In 2007 I initiated a project on the history of art in the “Arab world” titled Scratching on things I could disavow. I began the project at the same time that the establishment of new cultural foundations, art galleries, art schools, art magazines, art prizes, art fairs, and large Western-brand and local museums was accelerating in cities such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Beirut, Doha, Istanbul, Cairo, Manama, and others. These material developments were matched by equally fraught efforts to define, sort, and stitch “Arab art” along three loosely silhouetted nodes: “Islamic,” “modern,” and “contemporary.” When viewed alongside the political, economic, social, and military conflicts that have consumed the “Arab world” in the past few decades, such developments shape a rich yet thorny ground for creative work.
The artworks and stories I present in this project concentrate on some of the stories, forms, lines, and colors made available by these developments, especially when they are screened alongside Jalal Toufic’s concept of “the withdrawal of tradition past a surpassing disaster.” I have so far produced two main chapters titled respectively Walkthrough and Les Louvres, each composed of several artworks.