Dubai-based Art Historian Maie El-Hage speaks to Sophie Kazan Makhlouf about her forthcoming book, The Development of An Art History in the UAE: An Art Not Made To Be Understood.
ME-H: Though I know you have been writing articles and papers for a while, this is your first book, which is about the development of UAE art history. Why did you feel that it was important to focus on the start of the country’s art and artists?
SKM: Thank you Maie. I felt it was important to focus on the development of an art history in the UAE, for three reasons. First, to underline that artists have been active in the region long before the creation of the United Arab Emirates in 1971 – this is not a start but a development. Second, to set the record straight, the idea of there being a single narrative, one art history or story of art’s development in this region, is unrealistic. Therefore, this book draws together several stories, supported or explored visually, through the art practices of several artists, including calligraphers, painters, photographers and sculptors … also through interviews and questionnaires.
Around 2007 and 2008, much was reported in the global press about the launch of the international art fairs in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and the Saadiyat Cultural District. I lived in Abu Dhabi around that time and so, I could see how very little was known about art from the region in general and UAE artists in particular, even among my fellow art historians in the UK. This is my contribution to broadening art historical discourses!
ME-H: The book is subtitled ‘An Art Not Made To Be Understood’. Can you explain this please?
SKM: Yes. It is from a quote by the artist Hassan Sharif, who has been subtitled ‘the father of art in the UAE’. In an interview with Lisa Ball-Lechgar for Canvas Magazine, in 2008 I think it was, they were discussing the importance of an art public. Sharif was always trying to incite reactions from members of the public through his art and ‘shake things up’ (his friend and colleague, Cristiana de Marchi has said). The need for people to recognize the importance of the creative process, think about and talk about art is what he was getting at, I think. ‘Art Is Not Made To Be Understood’ gives a sense that it can take time to access what the artist is trying to portray or the different implications of a piece of work, a performance or an installation … In this fast-paced modern world, we expect everything to appear instantly, but art is not obvious. There is no such thing as ‘fast art’. It is not all there for the taking – or that is what I believe that Sharif meant.
ME-H: In the book, you look at the country’s development and its creation through the art practices of several artists and through interviews with artists, people working in art galleries, auction houses, museum and also collectors. Why did you choose to do this?
SKM: There have been some wonderful books about art made by Emiratis and in the UAE; But We Cannot See Them – Tracing a UAE Art Community 1988–2008 that accompanied the NYU Abu Dhabi Gallery exhibition by Maya Allison, Bana Kattan and Alaa Idris is one of them. ADMAF’s Portrait of a Nation and 1980–Today: Exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates by Hoor Al Qasimi and Karen Marta for the UAE Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale are some others. Nonetheless, there is still so much more to write about and so many more angles to explore. I also feel that since there are still so many aspects of the country’s art historical story present in peoples’ memories and experiences. It is important to speak to these people, interview artists themselves and understand their will to form or Kunstwollen. While speaking to people, I really loved hearing first-hand about their passion to create or collect or share art, and I think that other people would be interested too.
ME-H: Can you tell us more about the artists whose works are included in the book. Why did you choose these particular artists?
SKM: Well, there are so many artists in the UAE and from the UAE that it would have been impossible to choose a particular group, as it were. Because I had worked in the arts and culture sector in Abu Dhabi, I already knew many of the artists whose work I felt were relevant to my research and whom I spoke to from the outset. These included the late Hassan Sharif, for example, Mohammed Kazem, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Lamya Gargash, Sarah Al Mehairi and Afra Al Dhaheri. It was such a pleasure to meet others such as Abdul Qader Al Rais, Mohammed Mandi, Maitha Demithan, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Karima Al Shomely and Nasir Nasrallah as I began to research. I should say that these artists were so gracious in agreeing to be interviewed, answering my questions, allowing me to show beautiful, high-resolution images of their work and sharing their opinions with me. I am extremely grateful. I am also hugely grateful to the many other people who have written about art in the UAE and the region, who work in the arts sectors, auction houses, galleries or museums. They are all listed in the book, and they also kindly spoke to me, swapped emails and met with me virtually. I couldn’t have drawn all this together without their help and support.
ME-H: As well as discussing art practices and the development of galleries and museums, you also consider art historical writings and look at how the UAE’s art story fits into that. Was that to do with your Western art training or to do with artists from the UAE situating themselves?
SKM: As I was researching this book, I encountered so many diverging beliefs and disparities in opinion. For example, the idea that contemporary art has to be shocking, the tradition of the nude or the notion that to challenge authority and to be rude is the only way of being truly innovative. As Eisenstadt pointed out, there are different ways of being modern – he writes about ‘modernities’. What is more, anyone who has lived in the Arabian Gulf region and has experienced the rapid speed of development and urbanization in cities such as Dubai or Abu Dhabi, particularly in the 2000s and 2010s, knows that people there take huge changes, developments and lifestyle shifts in their stride. In this kind of context, is it fair that art history, the study of art and creativity be guided by slow-moving Western traditions, perceptions and aesthetics? Rather than seeing how the UAE’s art story fits into Western art discourses, I began to explore what theories stood up to a wider global understanding of art. Which were relevant, for example, to an Emirati or UAE-based art tradition? This seemed like a useful thing to be doing as an art historian, and it also, hopefully, will allow others, art students, art historians or members of the public, to access art and art stories from countries such as the UAE more easily and with a greater openness.