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Afifa Aleiby The Art of Re-Existence
This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition: Afifa Aleiby: The Art of Re-Existence Pulchri Gallery, Den Haag, The Netherlands 3 May – 26 May 2019 Graphic Design: Afifa Aleiby and Athar Jaber Photography: John Tromp and Paolo Beccherini Contributions by Olga Nefedova and Hans Vogels Translations: Gijs van Koningsveld Printing: Bruno Devos at Stockmans Published by Aurora Publishers, 2019 ISBN: 9789082597844 All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Cover image: Friendship, 2010, oil on canvas, 70 x 60 cm
With the kind support of the Prins Bernhard CultuurFonds
CONTENTS Afifa Aleiby: The Art of Re-Existence Olga Nefedova
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Silenzio 9 Hans Vogels Works 17 Curriculum Vitae 61
Self-portrait 1987 Oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm 4
AFIFA ALEIBY: The Art of Re-Existence by Olga Nefedova Behind the collection of Afifa Aleiby’s works lies a dramatic personal and collective history that forms a red thread running through her oeuvre, from her early years in Iraq, continuing during her time as a student in Moscow, and up to her later years of forced exile. Her personal story confronts us with her passion for forms, shapes, figures and storylines, with all these elements fulfilling their role in a complex visual drama rife with references to social and political regimes and cross-cultural conflicts. Like many artists of her generation in Iraq, Aleiby came of age during a period of enormous social and economic changes, which manifested through the growing disparities between tradition and modernity, and between local and global. Born in Basra, she began her formal art education at the Fine Arts Institute in Baghdad, combining her studies with work as an illustrator for the local newspaper Tariq Al Shaab. It was at this institute that the ideals of communism and universal equality she was taught at home began to take more definite shape. 5
The combination of these ideals and her artistic talent gained her a scholarship to study in the then-USSR, where in 1976 she was admitted to the Surikov Institute, to this day one of the leading art institutions in Russia. She graduated in 1981, but due to the political situation in her home country she could not return to Iraq and was forced to go to Italy, and later to Yemen. Eventually she was granted political asylum in the Netherlands in 1993, followed by the Dutch nationality in 1998. For several decades, Afifa Aleiby’s multifaceted artistic practice served as a vehicle to create allegories that reveal the dark side of human nature. These tales are drawn from the artist’s own personal experiences and boldly take on the themes of war, betrayal and global instability. During her early years in Iraq she was deeply influenced by Impressionistic painters and by the colour use of such artists as Toulouse Lautrec and Degas, and by the aesthetic and finesse of Renaissance masters such as Botticelli, Masaccio and Pierro della Francesca. An obvious shift in her style and subject matter took place during her Moscow years. The ideology of Soviet Realism, reflected in the art institute’s curriculum, began to feature in her works, which took on subjects related to an optimistic, 6
Martyr, 1984, Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm
glorious and bright future, or to martyrdom and misery. Her familiarity with Arab, Russian and European Renaissance visual imagery injected her work with a force that bewitches us with a sense of mysterious understatement, and that invites a dialogue between the artist and the viewer. Her post-Moscow works deal with the memories of her years living in Iraq. The artist’s personal experience of war and political upheaval greatly influenced the conceptual and formal trajectory of her production during this period. Anguish and anger pervade the paintings, emotions nourished by the suffering of people in Iraq, as expressed mainly through the female figure that features as the main character throughout her oeuvre. Political discourse and subversive narratives intertwine in the artist’s mind as well as in her works. What we see is an encapsulation of flashing images of trauma and suffering woven together into a totalizing, aesthetic imagery. Just as that of many other artists from the same region, Aleiby’s artistic language is closely related to the political and social problems resulting from the harrowing violence that has plagued her native country for decades. Having left Iraq, Aleiby is constantly faced with the fact that she is not in the country of her origin, and that while she is living in safety in Europe, her fellow
Gulf War, 1991, Oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm
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countrymen and women suffer unspeakable horrors and injustices. During this period, Aleiby begins to introduce the ancient history of Mesopotamia (Iraq) into her tales of the present. Much of the iconography that we see here is distilled from the ancient collective history of the artist’s birthplace, in combination with her own traumatic past. In Aleiby’s more recent, post-2000 output, the artist presents us with series of Surrealist-like paintings. What is extraordinary about these at first glance is the originality of their colours and shapes vis-à-vis their tightly controlled details. From afar these frameless paintings produce an elusive feeling of ‘unreality’ enriched with a constant fluidity – fluidity of forms, of shapes, of figures, of narratives – from one figure to another, from one structure to another, from one world to the other. The works are soft, playful, alluring and colourful; each lost in the ephemeral vastness of a faraway dream. Renaissance-like, semitranslucent women appear to float, body and material construction blending and becoming one – the spirits and the ghosts. The multiplication of these female figures across Aleiby’s work creates the image of an ideal woman that manages to survive the trials and indignities, while maintaining self-awareness and grace. Rather than smiling, the faces of these figures express 8
a sombre sadness, although they are equally aware of their potential and power and their desire to resist. What matters in Aleiby’s work is not what you see, but the manner in which the subjectivity of the depiction informs us about what we are seeing. The artist does not ‘represent’ Middle Eastern culture and people, but belongs to a larger context of contemporary Iraqi and global art, to which she speaks and responds so compassionately and eloquently. Aleiby achieves this global or universal quality by appropriating Western artistic techniques and technologies and using them as weapons, not only as an act of resistance but, above all, of re-existence.
