The Athr Art Gallery, located in Serafi Mega Mall opposite IKEA on Tahlia Street in Jeddah, is currently hosting an exhibition of paintings entitled “Legends of the Arab World.” The work is by three different artists: Ali Sultan, a German national with Iraqi background; Hamad Al-Saab, a Kuwaiti artist with a Saudi background; and Bassem Al-Sharqi, a renowned Saudi artist. It was an emotional roller coaster for the gallery managers organizing the event as the images coming from outside Saudi Arabia were held in customs until only a few hours before the opening of the exhibition. The style of the work harks back to the era of the “Pop Art” movement, which started off in England in the early 1950s, and then moved across the Atlantic to the US a few years later. The term was coined by the English art critic Lawrence Alloway to describe a form of art that made use of the materials and technologies from mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. They also generally used strong, vibrant colors. It was widely interpreted as a reaction against the abstract-expressionism dominant at the time, and elitist culture in art. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction. In the US, the artists used irony and parody, but in the UK, it was a matter of ideas fueled by American popular culture viewed from afar, while the American artists were inspired by the experiences of living within that culture. The most famous of the pop-artists is American Andy Warhol, a character who I find positively spooky. His unsavory character was confirmed in the 2006 film “Factory Girl”, a feature film about his relationship with his muse, Edie Sedgwick. The genre crossed all boundaries between high and low culture to produce many of the twentieth century's iconic images, namely the brightly coloured “posterized” portraits of the famous actress, Marilyn Monroe, and the can of Campbell's Tomato Soup. It is his depiction of celebrities that the artists at this exhibition are emulating. They use vibrant colors and mixed techniques (that all have in common the use of digital media) to depict 20th Century portraits of Arab icons of the voice and silver screen, especially of the sixties, seventies and eighties, who transcended their time to become symbols of popular heritage and national pride. Two of the artists, Hamad and Ali, joined forces to work on a pop art exhibition that first opened in Kuwait in May 2007. The success of this event sealed the relationship and led to further exhibitions at home and abroad. The pop art themes which garnered the artists their early fame are now approached with a new awareness with the use of bold colours. Among their paintings are portraits of Abdul Haleem Hafiz, Asmaham, Farouz, Omar Shareef, and Umm Kulthoum. The works begin with digital artwork, and they then use either acrylic on canvas, or oils with plastic varnish on canvas, or Swarovski and plastic varnish on canvas. A painting that I particularly liked is the one of Asmaham. This close-up portrait is not the same posterization style of Warhol's “Marilyn”; instead, the colours seem to echo those that are sometimes used by Jim Dine: they are almost “day glow” colors, the kind that were used in colourful Australian zinc sun creams for children in the late 1980s. Bright pink merges with bright orange, and then yellow, and they smudge softly into each other. The face of the star glowing through these colours is very beautiful and her beguiling green eyes stare straight at the viewer, almost hypnotizing you into a trance as you stare back. Another favorite is the haunting one of Farouz which really captures the drama of her personality; an abstract music score with white notes on a black page is used as the background, while the shape of her upturned face is again highlighted in day-glow colours. The painting of Umm Kulthoum is a vibrant piece and you can really feel the energy of the perfomer radiating from the canvas. Baseem Al-Sharqi, who has exhibited in Dubai and the UAE, is truer to the Warhol posterization style, especially with his portrait of Hind Rustom. This is classic pop art, and is acrylic on canvas, and in his work he uses a mix of mediums such as collages, spray paint and silk screening. I did wonder why these artists are reverting to this pop art style to depict their own celebrities. On his website, Hamad Al-Saab explains that: “Both Arabic and Western musicians today fulfill such an important role in our emotive journeys that both Ali and myself wanted to pay tribute to the artists that invite us to take this special journey along with them.” Ali Sultan further states that: “The vibrant use of colour is associated with the vibrant flow of feelings that are frequently coupled with music. The subtle color tones are reflective of the different moods that we embrace when we allow ourselves the pleasure of joining the artists in this reflective arena of their lives.” Like Warhol, Bassem's art is often characterized by iconic images, such as the Mona Lisa or a classic VW Buggy. On his website, he explains the significance of bringing such images to the Arab world: “These images are universal; they no longer just belong to the Western world”. Bassem argues that the subjects he depicts in his artwork are just as recognizable to Arabs as they are to the people of their countries of origin. His goal is to create novel iconic symbols that represent this new generation of Arabs. “My grandma used her sewing machine that was made in China and that is more a part of my heritage than the dalla (traditional teapot), which is considered to be a symbol of Saudi culture.” He asserts that the symbols usually associated with Saudi culture are now outdated and need to be replaced by images that the existing generation can relate to. By representing the contemporary through a vintage medium, such as silk screening, Bassem is “combining the classic with the modern”, in order to bridge the chasm of past and present. - SG The exhibition continues until Feb. 10. Further details can be obtained from [email protected] __
