Shirin Neshat in Qatar

Shirin Neshat, a 53-year old Iranian visual artist, well-known for her works in film, video and photography, presented today at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. Her feature-film debut, "Women Without Men", will be screened tomorrow at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar at 2:00 PM.

Shirin was born in Iran in a family which adored the Shah of Iran and the western values he propagated. She did her higher studies in the United States and completed her BA, MA and MFA from UC Berkley; eventually she returned to Iran after the Islamic revolution. Shirin’s work tries to untangle the ideology of Islam through art. Her first works started with photographic series, but she also branched out to films later.

Her earlier works were more of a personal nature; they explored the lack of connection she felt with the post-revolution Iran, but over time her art became more political in nature which coincided how the Government of Iran evolved into being more oppressive and intrusive. Her works have come to encompass male-female dynamics in contemporary Islam. All her works express deeply poetic, philosophical, metaphorical and complex levels of intellectual abstraction. She also took part in a three-day hunger strike at the United Nations headquarters in New York in protest of the 2009 Presidential elections, cementing her popularity in the western world and firmly entrenching her against the politics of her native country.

Looking at her work, it is very obvious that she is trying to explore the concept of feminism in Islam. A woman with an abaya and Quranic verses written on her face, make an unusual and controversial combination. Similarly, an Arabic inscripted hand holding a gun, ties into the contemporary western view of Islam. Most of her work is in an abstract black and white form. Women, Abayas, Quranic verses seem to be a recurring theme in her work. A lot of her work can be classified as modern artwork; a person is free to infer any personal meaning from her work.

TateShots: Robert Morris Bodyspacemotionthings at Tate Modern

An Interview with Rasha from the Education team.....

• Why do you think the role of the interpretive materials coordinator is so important? What are your aims?

My job is to be a bridge between the curators and the audience. My role as an educator is to allow museum audiences to access big ideas behind the exhibition.

• What do you hope to achieve as interpretive materials co-coordinator?

I have to try and keep in line with how the museum sees itself. As an open space, where people can engage and interact. To create a creative hub for people so that they will want to come back to the museum. In my wildest success scenario people will feel connected to the museum through interpretive materials.

• What interpretive materials are you going to use?

The two projects I am working on now; the first is creating a guide for family’s. The idea is to help adults who are bringing children in to the gallery to talk about the art with them, and encourage them to engage with it. My job is to help them to have that conversation. This guide focuses on a specific work- just one piece in particular, because it is attractive and accessible.
And then I’m also working on a longer guide but the audience for this has not been determined yet. The goal for both is to help people engage with our collection.

• What are these guides going to do/contain?

They are going to highlight art pieces and with the families we are going to try and encourage them to look at something all together, and then we’ll tell them to go home and “try this”…whether it be to draw or make something out of clay. With our guides directed towards teens and younger adults, obviously we have to talk to them differently but we still want them to try the same things and encourage them to be creative themselves.

• Which audience do you think is most important to address?

Well…it’s not up to me to decide actually. But our niche is to target teens and young adults. In Doha there is a lack of space for people who are creative and people who want to experience something. Our purpose is to provide a space that doesn’t exist yet. Doha is transforming itself- education city is creating a college town but there is still no forum….no space for all the young creative people.

• What would you say if someone was to say that artworks should be left alone, and all the interpretive materials interfere and draw attention away from the actual artworks? Don’t people sometimes get distracted by additional materials?

Well What would be missing would be a different kind of engagement. It can’t just be about information…it’s about interaction on multiple levels. We have to think about what ways we can connect things and support different ways of learning. I think to be honest this argument is flawed. The way children learn for example is through touching and exploring. They need to play. In a museum you could have a forum where they can explore instead of just looking.

• Do you think adults are perhaps more likely to disregard interpretive materials?

Well what I’ve heard (anecdotally) is that adults often ignore the adult materials and pick out the children guides because they foster a sense of wonder and curiosity. What I hope to do differently is to help them access their own curiosity and wonder about art. But talking to adults is going to be interesting as it’s not in my past experience.

• What exactly is your background in education?

I taught middle and elementary school- in the states and in Egypt. In my teaching I would use art to help different kinds of learners. Everyone is realizing there is a need to move away from learning the same way. There are people who are visual and we have to make sure that everyone is achieving their potential. I used to teach literature through art.

• Will you go back to teaching?

This is a very interesting detour. Later I think I will go back to teaching.

• What are your future aims for the exhibition?

I’m shooting for the use of more multimedia materials and trying to figure out how to use more technology. But that takes a lot of time.

• How are you going to encourage people to respond to the exhibition?

I’m still determining what the best thing to do is. Whatever interpretive materials are used they must be there to help the audience decide for themselves how to move through the space, and how to digest everything.

