Vision in a minor key

Ed Lake

• Last Updated: November 18. 2009 3:54PM UAE / November 18. 2009 11:54AM GMT

Jack Persekian, the director of the Sharjah Art Foundation, sees Disorientation II as a shining example of co-operation between emirates. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

On Sunday, the capital’s nascent arts district will spark into life with its first exhibition, a survey of Arab contemporary art featuring some of the most eminent names on the modern scene.

So far only one art space, the Manarat al Saadiyat, is ready for use on the island: the rest are a maze of foundations. But at more or less two-year intervals, that first site will be joined by a branch of NYU, then a Louvre, then the world’s largest Guggenheim museum, designed by Frank Gehry. After that, a performance space designed by Zaha Hadid is planned.

Abu Dhabi’s claim to the cultural crown of the Middle East begins in earnest here, with Jack Persekian’s Disorientation II exhibition. It is, one might think, a moment of pure exultation. And one would be wrong.

“No, it’s not a utopian gesture,” Persekian says sharply. “Even from its title, Disorientation, I tried to take a very sombre look, as I said, on the situation we live in.”

Persekian is best known in the UAE as the artistic director of the Sharjah Biennial, where he has played a major role since 2007. His sombre outlook, however, seems more closely connected with the other world he inhabits as a curator in his hometown of Jerusalem. Whatever else it might be, Israel is no breeding ground for political Panglosses, and so the first exhibition to take place in the cavernous Manarat al Saadiyat, titled Disorientation II (it follows the show Persekian staged in Berlin six years ago), sets out to highlight the failures of solidarity that have bedevilled the Arab world for the past 40 years.

“It’s based on the idea of juxtaposing two eras, two periods of time,” Persekian says. “I took the 1960s and 1970s as a moment when the Arab world – in terms, of course, of visual representation – had some kind of utopian or quasi-utopian outlook on possibilities of Arab unity and the idea of Arab nationalism.”

The central figure in this vision is Gamal Abdel Nasser, the late Egyptian president who, for a few years in the late 1950s, united Egypt and Syria in the short-lived United Arab Republic. “He was leading that clan to unify the Arabs,” Persekian says wistfully.

By contrast, the modern Arab world presents Persekian with a bleak panorama – “the wars, the factional fighting in some countries, regarding the conflicts that are taking place in several regions, the increasing number of people being driven out of their homes as refugees, the scale of displacement”.

He sighs. “If you read that through several of the works that artists are presenting, it has been a more kind of sombre, even quite pessimistic outlook – even, I would say, disdain about the state of affairs… In that sense you can see the two visions: then, in the 1960s and 1970s, a more utopian reflection and now, reality, but shocking reality.”

That split is reflected in the style of the works, in which edgy contemporary artists such as Yto Barrada and Wael Shawky contrast with the more decorous likes of the late Ali Jabri.

“In the moment of history which is the 1960s and 1970s, the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the works are somehow nostalgic and somehow reflect that utopia, so are pictorial,” Persekian explains.

“They reflect that point in history in these more delicate and subtle works. And so the spectator would be able to see the difference when something is from that period, and when something is of the present, which is more there and in-your-face, and taking space and imposing.”

The newer work, he says, tends to be “spatial… the spectator somehow engages with the artwork in space or as a number of videos on monitors, or on the floor, something that you could walk on or feel. And I wanted that to be the way you experience the situation now.”

For his part, Persekian has been experiencing the current situation through the lens of a 15th-century political philosopher. “I started with the ideas,” he says, “and I read, not too long ago, the writing of Ibn Khaldoun.”

According to this north-African polymath, the proper unit of historical analysis is the “asabiyyah” – literally, a clan united by blood ties, though Khaldoun uses it to describe any group bound by some form of patriotic loyalty. These ties are most powerful when the clan is small, family-based and subject to the rigours of a wild existence. But what successful tribe remains in such a condition?

“With prosperity and development come means, riches and all of that,” Persekian explains. “And with that comes corruption and they lose track of their original beliefs and convictions and they delve into these kind of pleasures and excesses… That somehow weakens them and leads to a weakening of the whole structure that was able to put the city together, and opens the possibility for another asabiyyah, another clan or group that is still strong and not yet corrupted, to come and take over and destroy the city. And then it’s a cycle. It goes on and on and on.”

This might seem rather a fatalistic point of view to take as Abu Dhabi approaches the apex of fortune’s wheel. If Khaldoun is right then a slide into decadence and then a series of visits from barbarian hordes are just around the corner. Still, there’s comfort to be drawn from the fact that the most level-headed theory of history remains the line attributed to Mark Twain: it doesn’t repeat itself but it sometimes rhymes. And Persekian seems to have absorbed Khaldoun’s ideas in a similarly poetic spirit.

“I wanted to take that as a metaphor for what happened in the Arab world,” he says. “To think about the Arab world as an idea of unity, going back to Nasser, the times when he was leading that clan to unify the Arabs… A lot of what we are now witnessing are the repercussions of that failure. So that’s why I decided, OK, I’ll take that as a starting point for the exhibition.”

The content of the show may be bleak but the circumstances surrounding it are peculiarly auspicious. “I’m really happy, there’s a lot of firsts in this exhibition,” Persekian says. “First on Saadiyat, first joint project between two big Emirati institutions.”

The institutions in question are Abu Dhabi’s Tourism and Development Investment Company and the Sharjah Art Foundation, making Disorientation II a notable instance of inter-emirate collaboration.

“I think this is one of the most interesting things about this exhibition and this project, that from its inception and from the invitation it was basically, let’s join hands and see what we can do together,” Persekian enthuses.

It is also a rebuke to those who hunt for signs of rivalry between the emirates. “This exhibition comes as an answer for all those who thought this was the sort of environment we live in. On the contrary, it’s really sharing knowledge, know-how, expertise, staff, people,” he says emphatically.

And perhaps the very fact of Saadiyat Island’s arrival ought to inspire optimism, at least among Arab artists.

“I thought about this the other day,” Persekian says. “A friend of mine called me and said: ‘Jack, Guggenheim New York bought one of my pieces and it’s now in the collection’.”

Other artists came to the curator with similar stories. “It’s like, wow, what’s happening? All of a sudden the western world, let’s call it the centre of the contemporary art movement, all of a sudden is interested in buying and taking these artists into the main collections there. So there’s definitely a change in the attitudes.”

The cause, in Persekian’s view, is simple: Saadiyat. “It is such a magnet, and drew so much attention,” he says. “Saadiyat brought about such a tremendous polarity in terms of attracting or turning the attention of a lot of people to this part of the world, that the whole art movement and artists are now enjoying a much higher profile.”

This, surely, might offer grounds for a more optimistic survey of the Arab scene? Maybe next year. “We would be able to talk to artists, have discussions about issues with them, issues of concern,” Persekian says musingly. “And maybe look for possibilities of hope, look for possibilities of a more positive outlook on the future…”

He checks himself. “If that is possible, of course,” he adds.