Exhibition
London : Photography from the Middle East
Saida in Green. 2000. Digital c-print and tyre frame, 65 x 55 cm, by Hassan Hajjaj © V&A. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
From the series 'Mothers of Martyrs', 2006. Digital c-print, 50 x 76 cm by Newsha Tavakolian © V&A. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
Detail from the series 'The Yemeni Sailors of South Shields', 2006. Hand-coloured gelatin silver print, 39 x 27 cm, by Youssef Nabil © British Museum. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
'Bodiless I' from the series 'Zourkhaneh Project (House of Strength)', 2004. Digital c-print, 76.5 x 112.5 cm, by Mehraneh Atashi © British Museum. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
From the series 'Qajar', 1998. Gelatin silver bromide print, 30 x 24 cm. by Shadi Ghadirian © V&A. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
'Airmail', from the series 'Out of Line'. 2008. C-type print, 50.8 x 61 cm by Jowhara AlSaud © V&A. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
'Wonder Beirut #13, Modern Beirut, International Centre of Water-Skiing', from the series 'Wonder Beirut'. 1997-2006. C-print mounted on aluminium with face mounting, 70.5 x 105.4 cm, by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige © Courtesy of the artists and CRG Gallery, New York and In Situ / Fabienne Leclerc, Paris. Copyright V&A. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
The break, From the series Upekkha, 2011. Archival inkjet print, 60 x 90 cm, by Nermine Hammam © V&A. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
Saida in Green. 2000. Digital c-print and tyre frame, 65 x 55 cm, by Hassan Hajjaj © V&A. Art Fund Collection of Middle Eastern Photography at the V&A and the British Museum
The V&A is presenting a free exhibition of Middle Eastern photography that features some of the region’s most celebrated artists. The theme is somewhat broad, geographically speaking—Iran is perhaps overly represented—and few risks have been taken, but one has to consider the institution’s pedagogical role. The V&A should be commended for the quality of the works on view and for not offering a caricature of the Middle East.
The show is organized according to different translations of reality, with a heavy focus on documentary, from the journalistic language of Abbas to Mehraneh Atashi, whose reflection appears in the image through a trick of mirrors, integrating a visible feminine presence into an exclusively masculine world, while Tal Shochat lights leaves and fruits in a way that makes them almost seem unreal.
The exhibition continues with a section dedicated to the manipulation of reality, featuring staged portraits by Shadi Ghadirian, and the invention of a documentary resource by the Atals Group, in this case, the notebook of a fictional historian. The final section of the show reveals the real liberty of artists in respect to the medium and to the form, and it’s somehow regrettable that the curators limited themselves so strictly to photography, especially in the case of artists like Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige.
Laurence Cornet
Exhibition ends April 7, 2013
Victoria and Albert Museum
V&A South Kensington
Cromwell Road
London SW7 2RL
Tel. +44 (0)20 7942 2000
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Laurence Cornet