Regional civil unrest and conflicts have left their footprint in the Arab art scene, as can be seen at the ongoing Art Dubai 2012, the Middle East’s largest contemporary art gathering.
The fair which takes place in the luxury resort Madinat Jumeirah, hosts 75 galleries from 32 countries, displaying artwork from 500 artists.
“Certainly the Arab turmoil in 2011 has inspired artists from Morocco to Iraq,” said Aicha Amor, Director of L’Atelier 21 from Casablanca, Morocco.
Standing at her gallery corner at the ongoing sixth Art Dubai, which runs from March 19 to March 24, Amor explained to visitors the idea of artist Mohamed El Baz, who created a screen printing and painting on plexiglass of 12 Arab national flags titled “To hell with death.”
As many Arab art pieces exhibited at the fair, El Baz painting leave a lot of room for interpretation. Aicha Amor explained, ” that symbols are stronger than death, this is the message.”
The late Lebanese artist Robert Helou took the mayhem in Iraq after the U.S.-led coalition war as his topic. His white painted sculpture “Children of Iraq” shows a soldier constructed out of pieces like a helmet, two candles and a bandage, usually used when combatants are wounded.
Raed Yassin, likewise from Lebanon, lured many visitors at the opening night, with his painted memories of the Lebanese civil war from 1975 to 1990 on Chinese porcelain vases, made in Jingdezhen of China’s Jiangxi province. Yassin depictures key battles from the Lebanese civil war like the War of the Hotels (1975/1976) and the Israeli invasion of Beirut (1982).
Antiona Carver, Fair Director of the Art Dubai since 2010, said “Art Dubai is proud to see how the creative community in the Arab world express their hopes and fears and experiences of the past on canvas or on porcelain. This is what the Art Dubai is all about: creativity, easy accessibility and meeting minds.”
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