Am I in a gallery? Palestinian art comes to Edinburgh
And I don't know how to respond...
There’s a new Palestinian museum in Edinburgh. It’s housed in a space that used to be an art gallery, in Edinburgh’s official art gallery street, Dundas street. The fact that it’s in this street confused me; both at the time, and for quite a few days after my visit.
I didn’t take in the ‘museum’ part of its name. I was in Dundas Street, walking into what felt like another gallery, and was greeted by walls full of paintings, sculptures on plinths, books and prints for sale. One of the books told the stories of the different artists represented in the gallery. When I picked it up, I saw that the price was £75. I registered that half-consciously, thinking, ah yes, the art world, and then, oh, raising money for Palestinians. I didn’t know whether I was in a highbrow art gallery, or something else, perhaps some kind of fund- and awareness-raiser. But what was clear was the gallery saying, ‘Hey! we’re here; we’re a whole culture and people, and we’re not going to go away’.
An earnest young volunteer asked if I had any questions. I’d forgotten that uncomfortable feeling of walking into an empty gallery and feeling the gallery person, the only other human in the room. The need to decide whether to be open to chat, or to assert a boundary, often feeling that politeness requires that I start some kind of conversation before I’ve even had a chance to take in what’s going on.
“People think this one demeans the people in it”, he says. Ok, we’re not pussy-footing around here. But I’m still trying to work out where I am, what I’m feeling, what’s going on. He’s still a total stranger. I look at him and say, “I just want to feel what’s here”, and wander away.
There’s a big map of Palestine on the floor. It makes me think of a floor I once read about that was made so that people would walk all over the face of an overthrown dictator. I’m not sure if I should stand on it.
One of the three young volunteers is from Palestine, but also from Kuwait. When she answers my question I think, what do you say now? How did you get to Kuwait, were you born there? Where is your family? No. I’ve only just met her, all of that is rude and intrusive. I sit in the back room for a while, thinking about those young people having to deal with any number of well-meaning white-haired, middle-class women feeling unmoored, looking for the right thing to say.
I lived in a refugee community on and off for many years, and, in fact, I eventually married into that refugee community. I’m acutely sensitive to the complexity of everything, at least in the way that I perceive it, at this moment. The stories, the injustice, the repeating shocks; the displacement, the diaspora, the loss, the killing. The longing for the place of origin, the encounters with awkwardly concerned folk who have a home, who are loaded with guilt, possess passports, and have enough resources to make choices about things. I can’t say anything, so I walk round and round the rooms.
How do you receive this, I kept asking myself? Am I supposed to receive without judgement? Well, yes, because this art is from Palestine, and you want to see what Palestinian artists are doing, how they might be experiencing their situation, what kind of art they want to make. And, no, because receiving art means noticing what you feel, whether or not there’s any resonance, a place for you to enter. However, I’m not sure that’s the same as judgement. When you judge, you’re likely to be using criteria of some kind, attached to enculturated and personal ideas of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. I’ve been so confused by the contemporary art world that I long ago gave up trying to make sense of what might be good or bad in art. Good/bad is from the world of art criticism, a peculiar kind of sport attached to the art world, which is completely beyond my understanding.
I was partially saved from all these dilemmas some days later when I re-read the original magazine article which told me about this new place. Despite being in the art gallery street of my city, this is not a Palestinian art gallery, it’s a Palestine museum. It is part of the Palestine Museum US, founded by Palestinian American businessman Faisal Saleh, located in Woodbridge, Connecticut in 2018.
The Connecticut museum researches and preserves Palestinian history by showcasing the Palestinian experince, pre- and post-Nakba, in Palestine and the diaspora, and features historical documents, photography, film, oral histories, mixed and digital media, literary arts, public lectures, and live performances.
Whether or not this is an art gallery or a museum, the point of its existence is described by its founder as being a response to the fact that Palestinian artists are continually being cancelled and excluded from events ‘for fear of backlash’ against Western event organisers.
