Contemporary Art From the Arab World, Not All of It Political

PARIS-Islamic art, however defined, is getting its due in Paris. The Louvre opened its lavish new Islamic galleries to largely favorable reviews. And the Institut du Monde Arabe, the Arab World Institute, has a striking exhibition of contemporary Arab art on view. The show, “25 Years of Arab Creativity,” runs through Feb. 3.

“The Institute wants to showcase more of what is happening in the Arab world in terms of creativity,” explained Mona Khazindar, the institute's director general. “We cannot compete with institutions that are already there, so we need to become complementary.”

Exhibitions, she said, will range from solo retrospectives on pioneer Arab artists or group shows around a theme, in conjunction with programs of related screenings, concerts and forums.

The current show features works by 40 artists from 16 countries â€" most of the Arab world, including Sudan. Some artists are based in the West; 16 of them are women. The title is a nod to the Institute's 25th anniversary, and the show is curated by Ehab El-Labban, an Egyptian who has twice headed the Cairo International Biennale. “We chose a curator living in the Arab world,'' said Ms. Khazindar, “because with curators living in Europe we tend to see always the same artists.”

For Mr. El-Labban, there was an additional challenge. “Western curators of Arab art shows choose only political artists because in the past 10 years there have been a lot of problems in our community,” he said. “But there are many kinds of artists in the Arab world, and for this reason I have tried to be fair and choose from all directions.”

The show, succinct as it is for such a large geographic area, conjure s a vibrant, diverse community, global in its expression and reach, but deeply rooted in Arab culture.

Not surprisingly, some of the strongest works on display are political. The Lebanese artist Nadim Karam's “Closets and closets” speaks of the pain and absurdity of civil war. Nadia Kaabi-Linke, a Tunisian, has filled hundreds of flasks with sand from the tombs of American soldiers who died in North Africa during World War II. In “Tag'out,” the Algerian artist Ammar Bouras conjures memories of the 1990s, when internal warfare against Islamists raged, “years of absolute terror, when death took away artists, journalists and other friends.” Colliding images on three large video screens question Islam, the State, secularism, terrorism and death.

Strangely, the Arab spring is barely present, as if too fresh in memory or too sensitive to address at this moment. In a series of photographs by Waheeda Malullah, from Bahrain, a woman stands wrapped in white cl oth. A spot of red on her abdomen gradually turns into a fetus before engulfing her entirely. Red and white are the colors of the Bahrain flag.

Mahmoud Obaïdi, an Iraqi artist based in Canada, speaks of the more global issues of exile, terrorism and identity. His multimedia installation, “Fair Skies,'' includes a video that shows a dark-haired male doll being singled out from a line of blond male dolls and subjected to suspicion and crude insults by a heavily armed security guard. The subtitle reads: “How not to appear to be a terrorist in the eyes of U.S. airport authorities.''

Islam is metaphorically represented in “Magnetism,” an installation by the Saudi artist Ahmed Mater, while it appears to be challenged in “I will go to Paradise,” self-portrait photographs by the Egyptian artist Youssef Nabil that depict him stepping off a beach into the sea and eventually disappearing under water.

Contrary to what one might expect from art produced in overwhelmingly Islamic countries, where portraiture of the human body is considered irreligious, the body is represented in many of the works. “Only in some countries, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, can it be problematic,” said Mr. El-Labban. For instance, the Syrian artist Safwan Dahoul paints a near-naked woman lying with her back turned, but Syria, up until now, has been a largely secular society.

Asked how he believes the current political situation in certain Arab countries will affect artists, Mr. El-Labban's mood suddenly dampened. Speaking of Egypt and Lebanon, “it is a very bad situation,'' he said. But he said he believed that “art will be one of the elements of resistance to the idea that some things are permitted and others banned.''