Olga Nefedova is an art historian, former director of the Orientalist Museum in Doha, Qatar. She has worked for many years with private and government collections in the Far East, the Middle East, South Africa and the Gulf countries. She is the authorofnumerouspublicationsonorientalismandorientalist art. Her recent major research project with the Orient-Institut in Beirut has been dedicated to the subject of art education for Arab students in the USSR post-1950 to 1991.
Editing by Gijs van Koningsveld (Amsterdam).
SILENZIO By Hans Vogels In the poetic work of Afifa Aleiby one is presented with a world that seemingly belongs to another time, possibly even another culture. Aside from the fairly straightforward, almost classicist manner of painting, some of the figures in her paintings remind one of the works that Picasso painted around 1920. The pattern of the enchanted, fresh green foliage seems to have been borrowed from the work of Henri Rousseau le Douanier, while the predominantly melancholic figures seem to stem from a 20th century Pierro della Francesca, or possibly even Balthus or De Chirico. Despite such formal references to old masters, Afifa Aleiby’s paintings are works of art genuinely belonging to this moment; they represent the end of this century in everything they are. Moreover, they lovingly speak in gentle terms of the person who has painted them over the past years. We are faced with a world of which, for many of us, the separate elements will be very familiar. Yet its overall atmosphere gives us a slight feeling of being outsiders. It is the personal world of the artist that Afifa Aleiby shows to us in her works, and which, next to questions and admiration, 9
may also sometimes evoke compassion in us.
last 150 years, it becomes clear that artists have chosen widely differing points of view and styles of depicting and painting. The thought that, behind the façade At the end of the last century, symbolism of visible reality, there is another, more allows the artist’s inner imaginative powers personally experienced world, perhaps to provide a vision behind the exterior of forms the very essence of modern art: the reality. Within expressionism, during the artist’s attempt to visualize a subjective form beginning of the 20th century, the emphasis of reality for others. The temporal meaning is more on the unpolished, instinctive sides of the term ‘reality’ always performs a crucial of society, as they are unequivocally laid role in this. A subjective experience of reality bare in both subject matter and style of is continually being attuned to personal depiction. In our age, abstract art goes even observation, experience and imagination. further, by emphasising in her interpretation Such an experience is therefore constantly the depiction of the underlying structures subjected to change and eventually takes the or relations characteristic of reality. The better part of reality, which presents itself pristine objective of many artists, to provide to us apparently immutable on a daily basis. above all a personally colored alternative From there on, this subjective experience for that daily reality, in the course of time of the individual forms the criterion for usually develops into a predominantly modern art, not seldomly as a flight from formal stage, during which the artist is the aforementioned, usually banal reality. exclusively concerned with the exterior The artist is particularly well suited to offer aspects of the arts. The old discussion about such an alternative. Since the middle of form and contents – the increasing lack the last century this has been providing of a mutual harmony within a particular especially modern painting with a worthy work of art – reoccurs time and again in cause. art-history.
Scuola Metafisica Precisely because it concerns a subjective interpretation of reality, it seems obvious that opinions vary between persons or groups. Looking at painting from the 10
In the years running up to World War I, the Greek-Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) expressed his irritation with what he saw as formalistic behaviour of his colleagues in Paris. Around 1910, cubism and futurism sincerely took up their goal to unveil part of a reality that
previously had remained unknown. One spoke, in this respect, of a fourth dimension, which in painting was given the form of a temporal element of which one had been hardly or not at all aware. All sides of an object could be seen in the painting in one glance, suggesting movement. Soon painters were concerned with solving the technical problems of painting. All focus was on the manner of depicting, much less on the contents forming the basis of it.