Interpretive Materials

Interpretive materials are used in art museums and galleries as a means to encourage audiences to engage with artworks on another level. They attempt to further a visitors experience by allowing them to respond to the artworks in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. To learn about an artist’s reasoning and creative process, so that they can tap into their own creativity. To consider many different voices- whether they are artists, curators, experts, novices, or children. And to explore an artistic space in a more hands on as well as thoughtful way. Inhabiting the space thus becomes about discovery as well as learning.

What you bring to the museum also matters. Your experiences, opinions, culture etc will all affect your overall experience and understanding. The combination of own experience and information is created through the use of interpretive materials. Different types of interpretive materials address different people depending on their learning preferences as well as capabilities. Materials include both live programs (tours, classes…), and installed programs (labels, audio tours, slide shows, videos, touch screens, kiosks, journals and notebooks to write and draw in and more). A few more specific examples (mentioned in “New Angles On Interpretation”) which were held at the DAM museum include – “create your own art” stalls, question and answer cards about the artists, voting stations, kiosks to videotape yourself, the use of iPods to interact with music while viewing the art, poetry stands, and the opportunity to make your own postcards.

One of the aims of art museums and galleries like the DAM, is to reach out to their adult audience. When people think of interpretive materials in general they would normally associate them with children, or at least a younger audience. However, interpretive materials are striving to reach out to adults so that they too can broaden their experience at an art museum. They too are encouraged to interact with their creative side, and to try out new things so as to engage with the art more. The problem is trying to reach to an adult audience without them feeling uncomfortable with participating in “child like” activities. Museums thus have to be careful in choosing the right activities, and displaying them in the right kind of way so that adults are happy to participate. As discussed in “new angles of interpretation” the materials and the language used can make a big difference. For example, a leather bound book will do more to attract an adult to write their response rather than paper and coloured pens. Creating a space with obviously sized adult tables next to child tables and stools will also help people to recognize that all ages are invited to engage with interpretive materials. The language on the directions also has to be inviting and encouraging so as to make people feel comfortable. The findings of the study carried out by DAM that the words “tell us your story” rather than “tell us what you think about this” will encourage more response is very interesting. Similarly, adults are more likely to add their own response alongside an expert, if the experts tone is light and friendly. To perceive an artist or educator on a similar level to yourself will encourage response.

However, there still does appear to be some kind of hesitation in adults to join in with such activities other than perhaps reading labels and writing a few words in a guest book/journal. As New Angles states…“adult visitors just don’t expect to find activities geared towards them in a museum and aren’t quite sure what to do when they discover them”. I partly believe that adults aren’t really that willing to participate in certain activities simply because they aren’t that interested in doing so. Do they even really have the time to sit down at an interactive screen and pick out things to do, or sit down at a desk and make a postcard as was done at the DAM. Surely when visiting art museum adults simply want to look at the art, read some information, discuss it with their friends, and perhaps write something down in a response book at the most. Don’t some of these interpretive materials go too far in their expectations of what people want? They also seem to underestimate an adult audience’s ability to interact and engage with artworks by themselves. Do they really need all these other materials to really “feel” the emotions that are desired by the museum? If an artwork is going to stir up something inside you, it will by itself.
You could argue however that with those works which don’t immediately grab your attention, or interest you, engaging with it on another level (such as watching a video interview with the artist, or reading other visitors or experts responses), may help you to understand it more. You can at least attempt to acknowledge the artist’s creative process, but you probably won’t relate to it in any personal way.

I can’t help but feel that taken too far, interpretive materials try too hard to evoke a response in people. They could be distracting, and even the reports at the end of the article New angles… suggests that on average, participants who were asked to rate question labels, rated them with a pretty mediocre score. Similarly they had “similar results with iPods, with poetry and with the modern and contemporary labels” and yet they still think it’s worth doing because there is a small audience who really do enjoy using the materials and participating in the activities.

My overall impression of the aims of museum personnel is to turn the art museum into a new kind of environment. This environment is less concerned with the discipline of art history by itself, and more concerned with the culture of today, and their creative experiences and abilities. “to consider the physicality of art, in addition to its more cerebral aspects”. This may be suitable for a modern gallery, but to lose all focus of the actual art is a risk. Signals in the New angles article suggest this, especially when the master teachers Heather Nielsen and Lisa Steffen claim they don’t discount the value of any thoughtful response (in the visitor journals of their exhibitions)even if it has nothing to do with the art.

Because people often don’t notice certain labels, books, and activities designed for their use Museums are thinking up new ways to grab our attention through the use of noticeable signs, prompts, and instructions to direct us. This is where interpretive materials become intrusive and distracting. Shouldn’t we be directing ourselves through the space, and making our own choices? Even DAM admits “we haven’t hit on the right solution yet”.

