Finding MENASA at MAD

Kutlug Ataman Philippe Parreno Marcel Dzama Live from Italy, It’s Artissima Rirkrit Tiravanija Doug Aitken Loris Gréaud The Singularity Problem

Send a letter to the Editor

Save to Del.icio.us Digg this

As one of the Museum of Arts and Design’s elevators shot me up to the seventh floor to celebrate the opening of the museum's Abraaj Capital Art Prize show last night, I certainly didn’t have an answer to that question. All I knew was that the award, given annually to three artists working in the region (which I later learned is properly abbreviated MENASA), was enormous: a cool $200,000.

"I haven’t seen you since Dubai!" one collector chimed to another on the quick ride. After some quick hors d'oeuvres and a music selection that veered between anonymous (to me anyway) Middle Eastern pop music and established American pop music (MGMT), a well-heeled mix of collectors, curators, and employees of the event's sponsor, private equity firm Abraaj Capital, started navigating in packs back onto the elevator and down to the second floor to view 2009's winning pieces. I joined them.

"Put on shoe booties and get in the installation!" Holly Hotchner, the director of the museum, told us as we arrived. Eager to learn more, I slid a pair of mesh slippers over my shoes and walked onto Zoulikha Bouabdellah’s Walk on the Sky. Pisces (2009), a rectangular box with a floor of highly polished steel and constellation diagrams composed of bright blue, white, and yellow lights on its ceiling. Philippe Parreno could have been responsible. It was gorgeous, though the reflective floor seemed potentially precarious for some of the women in elegant eveningwear. "If you’re wearing a dress, don’t worry," Hotchner insisted. "That’s just part of the story!"

Later, Savita Apte, who works as a curator in the Middle East and chairs the prize, explained Nazgol Ansarinia’s winning piece, Rhyme or Reason (2009). “It tells the story of contemporary Iran through carpeting,” she said. The beautiful rug, hand-woven in wool, silk, and cotton, featured quotidian scenes embedded in ornate, traditional forms; at first glance you could miss the Dzama-like little figures riding motorcycles, cooking, and eating within the intricate patterns of shapes. It was a hit with the crowd. “I want one for my house!” museum member Dan Frohwirth exclaimed.

Frohwirth, who was with his son Spencer, stood in front of Kutlug Ataman’s Strange Space (2009) video, patiently watching a blindfolded young man wander a barren desert looking for his lost lover. Apte later informed us that the piece could be read as an allegory for Ataman’s life as an artist in Turkey “longing for identity, not knowing which way to look, divided and wandering between East and West.” I felt a bit like the man in the video, embarrassingly unaware of MENASA culture.

Thankfully, Abraaj Capital’s executive director, Frederic Sicre, was happy to provide some guidance. The MENASA region is home to 1.2 billion people, he shared. “That’s more than China!” Sponsoring an art award, he explained, was a natural investment in bringing attention and respect to the sometimes-overlooked area. But why approach the Museum of Arts and Design? "This is an extremely interactive museum, and interactive is a word that we believe in at Abraaj Capital," he explained. The prize was conceived to raise international awareness of artists from the MENASA region and is presented to three artist-curator teams a year (the teams are presumably responsible for divvying the funds themselves).

It has become de rigueur in recent years to celebrate the remarkable globalization that has swept through the contemporary art world. There are, after all, biennials in Taipei and Istanbul, triennials in Cairo and Santiago de Chile, and art fairs in Shanghai and Moscow. Here in New York, Zhang Huan shows at PaceWildenstein and Anish Kapoor at Barbara Gladstone. The art world is expanding — or shrinking — quickly. The Abraaj Prize show is a reminder, though, that there may still be things that some of us are missing.