Khaled Akil- Al-JazeeraTalk
 On my way to a Muslim Supplementary School in Swindon (UK), I heard a piece of news on French radio that awoken my anxieties about the role, not to mention the meaning, of Art in the West. Memories from fifteen years ago returned, as I remembered a French student friend of mine who, whilst working as a security member of staff at Orsay Museum, abused his duties by allowing me to occasionally enter without paying.
Much of the Museum ground floor was dedicated to the massive sculptures of August Rodin. There, I tried to capture the celebrated genius of the an artist that I had previously only known by reputation. But no matter how much hard I tried, all I could muster was an outdated appreciation for Greco-Roman aesthetics. To put it squarely, my tastes and perceptions were at least fifteen centuries out of date.
Hoping to make up for the disappointment evoked by the work of Rodin, I decided to go upstairs and attempt to enjoy the well-celebrated Impressionists. I could make better sense of recognised masterpieces by Manet, Pissaro or Van Gogh. They were far more appealing than Rodin’s Le Penseur; but still, as far as painting was concerned, my preferences remained down-to-earth and I would always take more pleasure in a realistic Renaissance painting.
Aware that my skills of art appreciation might not be as sophisticated as they should be, I decided I needed to exercise some form of self-improvement. In an attempt to more fully enjoy the museum experience, I began to read the works of art critics. I tired myself out trying to assimilate technical jargon, and was soon lost in its intricacies. To be honest, my efforts were of no help at all. I gave up all hope of understanding Modern Art, and became even more concerned about all those people queuing for hours outside museums just for the sake of seeing a Matisse exposition. If you have ever seen some conceptual art by Matisse, you will understand what I mean.
Returning from my contemplations, I switched off the radio in my car. It occurred to me that, over the last few months, I had read and heard much about Art without linking all the articles and programmes together. The following story first came to mind: when the Germans occupied France during the Second World War, a Nazi officer asked Picasso “Did you do this?” He meant, did you paint Guernica? But Picasso misunderstood him and answered “You did it!”, meaning the Germans had bombed this Spanish city into its ruined state. http://dp.mariottini.free.fr/weekend/madrid/photos/guernica-picassos-pablo.htm
Some sixty years later, during the UN talks about Iraq in 2003, the Americans covered a reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica painting with a cloth as it hung on one of the walls of the UN central meeting room! One wonders why the US bothered to hide a painting when they were lying heartedly in the face of the world about the Iraq’s supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. Could only the symbolic power of Guernica shatter their certainties about the outcome of war?
The other art news I heard was the France-Qatar agreement of establishing a Louvre Museum in Doha. Of course, it was a commercial agreement; nevertheless some people in France questioned it. The Louvre Museum was considered by many a treasure that should remain a national exclusivity. But a few weeks later, when Qatar ordered some Airbus planes for several billions of dollars, the news was given a smooth coverage by the French media. Why was it so?
In the eighties, when Japan’s economy was booming, a frenzy swept over successful Japanese businessmen: they began paying millions of dollars for paintings such as Van Gogh’s masterpiece The Sunflowers. The Chinese nowadays are doing the same.
UK and Greece are still arguing about the Parthenon. Egypt similarly locked horns with the UK over their refusal to return the mummy of Tutankhamen back to its home. And if all the European countries agreed to a restitution of all they had taken from Egypt or Iraq, their Antiquity Departments would be half empty. But in the West, this theft is not condemned or regarded as something immoral. On the contrary, one need only think of the French writer André Malraux, who was caught red-handed steeling Cambodian statutes. The outcome? He was appointed as ‘Culture Minister’ under De Gaulle’s Government!
Two articles about art by Arabs or Muslims caught my attention lately: for the first time a painting by a Moroccan artist died in extreme poverty in Paris in 1968, was sold for nearly seventy-thousand Euro. Was the purchaser some lucky wealthy Moroccan collector, who wants to remain incognito? Is it the start of something within an Arab country?
I was also reading in an Algerian newspaper a review of a research carried out by two American professors on Islamic art. Guess what? They were paying a tribute to its genius, and its underlying Muslim artists’ mathematical know-how. On top of that, they were stressing that the West acquired the same mathematics knowledge only four centuries later. Why has nobody in Muslim World, strong with a billion and half inhabitants, carried such a study ?
Although I admit that I have failed to understand the rules of art appreciation in the West, , at least I now understand the enduring impact and political importance of Art.
Let me tell you about one last piece of news I heard on the radio recently: the new “Arts Premiers” French Museum has been a smashing success. And for its first anniversary, instead of receiving a gift, it’s giving free entrance to museum lovers for a weekend. Africans can discover much about their origins, especially from the wooden sculptures which influenced, so it is said, the Cubic movement (hence, all Picasso’s work). Indians from America (Latin and North), can learn to treasure the collections of Inca or Aztec expressive Art. Any immigrant Polynesians can take advantage of the free entrance to enjoy works from their original lands – as well as all those other artefacts from forgotten countries and civilisations. Why are these Art collections gaining great value whilst they sit in a Parisian Museum, but remain worthless when they remain in their original countries?
Next time I go to France, perhaps I will visit the “Arts Premiers” Museum – to which the so-called Modern Art owes so much. Maybe then I will begin to understand what I have failed to understand for so long.
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