However, I do believe that there is something valuable in the use of interpretive materials, particularly for younger audiences who learn through exploration. It is important to engage an audience as much as possible, but I do believe that some kind of balance between informative and creative material, and the actual art has to be reached. As interpretive materials become

more technological something in the sophisticated simplicity of the art gallery/museum could be lost. As long as Interpretive Materials are not intrusive, then they are effective.

http://www.denverartmuseum.org/files/File/new_angles.pdf

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/bloggers/2007/08/30/let%e2%80%99s-hear-it-part-ii/

Interpreting Art

“A painting doesn't need anybody to explain what it is about. If it is any good, it speaks for itself." – Mark Rothko, abstract expressionist artist

Yesterday, as I was checking out the page that the Ted Talks video of Miru Kim was on, I noticed that one of the comments from someone called Adi D was, “successful artwork is that which sparks the viewers interpretative imaginations – regardless of the original intention of the artist.”

Well, what about people like me, I ask? Normally, I can’t pull a coherent thought together about a work of art until I find out about its background.

A Closer Grand Canyon by David Hockney

Me: I lke it.
Voice in my head: What do you like about it?
Me: It’s very pretty.
My subconscious: Yes, but what makes it pretty?
Me: It’s… colorful?
Voice in my head: How do you find yourself reacting to the combination of colors? Does it incite serenity, happiness, triumph…?
Me: Yeah, sure, that’s it. Totally.
Voice in my head: Huh?
Me: (Frantically googling for info on the painting.) Ahem. Actually, I would like to add that I quite enjoy the artist’s portrayal of light, shadows, and forms. The painting also has a dimension that invites you to look closer, making it quite a meaningful experience. It conveys a message on the macro level that is quite aesthetically pleasing and yet, on a micro level, there are details to ponder on. It’s quite exquisite.
Voice in my head: Riiight.

Ignoring the disturbing realization that I’m very concerned with feigning intelligence to the voice in my head, I also apparently equate intelligence to excessive usage of the word “quite.” Seriously, though, I think some paintings do “speak” to me, it seems to be more an issue of me not being able to hold up my end of the conversation.

Take for example The Scream by Edvard Munch. At first glance, I find myself drawn to it and haunted by it, but for the life of me I can’t say what exactly about it interests me so much. In an effort to say something insightful all I manage to come up with is “Well, it’s kinda curvy, I mean fluid, I guess, it’s very fluid and at the same time its angular like its coming right at you but the back is very fluid and it kinda makes me feel like it comes right in my face and then it takes me and pulls me in until I feel like I’m at that dark edge of the painting so then I’m squinting at that spot trying to make out details or shapes in there.” Enter Wikipedia and this quote:

In a page in his diary headed Nice 22.01.1892, Munch described his inspiration for the image thus: I was walking along a path with two friends — the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

And it’s a total lightbulb moment, I say, “Duh! that’s what I meant!” So I guess, the first step in interpreting art is to spark a connection. I tried staring at Guernica by Picasso for a while because apparently it’s supper important, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what is going on with all those images, even with Wikipedia’s bullet-ed description. In this case, I think I’ll be better off internalizing the horrors of the Spanish Civil War from a history book than the painting.

The second step is to have a conversation with it, and for some, it’s just a matter of being naturally eloquent/creative/imaginative/responsive. For others, like me, this requires some background reading to get things going. Thank God for Google.

For once, I don't object

I feel like one advantage of being a noob in the art world is that I can frankly state my opinions on art matters and if more art-minded people disagree with it, my comments shouldn’t be that incensing due to my ignorance in these matters.

I felt compelled to start with that little reminder because today’s topic maybe a contentious one. I normally don’t appreciate most depictions of nudity in art, especially some of the more contemporary ones that I find just outright vulgar. When I read reviews on such artworks and find people who praise the artistic merit of it, I wonder what they’re snorting, because I don’t see how it’s different from porn.

Today I came across this presentation made by Miru Kim for TED talks:

I’m amazed by her work and her use of nudity to add value to what the photo has to say. Without her in the picture, it’s just a nicely composed photograph. I was surprised to find that I actually understood her intention of not bringing in clothes, which would carry connotations that she wanted to keep out. I loved how playful she became in the spaces with her poses, making her look like an ethereal creature. I valued her reflection on how quickly man-made things fall into disrepair as nature reclaims that space. Most of all, her demeanor during the presentation surprised me, she gave out a vibe that was almost shy or nervous, considering the nature of her work.

So yeah, TED talks, it’s pretty awesome, go watch their videos.