Metafisica did not violate reality at all. On the contrary, the correct, almost factual rendering of reality was emphasized in such a way that, oddly enough, it produced the effect of an exterior difference, which could provoke the intended doubt in the spectator. Maybe it is just the difference between theory and practice, which makes that, in metaphysical painting, theoretical reality presents itself in a different shape than the purely physical, practical everyday reality surrounding us. Unlike post-1918 ‘Everywhere behind me the surrealism, which was strongly influenced international gang of painters was stupidly by the Scuola Metafisica, the latter does working away in their sterile programs and not base itself on the unconsciousness, as dry systems. Only I started, in my dirty it is expressed for example in dreams. The atelier on Rue Campagne-Première, to Scuola Metafisica bases itself on visible detect the spirits of a more complete, deeper reality and from this tries to bring to the and more complicated art. An art which is surface the unmistakable mystery, the - to use a word that I fear would provoke an previously unknown. Next to De Chirico, attack of diarrhoea in a French art critic -, the most prominent representatives of the more metaphysical’. Scuola Metafisica were Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi. Officially it existed only The so-called Scuola Metafisica a small number of years, before and during (1913-19), of which De Chirico was the most World War I. Especially the theoretical important representative and spokesman, writings and the still paintings of De Chirico had formulated the goal of bringing about influenced many artists afterwards. doubt in the spectator regarding the exterior appearance of the world, as it presents itself to us daily in all her predictability. Backgrounds for the work of Afifa Aleiby Different from such styles as symbolism and expressionism, which consciously sought to Examining the characteristic fashion alter the exterior in an attempt to visualize in which Afifa Aleiby produces her paintings the alternative of another world, the Scuola and chooses her subjects, it becomes clear 11
that the ideas of the Scuola Metafisica have left their traces with her. Her work too is marked by an almost tangible silence; the figures in her paintings are often deep in reverie, causing a certain distance between image and spectator. They often look in the direction of the spectator, but as they seem to stare, the impression is produced that their gaze goes past us. Usually Afifa Aleiby figures in her paintings herself, in one way or another. Sometimes this happens quite literally in the form of a portrait, but often her identity is of no concern. As such, she works herself into the context and style of her paintings, which result in a combination of persons and attributes that in reality will seldomly be found in one image. The result is a somewhat unreal atmosphere within a clearly composed scene, which at first sight strikes one as realistic and true to nature. The bright and natural use of colors and the almost sculptural rendering of bodies, plied fabrics and foliage further reinforce that first impression. On further inspection, the rendering appears to express a different vision of reality than we are accustomed to and initially took for granted. The effect on the spectator is largely comparable to what the Scuola Metafisica once had in mind. Afifa Aleiby appeals to an imagination reaching beyond what the eyes can perceive. The style of depiction and painting, but also the subjects she chooses for her paintings, together create an atmosphere that perhaps 12
Traces, 1986, Oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm
can be compared best to the immaterial effect of poetry.
Red Balloon, 1986, Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
Afifa Aleiby was born in the Iraqi city of Basrah in 1953, and she graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad in the early 1970’s. Contrary to what we are bound to believe nowadays, during that period there were still inspiring contacts with both the avant-garde artworld in the West, and the art of the former SovietUnion, based more on traditional values. In the tradition of the latter, socialist culture, painters worked in a monumental, realistic style, which had for its subject a mainly heroic, but widely recognizable reality of the Soviet Union of that moment. Perhaps in this respect it is better not to speak of reality, but of a situation that was upheld as an ideal in the Soviet Union, and for the communication of which painting formed an important medium. Much less experimentally oriented than the art of the West, it was the artist’s craftsmanship and knowledge of materials that were held in high regard in the Soviet Union. Much more than was the case in the West, institutes such as the academy of Surikov in Moscow emphasized the ties with the national (art historical) tradition. There was a great interest in Russian painting of particularly the late 19th century, which was likewise characterised by a heroic, monumental realism, and of which the work of Repin 13
forms a beautiful example. The budding artist Afifa Aleiby lent an eager ear to lecturers from Moscow visiting the academy in Baghdad at the time; and some years later she decided to continue her studies at the aforementioned Surikov National Institute in Moscow. The experimental climate of the Western avantgarde appealed to her to a much lesser extent, because as a painter she was devoted to the perfection of her knowledge of technique and materials.
