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DIFC Gulf Art Fair
Dubai
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By Emmanuelle Gauthier

Tanyth Berkeley
Bellwether Gallery >>

By Ola Manana

 

              


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DIFC Gulf Art Fair
Dubai

By Emmanuelle Gauthier

 

B y conventional wisdom, the Middle East seems an unlikely choice for the launch of a international art fair; the headline news in recent times hasn’t been particularly endearing to the region. Iraq is a mess, neighboring Iran is going nuclear, and everywhere you look it appears that people are in an awfully big hurry to meet their maker. But take a closer look, and you’ll also find people engaged in art. For example, Iran is home to an impressive community of independent (albeit mostly underground) filmmakers, Lebanon is a cultural hot house, and the tiny oil rich emirate, Dubai, has just stepped up to the plate, playing host to the newly minted Gulf Art Fair, which took place March 7-10, 2007.

Gathering a decent roster some of 40 exhibitors at a secluded Disneyesque oasis in the Madinat Arena, the fair made a respectable debut, drawing about 9000 visitors. Setting aside the hyper-luxurious trappings of the theme park venue (which rivals Las Vegas kitsch), what really puts this fair on the map, in cultural terms, is the selection of participating galleries. For example, the Diana Lowenstein Gallery (Miami) showed large prints by Michael Flomen; The Third Line, based in Dubai, showed Huda Lutfi; Sundaram Tagore exhibited monumental canvases by Nartrar Bharsar; the Max Lang Gallery (New York) showed works by Keith Haring and Andy Warhol juxtaposed with ethereal Sugimoto photographs. Other notable contemporary galleries present included Flowers East and White Cube (London), and Bose Pacia (New York). There were also traditional blue chip dealers, such as MAM Gallery (Austria) which showed an Alexander Calder mobile that was purchased by an Indian collector during the first hour of the Patrons Preview. The gallery also showed a mysterious Jan Fabre sculpture made from nails and polyester. MAM director, Waltraut Mauroner, waxed ecstatic about the fair, talking of plans to come back next year.

The official title of the fair, DIFC Gulf Art Fair, refers to its partnership with Dubai International Financial Centre. Director John Martin, who in 1999 worked with Ralph Ward-Jackson to develop ARTLONDON, teamed with Dubai businessman Ben Floyd in the summer of 2005 to come up with the idea for the Gulf Art Fair. Soon thereafter invitations were sent out to galleries who might be interested to participate. Of these, some100 applicants responded for the 40 available spaces. The fair’s collector base derives primarily from the emirate’s unique population that boasts an ex-patriot community of wealthy British, Germans, Indians, Iranian and Russians with an abundance of tax free income to spend.

The fair also enjoys hefty backing from government and private sources. Its recently formed partnership with the Dubai International Financial Centre is comparable to the support that Art Basel receives from its main sponsor, UBS. Then there is the political endorsement of Her Royal Highness Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, wife of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai. Indeed, what at first seemed like a far fetched idea, today has the aura of inevitable success.

 


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Tanyth Berkeley
Bellwether Gallery

By Ola Manana

 

L ingering on subjects that betray a certain imprimatur of humanity; a mix of bravado, frailty and insecurity or the universal struggle to get through each day, Tanyth Berkeley’s The Muse, The Fugitive and The Frequency is an installation of 160 6 x 4 inch photographic portraits of people who inhabit New York’s Times Square. Side by side, the photographs wrap around a corner of the gallery wall in a continuous ribbon, suggesting a filmstrip. These are the ubiquitous people in the crowd, captured unaware in the semi-private space that a crowd affords. Captured as it such, the layer of anonymity disappears and we are invited to stare as long as we want.

With the stark realism of an Antonin Artaud pencil drawing, these snapshots show the individual vulnerability of her subjects. Some of Berkeley’s photographs seem as if stolen, in others the subject appears to be aware that he or she is being photographed. A pudgy middle aged blonde haired woman stands contrapasto, nonchalantly sucking a pacifier. An out of focus smile of a black woman is captured, with light reflecting off the shiny glaze of her lips and flickering in her eyes. In another photograph Berkeley frames the studied walk of a very pregnant woman as she moves through the street. Berkeley seems to be honing in on the quality that separates her subjects from the status quo. For example, she completely omits “tourist types.” Identity through image is a concept that most everyone can relate to. The accoutrements of image; hair, skin,race,weight and clothing take on extra importance when there is no other context available. Everyone is a stranger, until they’re not.

Image often infers these qualities, taking on a life of it's own. This show offers an overdue homage, if you will, to anonymous people in public; but with a twist, these are the misfits. Each seems to have some kind of misbegotten style, somewhat diverging from the homogenized black on black, well cut, no fat hanging off the sides of your pants style that infers good taste and upbringing. Their faces reflect a pantheon of different expressions, but all seem somewhat disturbing. You feel for them, because they've missed it, the one thing that separates the fit-ins from the misfits. They have betrayed themselves by showing their humanity. The homogenous manners, looks and expression that defines class is missing. And this is why we connect with them.

The connection that Berkely has to her subjects places her work in unique category. She is not a voyeur in the exploiting sense. Her subjects include singular portraits of albinos, transvestites and assorted unconventional characters; people whose “image” is as much a choice that influences their fate as the other way around. In Grace, a fairly good looking albino girl stands in front of a yellowish door in a blue striped dress. Were it not for her inverted gaze and the way her hair blends into the color of the door, the portrait might seem unremarkable. The flesh of her legs seems strangely cool, her skin plump, her stance stiff. Like one of Manet's many portraits of the famous model Victorine, this subject commands full attention and there is something beautiful about her. In another portrait of the same model, we see her lying on her side, her mouth open as a red lollipop dangles from her lips. You can almost feel the hard candy clanking against your teeth, this portrait is loneliness incarnate. She appears like a single tree fallen in the forest. The striations of pink, from the bursting flesh of her pink breast twice cupped by light and the rose lace slip and a strappy salmon nightie owes a lot to painting. These photographs are extremely sensuous. The high resolution allows the viewer to see everything even more clearly than in real life.

In Linda Levin, clearly a collaboration between artist and model, an emaciated transvestite, Bette Davis lips afrown, eyes outlined in black, leans back in the doorway. The artifice, the chintzy fabric of sheer leopard and rose print, green vinyl pumps, excessive make-up all seem rather bizarre despite the best of intentions. To be sure, the allure of a beautiful woman in a fashion driven society is a fleeting position of privilege and power. Dresses, pumps, lace heels, makeup and so on, are more than trivial indulgences. For a woman, these things can mean personal power, or sexual power, but they don't define gender. But for a transvestite, these womanly enhancements are transformative, not only to the surface image but to the core identity. This photograph goes beyond voyeurism; it somehow captures the pathos of a life of rejection, the battle scarred condition of a misfit.

In Grey Lady, a sad little nymph of a mime stands in the shadow of a concrete wall. Her dress, grey, her face and hands covered in grey theater paint. The shadow she stands beneath almost seems to swallow her, her body barely distinguishable from the wall. She seems antithetical to her fancy dress, indeed the only thing that the sun has been allowed to spill onto is a bright yellow plastic pail, a dollar folded optimistically over the rim.

Everything about Berkeley's photographs is in the details; a thin strap cutting into the bare shoulder, a handful of daffodils, eyelashes white in the sun. The exhibitionism of a transvestite or a mime is somehow not incongruously paired with to the desire to be invisible. Berkeley does not so much document these differences, she empathizes with them and invites the view to do the same.

 

 

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