Such a feeling’s coming over me, there is wonder in most everything I see

As I was thinking of how to compose today’s blog post, the snippet of a song quoted in the title was stuck in my head. I thought it was by ABBA and I couldn’t really remember the lyrics properly so I spent half a day with the tune stuck in my head until I remembered that it is from Top of the World by the Carpenters. This discovery then led to more song flashbacks and before I knew it, I was rocking out to Jambalaya. O.o

Anyway, I attribute the reason for those words being stuck in my head in the first place was a tour we took earlier today.* At this point I should explain that the museum originally was made up of two villas that Sheikh Hassan used to house his collection of artworks and also to provide a studio for Arab artists to work in. When he donated his collection to Qatar Foundation, one of the villas was converted into office spaces for the staff, and this is where we are currently. Some of the artworks are being restored and are in the other building, while the other artworks that have already been stored and organized are kept in the two upmost floors of the office villa. So today, Michelle, the Head of Education, was taking a new staff on a tour of the two villas and took us interns along with them. (“Took us interns” Hah! Next thing you know I’ll be writing sentences that go: “It was them staff and us interns who went to that there room for a-meetin. Hey, that yonder painting’s katty-wonkered!”)

Since I moved to Qatar almost four years ago and seeing the initiatives being taken in education, sports, and arts, I keep getting the vibe that we are living in the midst of what will be a defining moment in the history of future generations. That vibe was present again today when Michelle reminded us that some of the artworks being painstakingly restored and organized in time for the museum’s opening probably were created here in the first place, when the villa was a studio. And wouldn’t-ya know it, I was googling around for the artist whose painting caught my attention during the tour and found this interview:

"I have been able, however, to put together some thoughts on the artist from a recorded interview that I conducted with him in his studio in Doha in 2002, as well as through the many conversations I had with him over the years, particularly in the mid-1990s when I used to meet with Fattah in the studio in Doha that the Arab Museum of Modern Art provided for him. It was there that he produced a collection of works that many believe best represents his achievements in both sculpture and painting."

Collection of Heads, by Ismael Fattah (from artnet.com)

Which makes me wonder, were the people in the past who were responsible for creating some of the greatest artworks today aware that they were doing so? Unlike things like buildings where the architect has some idea of the impact his design will produce (It will be stackable, so that we can add floors to make sure it stays the tallest in the world! It will be the headquarters of the most awesomest organization ever! It will float on air!), artists might have a harder time predicting the impact of their work. I assume, though, that most artists don’t create things for other people, but more to simply express themselves and exercise their talent. Which would maybe explain why an artist’s studio can be incredibly messy with their works in various stages of completion strewn about with a seeming disregard for their care, and then years later, we find experts meticulously preserving or restoring those same artworks.

I think those artists have the right mindset, there’s no need to obsess about becoming the next great thing if you’re secure in the knowledge that you’re contributing to the overall greatness of humanity in general, while acting in accordance with the beliefs you profess. If what you do is worth commending, people will notice and it will be a really cool surprise for you when they do. As opposed to doing everything to be recognized and constantly bummed that you’re not getting the attention you feel you deserve.


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*This post was started last week so the “today” I’m referring to was actually last Wednesday, but I only got around to finishing this post today, which is why it’s posted today instead of last Wednesday, when the events that I talk about actually occurred. Confused? Maybe I should’ve just pretended it was today and spared myself writing, and you reading, this footnote that is turning into a paragraph.

The Tangent Topic

(Tangents are fun, and if you say them often enough, they start to sound really strange.
Do it! Tangent, tangent, tangent, tangent…)

Originally, I had planned a different topic for today’s blog post, but babbler that I am, I found myself going off on a tangent as I was actually writing it and found that I wrote more about the tangent subject rather than the main topic for the day. So, here is today’s blog post, a.k.a the tangent topic.

These days, I’ve been going through videos about Qatar’s history and development that Safya, the curator, and I got from Qatar TV. A major theme through most of them has been the progress of Qatar and heavily relies on stock clips of the Asian Games and Education City and the obligatory introductory sepia toned clips of people on boats or diving for pearls. There are a couple though, that are amazing in that they feature clips of everyday life in Qatar back in the day, including a game played by boys where they bury their heads in the sand. The narrative was in Arabic so I’m not exactly sure if I interpreted what was going on correctly but it really did seem like they were playing ostrich. Another CD documents the start of the petroleum industry, including the very first oil-related fire that took 15 days to put out.

As I watched and listened to the narratives talking about how Qatar progressed through the years, and the investments made by the Emir in health, education, culture, and economics, I remembered a presentation I worked on with a group from my Mapping Urbanism class about New York’s development. We learned about how the roads evolved from the winding paths that were formed based on the topography, until they were eventually replaced in the 1800s with the grid design we see today, with the exception of some of the original streets like Broadway, which deviate from the grid pattern.

(The plan for the grids to replace the original squiggly-er, topography-based tracks, called "cattle tracks." I think, or maybe it was "cow tracks?")

