Unafraid Art

“Remember, Sharjah is not Dubai.”

Last summer, before I came here, when the idea of the United Arab Emirates still conjured up a silly mixture of Bedouins and Casablanca-esque streets, I engaged in a brief e-mail correspondence with a former teacher at my international school. Though I asked her about my ridiculously large class sizes and the existence of lotion without skin-whitener, this teacher’s main piece of advice was to “remember that Sharjah is not Dubai.” I knew that Sharjah is known as the “conservative emirate,” that it is dry and has several “decency laws.” Now that I am here, of course, I understand that teacher’s one-note message. The conservative atmosphere of Sharjah is more intense than my research came close to conveying. I figured that out during my first week.

But my understanding that Dubai is something different, beyond the obvious lack of rules and the existence of alcohol, has been slower in coming. Mostly I have tended to view Dubai as a postmodern nightmare of a city, a hideous monument to unmitigated growth and materialism. Every now and then, though, I will experience something wonderful in Dubai that makes me comprehend why people tend to view it as an important and valuable place. Usually those moments are brief: the view of an undeveloped expanse of desert grass, an unpretentious pub with the best selection of Belgian beer I’ve seen outside of Belgium, a veiled woman having coffee with a man who is clearly not her husband, not her brother, but her friend.

A trip to a Dubai art festival this weekend was one of these experiences. On Saturday I felt that I truly understood, for the first time, what people mean when they say that Dubai is “dynamic.” The Al Bastakiya Art Fair was held in the historic part of Dubai Creek. I have visited the Creek several times but have always gotten lost trying to find the historic area; streets are jagged, crowded, and disorienting in the desert heat. Usually when I try to ask people for directions, they are loathe to admit that they don’t know and send me off down a random street. But, after three failed attempts in which my advisers led me to Carrefour (a Wal-Mart equivalent), I went in the opposite direction and found Al Bastakiya.

Al Bastakiya is by far the most beautiful place I have seen in the UAE. It is an area smaller than a square city block. It is a neighborhood of (non-residential) houses dating from the 1890s that I would architecturally describe as “pueblo,” though they are obviously historic Arabian Gulf. They retain old attributes such as wind towers and short inner doors that were built to prevent men entering a room from looking directly at the women inside. These simple structures, earth-toned and only two, low storeys high, are set among narrow stone streets and quiet courtyards which are empty except for a flourishing rubber tree here and there.

During the art fair, the houses function as gallery space. Different galleries and individual artists had their own houses. There were also houses representing the UAE, Pakistan, and Iraq. The art itself varied in quality and theme, but what was most striking about it was the presence of intelligent questioning and outright controversy. Unsurprisingly, war and displacement were major themes in Iraqi, Pakistani, and Iranian works. One series of lithographs featured images of American beauty queens stitched over maps of Iraq, and an Emirati work consisted of dollar bills manipulated to read the Islamic States of America. But there was also a series of Iraqi statues depicting citizens frightened under Saddam’s regime, and an angry-looking Saddam in an oversized chair, which the artist had been forbidden to display prior to coming to the UAE.

Gender issues were also on display. A Qatar artist showed a series of photographs featuring veiled and masked women holding signs that read, “Sweep away some of the gravitating old/ Stir in some of the inspiring new/ Harness the best of both/ Embrace all and work towards constructive change.” Another series showed a face covered in a bedsheet under the word “Religion.” Different words were added, with accompanying accessories, such as “Education” and glasses. Another artist created street signs showing how men and women must be separated and male dominance in the region. On the other hand, the Emirati house and a British series called Sauce seemed to embrace all things girly, with images of fully veiled women covered in roses and glitter-splashed pictures of girls in tutus.

Predictably, the only issue that was presented as completely one-sided was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A series of photographs depicting a crucified Jesus hanging on Israeli road signs was accompanied by an artist statement refuting Israel’s existence.

Every room I entered was filled with art that asked questions, even if it asked them only by presenting a single opinion. The exception was a Sharjah gallery. It featured colorful, swirly, abstract paintings. They were very pretty. They would look great on a wall in my living room or in a hotel lobby. This has been my (admittedly limited) experience with art in Sharjah. Sharjah has a beautiful contemporary art museum filled with easy art. This is especially significant given that Sharjah City was designated the UNESCO “Cultural Capital of the Arab World” in 1998, largely because of its museums.

I think that a questioning attitude, a willingness to pry, to acknowledge contradictions and negatives, is one of the many things that makes Sharjah “not Dubai.” Dubai, of course, is still overflowing with problems and only acknowledges a handful of them (financial crises get talked about; the legions of Southeast Asian laborers living in squalor do not). But after eight months of living in stifling Sharjah, the presence of such controversial artwork at Al Bastikaya struck me as exciting and, in this region, extremely brave.

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