REVIEW Images - Courtesy of Jameel Arts Centre. Writer - Christopher Joshua Benton, artist, creative director and journalist.
Jameel Arts Centre: Farah Al Qasimi Entering the Interzone These days the virtual and the real appear to be
what appears to be an old family photo book. ‘I
collapsing into each other. Not only are we easily
think of obfuscation as protection,’ Al Qasimi said
confused by what is real or fake, but sometimes
in an interview with Tribe. “I try to seek meaning in
the artificial appears even more real. It’s at this
gesture, or movement, or social dynamic rather than
intersection where one finds the complex work
in facial expression or visibility.”
of Farah Al Qasimi, whose excellent survey for Jameel Arts Centre brings the Abu Dhabi-raised,
Elsewhere in the show, we see an American soldier
Yale-educated, New York City based photographer
being consoled or pulled away while taking a
back to the Emirates.
phone call. While in Gaith at Home we see a Khaleeji man eyes-closed in repose atop crisp bed
Interestingly Dragon Mart, Dubai’s kaleidoscopically
linens. Al Qasimi, always the master colour stylist,
kitsch emporium of everything, and the largest
bathes the scene in shadow and dims the man in
Chinese market outside of China, is the subject of
white, just a few hints of skin to guide your eye.
about a third of the works in the show. Originally
The subject’s gesture is tentative and suspended
commissioned as part of Art Dubai’s Global Art
between frames: is he about to tie his ghutra? Is he
Forum, these deadpan images consolidate many of
practicing kundalini finger meditation? The image,
Al Qasimi’s leitmotifs—an interest in the hyperreal,
of course, is posed—but it feels real, candid. Images
the sci-fi artifice of the Gulf, and perceptions of
like these complicate and subvert the expectation
class and taste (and its signifiers)—and cranks them
of power through striking moments of intimacy and
Installation view of Artist’s Rooms
up to larger-than-life proportions. My favourite is
fragility. “The Emirates is a society that upholds
Photo courtesy of Jameel Arts Centre
Dragon Mart LED Display, which (incredulously!)
social boundaries and formalities, particularly across
contemporises Dutch still-life and folds it into a
genders” Al Qasimi told us. “I’m trying to break
Technicolor window display, brim-full of Shenzhen-
down some of these boundaries by entering spaces
via-Yiwu motorized tchotchkes, plastic flowers and
you don’t normally see, hinting at personal lives and
art. And yet, regardless of the photographic or
LED strips.
informal moments.”
artistic tradition, the result is unmistakably Farah Al Qasimi.
Quickly you will notice many of the figures in these
Across these 19 images, Al Qasimi skillfully presents
photographs are implied, camouflaged, obscured,
various modes of photo-making, from appropriating
Stare into the images long enough and you might
or silhouetted—but never fully seen. This ambiguity
the glossy seductive aesthetics of commercial fashion
fall into them. Al Qasimi’s brand of Gulf Futurism is
creates a sense of the uncanny, inviting the viewer
photography in M Napping on Carpet, to flâneur-
less ironic than her contemporaries, but probably
to interrogate the mise en scène for clues of
mode street photography in her Dragon Mart series.
more complex—offering up a sentimental, nostalgic,
narratives, place and context. In one image a man
Her trademark wall wraps, which often background
and critical window that is world-building for a space
pulls a disappearing act in a billow of smoke; while
other framed photos as wallpaper would, add a
identical to the Emirates but weirder, parallel to
in another, two males are blacked out by time in
trompe l’oeil tableau, while also signaling installation
what we see everyday, yet altogether more fantastic.
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