A few decades after the grid design was implemented, the population of New York exploded because of the wave of immigrants that came to America through New York. Apartments filled up the grids and often, they were cramped full of people, leaving them to seek cemeteries as open spaces to spend time in.  Around this time, due to the economic progress enjoyed by the elite families in New York, they wanted an open space that they believed would liken New York to the major cities like London and Paris that had gorgeous public parks. This proposal led to Central Park.

 (The Gates, an art installation by Christo and Jean-Claude in February 2005. The "gates" were saffron coloured fabric that hung throughout the lanes in Central Park, and were met with both admiration and ridicule.)

I kept fighting the urge to insert  “sound familiar?” after every phrase in that previous paragraph. I don’t really know how to end this post, because a few similarities don’t merit a conclusion of “Doha is totally gonna be the NYC of the future!” I do think Qatar has enough vision to not desire to be just another major destination, to not be famous just for the sake of being famous. If Qatar reaches the heights it aspires for, it won’t be to become the New York, or the Paris, or the London of the Middle East, I think it will be its own icon.

Interview with Rajeev, part 5 of 5.

This is the last of this series of posts. To end with, I asked him a couple of questions that hopefully says something more about him, compared to the previous, more industry-related questions.

What piece of art would you get personally, barring any financial constraints or space constraints or whatever?

That’s definitely a tough question because I feel as though the paintings that you would think of instantly like Van Gogh’s Starry Night, these have become so priceless and so omnipresent, it’s in college dorm posters, postcards, it’s like the actual object loses it’s meaning. I feel like it’s better that it stays in the museum for everyone to see, I don’t need to own it to have it in my room.

So the artwork that I would actually like to own, I think the only answer I can give is sometimes there are types or artists that I would love to start collecting that are still reasonable and if I had a little money I would love to have now because I know in ten or twenty years it will be astronomical. Most of them are Indian modern and contemporary because that is what I am a sort of budding expert on. There are certainly some sculptures I would love to own, by an artist called Subodh Gupta and his wife, Bharti Kher. Subodh Gupta works with pots and pans that you would find in the kitchen but he makes these amazing sculptures with them. And his wife, you know the Bindi, she arranges them in these amazing abstract works or in big third eye arrangements that are beautiful.

Very Hungry God, by Subodh Gupta

Indra's Net Mirror 7, by Bharti Kher

So for my last question I thought I’d be random and ask you: What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

If I could not fail… wow this is definitely a miss universe kind of question (laughs).

If I could not fail, what would I do? Hmm… well, aside from the schoolboy sports stuff…I don’t know. I think in a very humble way, I’d like to be able to write the greatest science fiction short story or book or something. Because I feel as though writing is the easiest thing to fail at, it’s so full of pitfalls, and to actually put something together, I would love to be able to do that. But that’s a distant second to all the schoolboy sports stories, you know like win Wimbledon or the World Cup. 

Interview with Rajeev, part 4 of 5.

Having never been to an auction before, my only exposure to this practice consists of antique shows on BBC, so I thought it would be interesting to ask him: What’s your most memorable auction, whether it was because of the specific artwork or just the general events surrounding it?

There was a Star Trek memorabilia auction, that was pretty cool, and I was enough of a geek to appreciate it. Christie’s announced that it was actually their highest online participation, and you can imagine why. Usually, with online bidding, they have it just to show that they are cutting edge, but everybody either bids over the phone or in person. But the Star Trek one, there were a lot of bids online.

Also, while I was in Christies the big sale of the year was of post war contemporary, and that’s when you get 10-20 million hammer price. There were certainly one or two works by Andy Warhol that fetched those prices, it was pretty exciting to see.

Sometimes it just boggles the mind that we think that a diamond ring or fancy car for tens of thousands of dollars is a staggering amount but we think an artist selling for 50 thousand dollars is reasonable in the art world. 50 thousand dollars is not a lot in the art world, it’s paper and paint and we are fine with that selling for 30-40 thousand, but that amount for a diamond ring or a fancy car we find astronomical. There’s this very strange disconnect at the auction between pricing and the object. So when we struggle with that reality and be at an auction and see the hammer go down on an oil on canvas for ten million dollars… even though the art side of you knows the value or can appreciate the history behind the painting, physically, it’s just an image and it’s staggering. There’s a magic to that.

No. 5, 1948 by Jason Pollock boasts the highest known price paid for a painting.
It sold for USD 140 million in 2006, which in 2010 inflation-adjusted price is USD 151.2 million, according to Wikipedia's List of Most Expensive Paintings article. The Mona Lisa was insured by the Louvre in 1962 for USD 100 million, which in 2010 inflation-adjusted price is USD 713 million. (!!!)

Interview with Rajeev, part 3 of 5.