Figure Study, 1978, Pencil on paper, 1978, 100 x 70 cm
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Next to a stylistic affinity with contemporary Russian painting, she also had a more ideological affinity, as she considered herself a communist, which she still does to this day. The socialist-realist style of painting is indissolubly connected to the Soviet-system, and in the first instance intended as art with a propagandistic value to be understood by the people. The subjects and style are adjusted to this objective. Studying in Moscow, she did not only get acquainted with the realism of the pre-Stalin period, such as the dramatic works from the late 19th century mentioned earlier, but also with the most important works from the Italian Renaissance that were exhibited in diverse museums in Moscow. Works by Leonardo da Vinci, Pierro della Franscesca, Paolo Uccello, Michelangelo and Botticelli inspired her enormously and particularly in stylistic terms matched remarkably well
with what she had learned at the academy of Surikov. Not just because for Afifa Aleiby there were great personal similarities in the area of a classical technique of painting and choice of materials, but also because mythological subjects and particularly portraits were themes with which Afifa had been concerned with in her paintings for a long time. After her graduation from the academy in Moscow in 1981, she could no longer stay in the Soviet Union and left for Italy, to live and work in Rome for a number of years. During that period she exhibited her work in several Italian cities. At the close of the 1980’s, she left for South-Yemen, where she taught art-history and painting at the Institute of Fine Arts in the capital Aden for a great number of years. In 1993 she went to the Netherlands, where she has been living since.
The mood of Afifa Aleiby’s work The paintings of Afifa Aleiby do not leave one unaffected for several reasons. Sometimes the reason is obvious, as when she refers to her torn homeland of Iraq, to which she cannot return. In these instances, the emotional subject is closely and recognisably connected to the personal world of the artist, something that is most clearly expressed in a painting from 1991, which shows a sitting angel.
The Flood, 1991, Oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm 15
The Tower of Babel is figured in the background, as a symbol of her homeland, situated against a dark, menacing sky. Other paintings depict white marble sculptures seemingly fallen from their pedestal, lying silently on the ground and covered with cracks. The figures are mostly introvert and full of visible scars, for which the artist herself functioned as the model. They reflect in an absolutely serene silence the tragic event or traumatic experience that is still being dealt with. Classical Greek or Roman sculptures are particularly well-suited to express such metaphors. Although they cannot speak, their appearance tells you enough of their past. Likewise, the titles Afifa Aleiby gives to her works, such as ‘Dreaming on the Grass’, ‘Abandoned’ or ‘Silence’, refer to solitude and an overall feeling of desertion. Nonetheless, her paintings are not overtly pessimistic. Another work, entitled ‘Tree of Life’ indicates this in its depiction of a mother with child. Moreover, her works often feature humoristic or mysterious elements, such as balloons or masks. Her bright colours also make her paintings attractive and pleasant to watch. The fact that her paintings provoke thought, and are more than merely depictions of external reality, makes her a prominent representative of the contemporary ‘Scuola Metafisica’.
Tree of ife, 2005, Oil on canvas, 150 x 100 cm
Hans Vogels is Erstwhile Keeper at Museum Gouda, The Netherlands. He authored a series of publications with focus on the history of modern art, among others: “Kunstenaars in de Goudse aardewerkindustrie 1898-1940”, Zwolle: Waanders, 2001 (together with E. Huijberts), and “N.V. Koninklijke Plateelbakkerij Zuid-Holland”, Zwolle: Waanders, 1994 (together with Nicolette Sluijter-Seijffert).
