Category Archives: Art & Politics

Making an exhibition with my students at the Paris School of International Affairs

Posted on by
Reply

This year (2014) I asked my students to write their papers as catalogue contributions to an exhibition I made in Paris to coincide with the end of the term.

Here one can find the links to their papers and images of the exhibition, which I made with the help of the Window, an art space in the center of Paris run by a good friend of mine and those that contributed to the crowd funding project I ran – especially my father!

Most of my students: from left to right Alexandre Nawath, Sarah Smail, Anna-Katharina Kraft, Emma Ghariani (hidden), Lily Matras, Kristina Keenan, Kata Pali, Leo Teste, Joice Barbaresco (partially hidden), Mariam Kandil, Lucile Gasber and Malika Touddimte

Most of my students: from left to right Alexandre Hawath, Sarah Smail, Anna-Katharina Kraft, Emma Ghariani (hidden), Lily Matras, Kristina Keenan, Kata Pali, Leo Teste, Joice Barbaresco (partially hidden), Mariam Kandil, Lucile Gasber and Malika Touddimte

Continue reading →

Afghan Urban Housing Dilemma

Posted on by
Reply

Afghan housing dilemma

When we visited the mayor’s office during my last trip to Kabul, the deputy mayor, a great fan of Persian poetry, lamented the fact that all the houses currently being built in Kabul are of the ‘international’ (Western) type: a standalone house on a plot of land, surrounded by a bit of garden or walkways, with all windows facing outwards.

Continue reading →

What I would do if I became director of De Appel in Amsterdam

Posted on by
Reply

De Appel is the intellectual powerhouse of Amsterdam’s art world – or maybe it isn’t anymore, but it still has that reputation. It’s a non-commercial art space that offers a high-level (and world-renown) curatorial program, as well as a study program for gallery staff, it is the place to present contemporary art prizes and projects, and it organizes about 4-5 exhibitions a year.

De Appel is now looking for a director. This is my open application.

logo De Appel

Continue reading →

How the collection of the National Museum of Afghanistan survived the civil war and the looting, 1992-2001

Posted on by
1
Participants of the Roundtable in the Japanese Room of the Peace Palace

Participants of the Roundtable in the Japanese Room of the Peace Palace

My contribution to the “Art Trafficking and Restitution” roundtable

organized by Walk of Truth at the Peace Palace in The Hague

16 September 2013

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the late 1970s, when Kabul was still known as a stop on the hippy trail, the city’s museum boasted one of the richest collections of Asia. It spanned from the early Indus valley civilizations to the highlights of Islamic civilization, from Roman glass to Indian ivories; indeed Afghanistan had been the cradle of Zoroastrianism and highly syncretic cultures such as Hellenic Buddhism, producing highly developed art forms unique to this area.

I will describe the actions a few individuals undertook to preserve the most valuable parts of the collection of the National Museum of Afghanistan for posterity. This allowed us all to see the magnificent exhibition of the National Treasures of Afghanistan, in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam or elsewhere in the world. I have a few books here for those interested

Continue reading →

The Taliban and The City

Posted on by
1

In a recent article, Antonio Giustozzi explains how the Taliban have improved their command & control structure. He describes how, under the military pressure of the US and NATO, and with the support of Pakistan’s ISI, the Taliban leadership has become more in control of the movement; and how this centralization alienates some local Taliban commanders and increasingly the population, who now have to deal with rotating commanders instead of well-known local strongmen (‘the devil you know’). Pakistani influence over the Taliban has always been terrible for the movement’s legitimacy among Afghans. On the other hand this centralization has allowed the Taliban to improve their governance and also their public image, as less brutalities are committed in the name of the movement.

Trevor Paglen: The Fence (Lake Kickapoo, Texas). C-print, 2010. Image of the electronic radar 'fence' around the USA to track traffic through space above the USA.