After his experience in working with auction houses, Rajeev now works as an assistant curator here at the Arab Museum of Modern Art. For today’s blog, I’m posting his thoughts on working at a museum:

The museum world is something else entirely. When the economy is a mess, the museum is a very safe place to be. It’s not a profit institution so there’s no drive to make money and your job is not at risk you just have to be an expert or a scholar and be passionate about art and not worry about selling that object.

The curator at a museum is the one who has to put together the message or the idea behind the exhibition. The curator looks at the collection of the museum and thinks, what story can we tell with this and how do we present that. So it’s something very conceptual where it’s coming up with the idea, just sitting down and doing the research to then the hard brass tasks of physically putting the exhibiting together. The logistics of shipping the artwork, designing the space, what kind of pamphlets are we going to give out, what’s the audio tour going to sound like, publishing the catalogue, so the very physical things as well.

A huge problem that the museum world is facing is almost losing its authority as an academic institution and becoming more of like an amusement park. Museums used to be the place where they were the highest authority, a pool of academics and scholars and they researched everything and was very much like a temple. Now it’s devolving into this very fun family amusement center and it’s more about the cool café, the interactive stuff that it does, and all these other outside programming which didn’t use to be a part of the museum. But now it’s so competitive and such big money that if you have those things you’re going to have revenue from ticket sales, which before wasn’t the case, but now that’s a huge way for them to get funds.

Interview with Rajeev, part 2 of 5.

Here’s the continuation of yesterday’s post. After getting his masters at Christie’s, Rajeev worked at Saffron Art, an Indian auction house, based in Mumbai, with an office in New York. I asked him to talk about the world of auction houses:

An auction house is a big player in the ecosystem that is the art world. In the art world you have all these different players that have their roles, and they all interact. So you have the artists, obviously making the work; galleries that represent the artist to sell the work; collectors who enjoy the work and own them. Then you have some of the big institutions, the museum, which is supposed to maintain an art collection for the public good, so it’s “in trust” for the people or for the nation. It could even be a private museum, which is a very big collector who has such a big collection that he can open a museum just to show the works that he owns. Then you have the auction house, which is, in a very abstract way, you could say, the means by which artwork changes hands. Because art is a funny thing, it’s a cultural object, it talks a lot about what the artist is or where the society that makes that artwork is, but it also has value, we pay obscene amounts of money for some of these artworks. Auction houses help artwork by driving up the price and collectors to rotate their collection so that they’re always making more money to buy more art, or raise capital to do other things. Usually, an artwork comes to auction through what they call the 3Ds. One is Death: so a collector dies, the rest of the family goes, “We have all these Picassos, we don’t like art, let’s sell them and get the millions and live well, great.” Then you have Divorce: the husband and wife, they fight over who owns the Picassos and get the money. Third, which is also very common, is Debt: a once very wealthy family has run out of money in the stock market but they still have this huge collection and the banks want the money so they have to liquidate their collection.

What happens is they agree to put the works up for auction, the auction houses then do all the marketing and the groundwork, so that when the work comes up for auction it can go for the highest price possible.

It’s a fascinating world to be a specialist in an auction house, you do many different things, you have to know the market, you have to know the client, you have to know the art obviously, so it’s a good blend of a lot of different things, it’s very fast paced.

How NOT to bid at auction
(I googled, there is such a thing as "bidding off the wall," imagine that!)

Interview with Rajeev, part 1 of 5.

Last Thursday, I interviewed Rajeev, who is an assitant curator here at the Arab Museum of Modern Art. I’ve broken down the interview into 5 parts so that I can post one part each day starting with this one:

So I guess we’ll start off with your background like where you were born and raised, where you studied, your major, that kind of thing?

I was born India but I never lived there. I grew up in Hong Kong and then mostly Bangkok, and when I graduated high school in Bangkok I went to Clark University, which is outside Boston. I didn’t know what I wanted to do so I just did the default, which was economics. It wasn’t really very good but, anyway, graduated, and then tried to be a stockbroker for a little bit in New York and hated that. The thing was I needed a work visa to stay in the states so I was pretty willing to do any job to stay there, so when that didn’t work out I jumped ship and became a purchasing agent for a wholesaler and that’s just a fancy way of saying that I was in a cubicle crunching numbers, inventory management, for three years.

That’s what made me wake up and think to myself, “This is a safe job I have a work visa I could just stay here and be fine, or I could leave now before I get too comfortable and do what I really want to do and that’s when my aunt got me into this internship at a gallery in DC because that’s where I was then. I loved it, they were the ones that told me I could take my business background and instead of just going for an art history masters, get a masters degree at Christie’s or Sotheby’s, the auction houses. It’s a very exclusive, small program. I looked at both, and I liked Christie’s. I applied there, got in, and got my masters in the art market with Christie’s. So after that, I was in New York, which was fantastic, I was in Manhattan and so much of the art world happens there. In a lot of the courses, we studied the things on the slides and in the textbooks and then you could actually walk across the street and go to the museum and actually see it in person, which is very special.

