Art as Resistance

On April 14, 2013, Columbia University in New York hosted an event entitled “Art as Resistance.” It was advertised as a panel discussion between two actors from the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, Palestine and a professor of theatre at the University of Connecticut. The email blasts and the website of the Center for Palestine Studies include short bios of the three panelists, in which the first thing noted for both Palestinian actors are their ages. Faisal Abu Alhelja was 23; Ahmad Al-Rokh was 24. The age of Gary English, the third panelist, a Distinguished Professor of Theatre (and then director of the Freedom Theatre) was not listed. The advertising suggested that the “expertise” the first two panelists boasted was their Palestinian youth. The credentials of the third panelist (presumably not Palestinian and older) were his established career as a theatre professional and scholar. “Resistance” only appeared in the event title. It was unclear from the promotional materials who or what these artists resisted, or how.[1]

Critics and scholars have identified that the abstract framing of Palestinian artists and their work as “resistant” may be problematic. Media scholar Helga Tawil-Souri has suggested that the expectation that Palestinian artists exclusively depict or address their political reality has limited the aesthetic possibilities available to them.[2] Speaking of Arab artists more generally, Daanish Faruqi has suggested that even when Arab artists display works of high quality, their work may be neglected, even in their countries of origin, because it “fails to inform our political impulses.”[3] In the wake of the political events since 2010 and the incredible attention to creative expression within the “Arab Spring,” Arab artists themselves have also begun to question and in some cases reject demands that they produce or perform “resistance” in galleries and concerts, and the presumption their work be framed as such.[4] What is the proclivity towards “resistance” about? Why are critics and artists distancing themselves from it? What political assumptions circulate within it? What political opportunities does it foreclose? Why is there so much interest in the politics of creative expression  at a time when the complex, local politico-cultural contexts are rarely approached, much less understood? 

This blog explores these questions and others in a critical assessment of political representations of Arab culture and the Arab world.

Notes.

[1] Email blast reprinted in Phillip Weiss, “‘Art as Resistance’ – Two Actors and Artistic Director at Jenin Freedom Theater to Speak at Columbia Sunday,” Mondoweiss, April 12, 2013, http://mondoweiss.net/2013/04/resistance-artistic-columbia.

[2] Helga Tawil-Souri, “The Necessary Politics of Palestinian Cultural Studies,” in Arab Cultural Studies: Mapping the Field, ed. Tarik Sabry (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 138.

[3] As opposed to on an international art market. See Daanish Faruqi, “Art and the Arab Spring,” Al Jazeera English, January 10, 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/20121612493122450.html.

[4] Naira Antoon and Aimee Shalan, “After the Spring: Thoughts on Cultural Production and the Selling Power of Change,” Jadaliyya, November 15, 2011, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/3117/after-the-spring_thoughts-on-cultural-production-a; Andrew M. Goldstein, “New Museum Curator Natalie Bell on How to Understand Contemporary Arab Art,” ArtSpace, July 17, 2014, http://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/natalie-bell-on-here-and-elsewhere-at-the-new-museum; Shehab Fakhry Ismail, “Revolutionizing Art,” Mada Masr, October 25, 2013,  http://www.madamasr.com/content/revolutionizing-art; Omar Kholeif, “The Social Impulse: Politics, Media, and Art after the Arab Uprisings,” Ibraaz, May 2, 2012, http://www.ibraaz.org/essays/34; Mona Gamil, Amira Chebli, et al. “Arab Dance Caravan,” (“Open Studios” panel discussion at biennial meeting of Internationale Tanzmesse, Düsseldorf, Germany, August 27-30, 2014).