Painting a Difficult Conversation - Q-News July 2006, Issue 367

One day, tradition said to modernity: You’ve got no soul! Modernity replied: You’re just stuck in your old ways. Unaiza Karim finds that the British Museum’s Word into Art gets the two talking.

One may be forgiven for mistaking the poster image for this exhibition as abstract art; or perhaps the notation of an inspired musician or choreographer. It in fact Hassan Massoudy’s gracefully executed painting of the word ‘al-hubb - love. In a delicate sweep of the paintbrush loaded with blue pigment on paper we witness a dynamic symbiosis between line and meaning that is so distinctive of the Arabic script and at the heart of this exhibition.

Word into Art brings together the work of over eighty contemporary artists from across the Middle East and North Africa who like Massoudy, turn words into painting, drawing and sculpture. They are inspired by the scripts of the region, predominantly Arabic, the main focus of the exhibition. By focussing on the texts written by or which inspire artists, visitors are given the chance to taste the rich literary as well as artistic heritage of these lands.

The exhibition begins almost without you realising it on the steps leading to the main exhibition space. These first few instillations are a contemporary take on traditional calligraphy that invites the visitor to look through letters and around them, planting seeds of intrigue and childlike enquiry.

Though there is careful annotation and translation accompanying the works, you are free to appreciate the forms in themselves, the subtlety of line and penmanship, the proportionality of the letters in relation to one another. Some of visitors may even begin to identify the principal canonical scripts. The minimalist Kufic as compared to the almost surrealist Thuluth scripts are particularly striking in terms of their stylistic differences. There is the opportunity to travel too, as a Chinese Muslim scroll lies unravelled before you, words flowing downwards with the rhythm and form of a waterfall.

As you move through the exhibition space you experience an almost seamless transition from the world of tradition to modernity. The first of the four rooms the exhibition occupies is filled with an overwhelming sense of tradition, history and discipline as our eyes fall upon the lavish and highly ornamented seal of a great Ottoman Sultan, letters ablaze in gold. Gradually, our eyes are eased into a modern, more abstracted interpretation of the Arabic script, as seen in the cubist style, controversially segmenting the sacred text. There seemed to be little if any conflict between the two worlds, that of tradition and modernity, both worlds offering something that for the most part drew you in, with room for reflection and in some cases leaving you with questions and wanting a conversation with the artist.

As the exhibition progresses artists are given a platform to voice the important questions raised in response to the events taking place in their native lands.

Perhaps one of the most haunting images I took away with me from the exhibition was Laila Shawa’s ‘Children of War Children of Peace’ which repeats images of a little boy from a refugee camp in Gaza. He is carrying a toy or stick that could be a gun. Iranian artist Shirin Nishat’s powerful black and white photograph shows the face of woman with her eye heavily lined with kohl. The white of her eye is inscribed in miniature with a poem that acts as a call to arms for Iranian women. It translates as

“No one is thinking about the flowers
No one wants to believe that the garden is dying”’

In another photograph, Saba Naim depicts a Cairo street-scene, the image is bordered top and bottom by tightly packed newspapers in Arabic and English, each reporting the latest moves in International diplomacy. Her suggestion here is that the world of high politics often has nothing to do with everyday life.

It is inevitable, that when relations between the Islamic world and the West are such a focus of attention, Word into Art will be seen by the cynical as a mere vehicle for political statement, with undertones of anger and tension rising to the surface. However, with the exception of two or three exhibits, the collection was so much more than this. It is a powerful demonstration of how artists across the Islamic world have channelled their life experiences and cultural histories into a visually captivating and at times challenging exhibition that invites you to participate in a conversation with the artists and the words they use.

Word into Art - Artists of the Middle East continues at the British Museum in London until 2 September 2006. Admission is free. www.britishmuseum.org.uk