Things I Learned Last Wednesday

I came in to the office expecting a normal day going through articles, browsing through interesting pieces, in the shelter of the air-conditioned room where the sunlight streams in through the windows and general peacefulness reigns. You know what I’m talking about, the kind of light and ambience that begs for a Morning Has Broken background music and natural light that would look amazing on your face if you were posing for a photo, or so I learned from Tyra. ;) Did I just admit to watching Americas Next Top Model on a public blog?

(Learning how to catch the light in a photo is just one of the many very important lessons a camera addict can learn from watching Tyra, another is the power to “smize.” Also, I bet you can’t count the number of times that word is mentioned in this clip.)

Anyway, I came in and learned that the other interns, Nasreen & Samee, were being taught how to make their own video blogs. I tagged along with them since I am supposed to be making one at the end of my internship as well. Orlando, the multimedia guy who just arrived in Doha a few days ago, was teaching us the basics of how to set things up. As a final test, we had to disassemble and reassemble the video equipment within a reasonable amount of time, which we failed at miserably. But onward and forward we went anyway, the next step was to go “outside” to actually start shooting the video. Now when they were talking about shooting “outside” I thought they meant the parking lot or the area right outside the building, so my initial thoughts were: “Ugh… It’s gonna be so humid out but dagnabbit, I’m a trooper and I’m going out there!” So out we walked, until I realized that Samee was walking up to his car, and at that point I felt compelled to clarify what the plan was. Apparently, they wanted to film on a location that had an Arabic vibe to it, so we were going to Cultural Village, which is some distance away from the AMOMA office. No one actually knew how to get there, but we were familiar with the general area and decided to just figure it out when we got there. After circling around for a bit, we found out that it was closed to the public so we headed on to the Pearl, since it was only a few minutes away from Cultural Village.

(The Pearl Qatar, although I find it much more reminiscent of an amoeba rather than a pearl, but I get how The Amoeba would be hard to work with in terms of marketing.)

As we were driving through the Pearl, I remarked how I have always found it hard to appreciate the perfection of everything in it: the grass is too green, the exterior of the buildings are too clean, the luxury is too obvious, I feel like it tries too hard. I appreciate the simple and rustic beauty of the old forts and souks and I find it fake when they try to put a body of water where there isn’t supposed to be one, or land where there’s supposed to be water. To me, nature looks best when it’s left alone, or if a design works with it rather than fights against it.

Orlando, though, said something that added perspective. He pointed out that the pyramids and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon probably stuck out from the traditional architecture, environment, and culture, just as much as these new developments now are. I can imagine if I had lived during that time I probably would be shaking my head at it too and thinking about how distracting it was from the natural beauty around it and why oh why couldn’t they just leave nature alone. And yet, if the Hanging Gardens were still around now, visiting them would probably be at the top of my bucket list.

(Picture from Wikipedia: A 16th-century hand-colored engraving of the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon" by Dutch artist Martin Heemskerck, with the Tower of Babel in the background.)

So I guess my point is not that I should reserve judgment for a few decades before I form an opinion, but that every moment can be an opportunity to learn something new. Last Wednesday, I learned how to set up a video and fiddle with zebra stripes and ND filters, and I learned a new perspective on looking at modern designs.

I also learned that filming with professional looking video equipment is much more likely to get the guards to ask if you have permission to shoot videos, after which we were very politely asked to leave the Education City Recreation Center. The Rec Center was our third failed location of the day, since we weren’t getting the background we wanted from The Pearl. We actually ended up filming inside the CMU-Q building (fourth time’s the charm!), which is about five minutes away from the AMOMA office after driving and walking around in very hot and humid weather all around Doha.

(from left: Nasreen, Samee, me, and random dude who I hope doesn’t object to his picture being put up here, even though it would be really hard to recognize him from this.)

On Prettiness, Crudeness, and Art

It’s been a few days and I still catch myself from time to time responding to artworks with “prettyyyyy!” or “meh.” I know that some of them take on so much more meaning when you learn about the artist and their intentions with a particular piece, but sometimes I come across some of them that are just kind of hard to appreciate.


Art Asia Pacific did an article on Makoto Aida featuring some of his works, including the picture above scanned from the magazine. The article says that this work, entitled “Shit by Jomon-type Monster” was “intentionally crude” and an “embrace of failure.” “Jomon” is a pre-historic civilization from Japan. The article also talks about how the artist is capable of producing incredibly refined paintings, but is equally capable of producing sloppy drawings meant to parody Japan’s education system.

