appeared on this newsroll in the past week, reviewing the the so-called Abu Dhabi cultural district. I hadn't taken the time to read this N.O. article until it came in my Sunday paper. Normally I don't revisit these things... but did anyone catch what Nicolai actually said?
Quote:
Some will dismiss this kingdom of culture as a mere tourist development in which art, history and regional identity are reduced to marketing commodities. But those who view it as an exercise in global branding or as a feel-good story about an Arab country willing to embrace the values of Western modernity are missing the point.
With once-proud cities like Beirut and Baghdad ripped apart by political conflict bordering on civil war, Abu Dhabi offers the hope of a major realignment, a chance to plant the seeds for a fertile new cultural model in the Middle East. (NYT)
Baghdad ripped apart by political conflict and civil war? Fuck. Way to elide into oblivion the American protagonist role in that very conflict. This quote is no mere slip up on the part of the New York Times critic. Ouroussoff is himself putting into practice the very obscurantist colonialism that he dismisses initially as "global branding" and which rewrites its own history. This reeks. But rather than actually succeeding at disabusing the pernicious monumentality of the project that just helps to make more invisible the American violence in the region, Ouroussoff only reveals himself as a pawn to the disappearing act. In which ways is this cultural model being "planted" in the Arab world and who is planting it? Are the American bombs and the cosmopolitan designs entirely divorced from one another and if they are in effect antagonistic spheres, then why the euphemistic language that legitimates this project? The American press has for these past years been complicit with Bush operations like the "invisible coffins" of dead soldiers that the White House won't show and Ouroussoff falls squarely into that complicity.
At another moment:
The old cosmopolitan models — the avant-garde Modernism of mid-century Beirut, the intermingling of Muslims, Jews and Christians in Baghdad or Basra in Iraq — are unraveling. Once considered great tapestries of human experience, those cities are either riven by internal conflict or, like their Western counterparts, risk being transformed into sanitized theme parks.
Since when is Basra or Baghdad having an "internal" conflict? This is so Bushist it hurts. It is as if "Western culture" and these Western architects (yes, including Hadid) are now going to swoop down and save these barbarians from themselves. Send in more troops! Once they are educated, they can take the helms of these museum.
The politics of vision weave through the embedded reporters, the media-baiting White House and among many other things, this bit of cultural reporting. My point, finally, is not about the architects and their projects but about who holds them accountable and questions their politics. Ouroussoff seems to be taking a page right out of the Judith Miller playbook.
58 Comments
Meanwhile, I totally agree with your point that "beauty is or can be just as colonial in 'our' cities as much as in 'theirs' when it only serves the interests of the rich." (emphasis added)
Point taken, Geoff... I know you wanted to play devil's advocate and I don't mean to tie you down to that position. Maybe I interpreted for example the comment that relates this to Crash as a final verdict when you weren't intending it to be that.
But to answer your question... Yes, even though that wasn't the central point of my initial post, I do think it is colonialism.
More to the point is the fact that buildings are all about authority.
more on this soon, because I have to run...
I would suggest that what is happening in Abu Dhabi in these designs for a 'cultural quarter' is more akin to a form of cultural imperialism than colonialism but one that the Emirates are more than happy to embrace.
In each city-states rush to be a world-city it is easier and quciker to piggyback on the cultural status afforded by Western architectural heavyweights and cultural institutions such as the Louvre and the Guggenheim than to develop a genuine 21st Century Emirate culture.
It is not just the buildings themselves of course but where the artifacts that populate them will come from. I'd be willing to bet there won't be much Arabic art in the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim is essentially a global brand for Western-ised art
Nothing characterises 21st Century Emirates culture more than this fast-forward to the future embracing of Western modernism.
This is a fascinating area for discussion. I've written more about it on my newsfeed at:
http://newsfeed.kosmograd.com/kosmograd/
Javier,
Orousoff has always been a sloppy reporter already when he was here at LA Times. His snobby and highbrow attidude works only for the converted and the elite he writes about; OMA-ZAHA-GEHRY-MORPH can do no wrong and he even equaled them with socially concious design and low cost housing.
Maybe if Dubai wants class it can also import the writer to validate the architecture.
It is said to have no critical perspective on architecture any more, aand it is even sadder that a country like the United States has fewer architectural periodicals than Kasachstan.
Mark Mack, UCLA
PART 1 of 2 (sorry)
Thing is, I totally agree with this:
I'd be willing to bet there won't be much Arabic art in the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim is essentially a global brand for Western-ised art.
And I also agree with this:
Ouroussoff is himself putting into practice the very obscurantist colonialism that he dismisses...
And I also agree that Ouroussoff focuses on an elite pantheon of starchitects to the near-total exclusion of more interesting developments in architecture around the world.
But I simply do not agree that the very presence of western art in Abu Dhabi is actually some sinister and secret ideological apparatus through which the Middle East will be imperially and culturally annexed. Surely Nick Lachey CDs and Pink videos and Steven Spielberg films are more of a cultural threat than Monet ever was? And yet you're not protesting Tower Records or Amazon.com.
My problem here is that this argument sounds like Fox News to me. Imagine what Bill O'Reilly would say if a new super-mosque was being built five blocks from the White House, or if a new Islamic art museum - with no "western" artifacts - was being built near Ground Zero. He would say that these institutions are threats to American identity, that they are far more sinister than they appear, and that every mosque in the US is part of a much broader cultural take-over by the enemy. Now just insert "museum" for mosque, and replace "Guggenheim" with, say, Iran, and you become the Bill O'Reilly of the Middle East.
By this same logic, should we raid NY's Asia Society and install some Hudson River School paintings just to make sure "American-ness" gets adequately represented? Or should we prevent Iranian films from being screened in Washington DC? (I hope it's obvious that my answer is no.)
Part 2 of 2
I'm not defending Ouroussoff's "Xanadu in Abu Dhabi" crap - I think the whole development is bullshit, frankly - but if you're going to protest it on the basis of some vague notion of cultural imperialism, then be rigorous about your accusations. Ban the sale of Van Halen CDs in Egyptian record stores. Ban non-western museums in London. Ban Pakistani films from Netflix. Ban all travel to the Middle East.
Where I agree with foo, for instance, is that these protests should be economic. The economics of the Abu Dhabi development are frankly appalling; but whether it's "our" culture or "their" culture is just a big red herring, and defending that divide perhaps accomplishes something other than you might intend. It also "others" the Middle East in what is surely a rather obvious way?
Meanwhile, Blackwater, Halliburton, BP, Shell, etc. etc., have built entire office complexes over there - but where's the big architectural argument about that? It's like some weird inversion of Ouroussoff: we only protest starchitecture.
Right-wing calls for cultural autonomy should not be confused with Leftist anti-globalism.
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