Trevor Paglen: The Fence (Lake Kickapoo, Texas). C-print, 2010. Image of the electronic radar ‘fence’ around the USA to track traffic through space above the USA.

Continue reading →

An Encyclopedia of National Representation: Review of the Venice Biennale, 2013

Posted on by
Reply
Alfredo Jaar's iconic installation of the Giardini rising from the bottom of a pool only to disappear again quickly under the waves. Photo & composition by RK

Alfredo Jaar’s iconic installation of the Giardini rising from the bottom of a pool only to disappear again quickly under the waves. Photo & composition by RK

Although I came to Venice to test and explore an artist’s project that fundamentally critiques the system of national representation at the Biennale, I must admit I enjoyed the national pavilions much more than the group show “The Encyclopedic Palace” and some of the collateral events.

Artists and curators asked to represent their country invariably grapple with the question how to ‘represent the nation’ and why they should be the ones called to do it. This intellectual quandary produces some interesting artistic results. Besides, this system does allow for a plurality of approaches to be present in the same event, notably empowering voices from the periphery.

I had my hands full with checking the national pavilions around town and relating what I saw to Jonas Staal’s Ideological Guide to the Venice Biennale. This guide, an app for android and apple-ware, describes each pavilion in detail, providing statistical data for the country, its conflicts and alliances, with a cover piece by an art professional well acquainted with that country, usually a ‘national’ (sic).

It has a navigation system, and although I usually spurn such devices, preferring to rely on my sense of orientation, knowledge of the city map and passers-by, I did use this one. Venice is a labyrinth. The precise GPS pinpointing is more useful than the Biennale’s map. So I managed to see quite a lot in two days, while maintaining the time for long exchanges with the artists and an occasional curator.

What follows are reflections about the national pavilions, interspersed with comments about the Biennale in general and personal perspectives on artists and shows that were not part of the national representation mechanism.

I will be adding the chapters on the national representations as I finish writing them.

China

Azerbaijan

Central Asian Pavilion

Slovenia

Bahamas

All the Middle Eastern national presentations

Wikipedia articles written by my students

Posted on by
Reply
A protest during the 2011–2012 Yemeni revolution. Photo courtesy of the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository, as used in the article Yemen Hip Hop

A protest during the 2011–2012 Yemeni revolution. Photo courtesy of the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository, as used in the article Yemen Hip Hop

This year I asked my students, of the course ‘Contemporary Art and Geopolitics in the Arab World’ that I teach at the international Master program of the Paris School of International Affairs, to write a Wikipedia article instead of a normal end paper.

The process was a bit more complicated than I first thought, because I had to gain course instructor rights from Wikipedia, follow a tutorial, write a course page and correspond quite a lot with Wikipedia volunteers throughout the process. In addition, it can be difficult to review the changes students write to existing pages. But I found solutions to all that, and the result is rewarding.

Following are some of the pages of my students, roughly from those I gave the highest marks downward:

  1. Art & Politics in Post-2011 Tunisia
  2. Cultural Policy in Abu Dhabi
  3. Yemeni Hip Hop
  4. Collecting Practices of the Al-Thani Family
  5. Contemporary Saudi Arabian Female Artists
  6. Experimental Theatre in the Arab World
  7. Arab Film Festivals

Go and have a look, edit their Wikipedia pages or leave some comments…

Afghanistan in Documenta 13

Posted on by
2

Note: a very different, one-page graphic version of this article was published in the Belgian art magazine A Prior #23; see the article here. I published another article about this subject in the Indian art magazine Take On Art.

Alighiero Boetti: World Map (1971)

With fourteen Afghan artists and at least ten artists whose work reflects on this country, Documenta 13 is strongly flavored by Afghanistan. After Kassel, Kabul is the main location of Documenta (the others being Alexandria & Cairo, and Banff in Canada): 27 Documenta artists will show their work in the Queen’s Palace in Kabul’s Babur Gardens in an exhibition that opens on June 20. Continue reading →