Lately, I’ve been trying to reflect on how I’ve defined art for the past years. There were works that I found simply beautiful, works that had interesting details or stories behind them to make up for the lack of “prettiness”, works that I found boring, and works that I disliked. Those in the last category, I chalked up as simply being too “avant-garde” for my understanding and left it at that.

the beautiful (Starry Night Over The Rhone), the interesting (The Scream), the boring (Mona Lisa), and the disliked (The Persistence of Memory)

Spending time here, though, and being overwhelmed by such a huge variety of art, has led me to try to search for a better idea of what makes a work of art “good.” Sometimes I feel like people do outrageous and shocking things and then call it art for protection, because you can’t criticize “art”, or you look ignorant if you do, because art is whatever gets a reaction out of people. But is art really so subjective that anyone can call anything a good work of art?

While thinking about this, I remembered something that stuck with me from an Entrepreneurship class I took in university. (Yes, I am bringing up a business course in my blog about art, bear with me.)

My professor started by asking each of us our reasons for taking a class, and of course most people answered, because we wanted to start our own business in the future. He then corrected us by saying that pretty much anyone can start their own business, but not everyone can be an entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur adds value to the world and revolutionizes products or processes. He related the point using a scene from The Emperor’s Club, when the professor tells them about Shutruk-Nakhunte, the emperor who conquered a bunch of places but is unknown today because despite his accomplishments, he contributed nothing to humanity.

"Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance." - The Emperor's Club

What I came away with is that good art, like a good business, should be innovative, it should explore an idea, a point of view, or a technique that’s never been done before. It should also add value; the world should seem a little bit better because of it, and a lot wanting without it.

That said, I take back what I said about the Mona Lisa being boring. ;)

First blog.

Hi, my name is Shaereen and I just graduated last May from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar with a major in Business Administration.

(Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar)

This summer I'm interning at the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. When it opens in December, I will get to say that I was part of the preparations, which I think is pretty cool. That's one of the few things that make this internship different from the other internships I've been on.

Another is that art has nothing to do with my major, neither is it something that I’ve expressed interest in the past. When I lived in DC, I had a friend who would drag me to the Smithsonian because she wanted to look at a painting. I would leave her staring in front of the painting while I wandered around a bit, and after a while I’d come back to find her sitting in the same position, still staring at the painting.

(Manhattan, 1932, by Georgia O’Keeffe)

It baffled me as to what could possibly be so interesting about it and I never asked for fear that she would spend the rest of the day talking about it. But as I flipped through art magazines last week, looking for interesting articles as part of my assignment, I realized, it doesn’t take too much effort to be able to find art relatable. There’s just so much of it that it’s impossible to not find something you like.

On the first day that AMOMA got some students together to discuss the possibilities of the summer internship, we were told that they wanted us to write a reflection on some topics that had to do with art in Qatar. I didn’t think I would have anything to write about, but then they showed us a video of some Qatari artists, and one in particular struck me. So for my first blog post, I thought I would share the reflection piece that I submitted, below:

"Does art have a role to play in the growth of our Region? If so, what role do you think the Arab Museum of Modern Art can play in Qatar?"

Allow me to tackle this question from a more personal point of view. In the Philippines, we're very proud of our 2000 year old rice terraces. These are basically rice paddies carved into the mountainsides, and kept irrigated by dams, channels, and bamboo pipes. These are built mainly by hand with a few primitive tools, and are considered a feat of engineering. The terraces need regular upkeep since they are easily eroded, and the skills are passed down from generation to generation. However, in recent years, many of the younger generations have given up their way of life to move to the cities and engage in more modern means of livelihood, putting the future of the terraces in danger. It is hard to blame them for wanting to explore other options, but it is disheartening to think of the possibility that someday, all we'll have left of these wonders are the photographs and paintings that seek to immortalize their majesty. The reason I bring this up in a reflection that is supposed to be about art in Qatar is because the similarity allowed me to understand the challenge felt by one of the Qatari artists featured in the video upon seeing the remains of a seaside village, abandoned by its inhabitants in search of a more modern way of life.



As the region continues to speedily develop, it is important for art to chronicle and celebrate what is happening around us. Art can pay homage to the greatness of the past, in hopes that the future and the present may recognize that the greatness they achieve is only made possible by the foundations laid by generations before them. The Arab Museum of Modern Art can serve as a reminder that even the present way of life will someday be part of history. It is important to chronicle, discuss, and celebrate now, so that present generations can add something to enrich the region's history when the tall buildings and reclaimed land have made way for something else in the distant future, just as the seaside villages have made way for the city we live in now.

Many years from now, I do hope that the rice terraces in the Philippines are preserved because people who appreciate it felt strongly enough to do something. Many of the individuals pushing for its preservation have probably never even been there to see it personally, like myself, but have been impassioned because of the beauty they see depicted by photographers, film makers, painters, etc. Many around the world may still be unable to locate Qatar on a map, but the beauty and the emotions conveyed by art is a step in the right direction towards making people take notice.