Traslation by Gijs van Koningsveld (Amsterdam). 16
WORKS
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At the Studio 1986 Oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm 18
Handicap 1986 Oil on canvas 95 x 95 cm 19
Solitude 1989 Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm 20
Grapes 1998 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm 21
The Flood 1991 Oil on canvas 95 x 70 cm 22
Halabja 1989 Oil on canvas 100 x 70 cm 23
Waiting for Carnival 1996 Oil on canvas 180 x 120 cm 24
Family Scene 1992 Oil on canvas 120 x 120 cm 25
Aurora 1999 Oil on canvas 150 x 60 cm 26
Circus 2001 Oil on canvas 150 x 80 cm 27
A Summer Day 2001 Oil on canvas 70 x 70 cm 28
Tea with Lemon 2002 Oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm 29
Summer Day 2006 Oil on canvas 100 x 120 cm 30
Love 2001 Oil on canvas 100 x 80 31
Creative Angel 2005 Oil on canvas 130 x 120 cm 32
Guardian Angel 2005 Oil on canvas 130 x 120 cm 33
At the Sea 2003 Oil on canvas 120 x 100 cm 34
Laurel 2005 Oil on canvas 140 x 120 cm 35
Orange Orchard 2008 Oil on canvas 80 x 70 cm 36
Paradise Bird 2003 Oil on canvas 60 x 70 cm 37
Bathing 2010 Oil on canvas 110 x 70 cm 38
Eternal Dilemma 2010 Oil on canvas 100 x 110 cm 39
Circus 2010 Oil on canvas 120 x 90 cm 40
Behind the Curtains 2012 Oil on canvas 90 x 70 cm 41
Birches 2016 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm 42
Distance 2007 Oil on canvas 70 x 60 cm 43
Flute 2012 Oil on canvas 70 x 70 cm 44
Girl with a Mandoline 2016 Oil on canvas 75 x 65 cm 45
Harvest 2016 Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm 46
Window 2017 Oil on canvas 80 x 70 cm 47
Escape from Paradise 2007 Oil on canvas 120 x 100 cm 48
Moonlight 2016 Oil on canvas 80 x 100 cm 49
Meeting at the Coast 2017 Oil on canvas 60 x 70 cm 50
At the Market 2017 Oil on canvas 75 x 70 cm 51
Spring Music 2017 Oil on canvas 70 x 60 cm 52
Broken Wings 2017 Oil on canvas 75 x 70 cm 53
Pearls Necklace 2004 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm 54
Tenderness 2017 Oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm 55
Green Grass 2017 Oil on canvas 100 x 70 cm 56
Captive 2017 Oil on canvas 85 x 50 cm 57
Al Anfal 2019 Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm 58
Pain 2017 Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm 59
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CV Born in Basra in 1952
EDUCATION 1969-1974: Institute for Fine Arts, Baghdad, Iraq 1974-1981: Master of Arts, Surikov Institute of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia
EXHIBITIONS 1973 Al-Jabha, Sahat al-Tahrir, Baghdad, Iraq 1974 Gallery of the Institute for Fine Arts, Baghdad, Iraq 1975 Gallery of the Organization of Iraqi artists, Baghdad, Iraq Gallery Nadi Al-Taaruf, Baghdad, Iraq 1976 Gallery Gulbenkian, National Museum for Modern Art, Baghdad, Iraq
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1981 Palagio di Parte Guelfa, Florence, Italy 1982 Ca’ Giustiniani, Venice, Italy
1993 Festival dei due mondi, Centro culturale Studio Palazzo, Spoleto, Italy 1994 Stadsgalerie, Gouda, the Netherlands
Museo del Folclore, Rome, Italy Arabic Cultural Centre, Damascus, Syria Festival dell’Unità, Reggio Emilia, Italy 1984 Galleria Bottega della Stampa, Brescia, Italy 1986 Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, Italy Nuova Galleria Internazionale, Rome, Italy
1995 Zalm Hotel, Gouda, the Netherlands 1996 Arabic Cultural Centre, Brussels, Belgium Omaggio a Gino Severini, Sala Topical, Montespertoli, Italy 1997 Het Veem, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 1998 Omaggio a Dilvo Lotti, Fortezza di S. Francesco, San Miniato, Italy
Folklore Museum, Damascus, Syria 1988 Fortezza S. Barbara, Pistoia, Italy 1990 Kufa Gallery, London, England 1992 Sala Esposizioni Quartiere 1, Florence, Italy 62
1999 Silenzio, Het Catharina Gasthuis Museum, Gouda, the Netherlands 2000 Tjalf Gallery, Amsterdam, the Netherlands Beirut Biennale, Beirut, Lebanon
Daar Al Mada, Damascus, Syria
Zink Exposities, Bergen, the Netherlands
2001 De Twee Pauwen, the Hague, the Netherlands
2011 Family Exhibition, Boushahry Gallery, Kuwait City, Kuwait
2002 Artists in Exile, Delft, the Netherlands
De Twee Pauwen, The Hague, the Netherlands
2004 De Twee Pauwen, the Hague, the Netherlands
2013 Boushahry Gallery, Kuwait City, Kuwait
2006 De Twee Pauwen, the Hague, the Netherlands Gallery Prima Vista, Maastricht, the Netherlands
2017 Boushahry Gallery, Kuwait City, Kuwait 2019 The Art of Re-Existence, Pulchri Studio, The Hague, the Netherlands
Galleria Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy 2007 Transit Art, Amersfoort, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, the Netherlands 2008 Zink Exposities, Bergen, the Netherlands 2010 Boushahry Gallery, Kuwait City, Kuwait 63
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