at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The artifacts had been hidden from the Taliban by the museum director and other personnel, each of whom took on great personal risk.18 This type of commitment is not about national patrimony or Islamic understanding, the participant suggested, but about the act of safekeeping art of great value to humanity as a whole. How do we harness this human energy?

The participant then asked the participants to imagine New York if all its theaters, museums, galleries, and other cultural spaces were suddenly closed. What kind of human impact would this have? The participant suggested that this is akin to what many communities around the Muslim world today face. Over the past few decades, state machines in many Muslim countries have eviscerated the institutions that carry human knowledge. Today, fragile groups of individuals are at the forefront of the battle for free space and to preserve arts that benefit humanity as a whole.

Another participant observed that today there is a high degree of interest in many places around the world in the fate of Islamic art forms that have died out or largely disappeared. These art forms can be brought back to life, and NGOs — as well as individuals — are playing a significant role in this revitalization. For example, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia work to sustain cultural traditions and stimulate interest among young people in these art forms, injecting them with new life.19 In Tajikistan today, for example, the maqam music scene is more alive than it has been in 100 years.

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