“Palestinian artists have long faced challenges in exhibiting their works in the Western world. We are determined to tell the Palestinian story to a global audience. If that means creating our own museums to do so, then so be it”, says Saleh. He hopes the museum will challenge dominant narratives and showcase the rich cultural heritage of Palestine, while providing a platform for under-represented voices, critical discussions and debates, and promoting cultural understanding and diversity. He also believes the museum is “crucial in the face of Western media’s persistent negative coverage of Palestine and the alarming cancellations of Palestinian events”.
Artwork 235, March/April
Perhaps I should have read the article more carefully before I went for a visit, but actually I’m quite glad that I walked into it cold, with no expectations, and got to feel all of these different things.
I’ve been thinking about two different articles that I read here on Substack recently. The first claimed that identity politics had become more important than the quality of an artwork, and the second suggested that personal stories of trauma, abuse, oppression etc had become more important than the idea or aesthetics of the actual piece of art. In both cases the writers seemed to be saying that identity politics had replaced conceptual or aesthetic standards, implying that concern with the ‘quality’ of work had disappeared from the contemporary art world (as if quality itself was an unbiased, neutral, context-free affair). ‘The tyranny of context’, the second author called it.
I’m writing another article about linear chronology and the problem of context in relation to art. I’m struggling at this point to see how art can either be made, or appreciated, in a way that’s entirely context-free. You may be able to look at a piece of art and feel your own response to it without knowing anything about either the artist or their intention, but you bring your own ongoing contexts (expectations, judgements, preferences, conditioning, education, frames of reference) to that looking. I can’t see how there’s any context-free way to make or receive art.
It seems to me that the days of abstracted purity tied to the narrow and culturally-specific art values of the past are quite simply gone. I see many discussions about the problem of audiences no longer wanting to engage with art, the impenetrability of artspeak, or the off-putting exclusivity of openings and gallery culture. But what if the problem is neither short audience attention-spans, nor impenetrable aspects of art culture, but with what has happened to the art itself? That so much of contemporary art has no power, and no stories to tell?
When I went back to the museum for a second time, I was given a flyer. There it is, in green and white; ‘Telling the Palestinian Story Through the Arts’:
This is art with a purpose, art for a reason. Art working in the actual, living world.
If you’d like to know more about Palestinian art, Rogue Art Historian published a brilliantly detailed overview of this subject this week, which you can find here.
Hey Tamsin, thanks for your text, I understand very well what you mean. On the one hand, it's great that someone is spreading Palestinian culture around the world. On the other hand, it feels a bit opportunistic to call it museum, when it's clearly a gallery in a gallery street, to sell art and books. Not that being a gallery would be a bad thing either... The same contradiction happens when you try to analyze the quality of the works. On the one hand you think art should be analyzed above the artist's identity. On the other, the very fact of their identity cannot be dismissed fully, as it doesn't matter. The truth is, it does matter. But maybe not as much as the art itself. I also deal with these contradictions: very often people who says identity doesn't matter at all come from a particular identity, the one that is taken for granted. However, if you can say something is new in contemporary art, is the inclusion of different kinds of people. That requires context, otherwise would be to assume we are all so cultivated that we know everything from any culture around the world. This can't be possible, we are 7 billion people on earth, it's pretentious to assume we know it all. So we are back to context. But when context is the only thing given, it's pissing. And when context seems to be more relevant than the quality of the work, it's also pissing. Therefore, we seem to believe in some kind of attributes of good quality above all art in the whole world. Which is a bit of a pretentious standard. But also, beauty presents itself like that in front of our eyes. As a truth. As a brutal fact (although subjective, if that makes sense). So how to organize all this??? It's so complicated!!! Big hug, dear Tamsin
Enjoyed reading about your perspective here and would also love to read the two other articles you referenced that argue 'identity politics' and 'personal stories of trauma, abuse, oppression etc' have become more important than (aesthetic) quality in art. Are you able to share links to them?