Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East

Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East

29 January, 2009
by: Tom Jeffreys

London Exhibitions

Good old Charles Saatchi: he certainly knows what he likes. And what he likes is, generally, big. After the inaugural exhibition at the new Kings Road space and its focus on Chinese contemporary art, comes Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East. And, guess what? More big stuff.

Both exhibitions begin in the same way: with sprawling ground-based sculptural works of cities. It's not the most exciting start, but the show gets better. Overall it's as patchy as the last one, but the good stuff here really is brilliant. Where the Chinese contemporary art seemed all about impact, the best pieces here combine force with thought.

Works by several artists stand out. Gallery 4 contains eight large-scale lambda print diptychs by Halim Al-Karim. Entitled things like Hidden Prisoner and Hidden War these are intensely specific images, but blurred towards a sense of universality. These huge portraits gaze down on you, the effect shifting gradually (and disturbingly) as you progress through the gallery.

There's two pieces by Laleh Khorramian, of which the three-dimensional Some Comments on Empty and Full is less successful than the fascinating Eden, 1st Generation. Like the paintings of Nadine Feinson, this large abstract work draws you in with the promise of the real, before retreating behind a hail of daubs, textures and squiggles. Hands, a breast, trees, and faces peep out momentarily before seeking solace in abstraction.

 
Kader Attia 'Ghost', aluminium foil 2007, dimensions variable, courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London 2007 © Kader Attia

I like Wafa Hourani's five-part model city, complete with air-strip and fast-food outlet, street music, model cars and odd wire figures atop each building, and Ali Banisadr's bright exciting paintings that teem with life and energy. Upstairs I'm struck by the work of Shadi Ghadira who juxtaposes traditional Muslim female dress with symbols of contemporary domestic chores – a colander, vacuum cleaner, cleaver, iron and a rubber glove – like a less controversial Sarah Maple.

Tala Madani's work is powerful in its ambiguous depictions of mass genuflection. Some people are chained together, some praying, some spewing forth blood, and some reading, or is it hiding? The blurring into abstraction that occurs in each work perhaps hints at a dehumanising of the assembled throngs. It's powerful stuff.

I love Diana Al-Hadid sculptures, of which there are three on show. These are great, fascinating works that depict the grandest symbols of civilisations, toppled and decaying. The Tower of Infinite Problems is a fallen spire, architecturally impressive, but lying on its side and lined with cardboard honeycomb. All the Stops combines the structures of a cathedral organ with something like the Coliseum, but again it's crumbling and unused. Self Melt consists of a kind of futuristic city, not dissimilar to Swift's Laputa. The urban and the organic intersect, and surrounded by the pale wooden floors of the Saatchi Gallery, it seems Shelley was right: 'the lone and level sands stretch far away'.

But one work steals the show: Kader Attia's incredible installation, Ghost. Gallery 6 is filled with row upon row of silver figures hunched over in prayer or penitence. Each piece is made from tinfoil: arched spines are visible, hands swathed in foil as if restrained. Beneath each shroud there is no face: to kneel in front of them all is to be confronted by a vast vacancy. And yet to stand is to be worshipped: it is I they now kneel before. But the longer you linger the more you notice that each has its own personality: the emptiness is real. This is a powerful, extraordinary work, brilliantly executed. There's sorrow and force, cold spectacle, power and hidden dignity. I feel privileged to have stood alone with this work.

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Tom Jeffreys