Four works censored at Art Dubai

Dubai, 23 March 2012, Art Media Agency (AMA).

Art Dubai art fair has, every year since its inception 2007, seen problems relating to the content or message of its featured works. Hardly surprising that this should happen in a country that, despite its attempts to embrace art, remains politically conservative and culturally steeped in religion.

The authorities have forced organisers to remove four works from the 2012 edition of the fair, two of which directly deal with the Arab Spring.

The first work is entitled After Washing, a round painting by Palestinina artist Shadi Alzaqzouq. The canvas depicts a woman wearing a foulard (veil) and holding a pair of men’s pants upon which with the words “clear off” are written in Arabic. According to French daily Libération, the artist had already been denied a visa by the authorities. The second is You Were my Only Love by Moroccan Zakaria Ramhani, a large canvas depicting a scene from the Egyptian revolution, where members of the police and military have stripped and beaten a protester. This two pieces were to be displayed at the Artspace Dubai gallery. The gallery’s director, Maliha Al Tabari, said that the intervention had not been officially sanctioned. She also reaffirmed her support for the two artists, making it clear that she would again put the works in question on display in the London gallery which she has just opened.

The two other works which were taken down were a statue of a naked man by Lebanese scultor Nadim Karim, and a painting by Iranian Khorow Hassanzadeh which were deemed “offensive to Imam Ali”.

Censorship is has become a recurrent theme of debate on the Arab peninsula. The points of view of local experts and of gallery owners are frequently in the press. There can be no doubt that these new incidents of taking down works will fuel this debate