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Zeinab Saleh
186 Plays5 months ago
Have you ever been to an exhibition that changes your heart rate, slows you down, and inspires you to take a nap with a cat? Such was our experience at Zeinab Saleh's exhibition at the heart of Tate Britain, part of the Art Now program, which welcomes contemporary young artists in one of the many rooms of the museum.
We discuss the notion of quiet, how it is dismissed in our culture, and how the artist not only embraces it but also almost magically creates it through mixed media paintings and drawings. A simple setting eliciting mindful dreaming and sheer presence.
The exhibition was curated by Amy Emmerson Martin (assistant curator) and Nathan Ladd (curator).
For more information visit the Tate's webiste: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/zeinab-saleh
@exhibitionistas_podcast
Music: Sarturn
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and thank you for going on this ride with us again. Or perhaps for the first time, and if that's the case, welcome, welcome to this podcast. We are a conversation, research and feelings podcast.
00:00:26
Speaker
And if you thought these things didn't go well together, well, they do. Especially when you're talking about exhibitions and artists.
Zainab Salis's Exhibition at Tate Britain
00:00:34
Speaker
This time we explore the British artist's Zainab Salis exhibition in the Art Now space at Tate Britain. If you haven't seen it, you should. Warning, it will slow down your heart rate. We even advocate for an ECG test at the entrance and exit of the show.
00:00:53
Speaker
You'll see this is a shift in tone for us. We discuss quiet and even read an excerpt of the book by Kevin Quashie, The Sovereignty of Quiet. Emily and I have a platonic friendship moment that turned out to be really, really sweet.
Magical Moments at Exhibitions
00:01:10
Speaker
Sometimes there's reckoning, sometimes there's community, and sometimes there is magic when visiting exhibitions and talking about them.
Content Warning and Theme Mix-up
00:01:20
Speaker
Quick heads up and content warning, we do mention sexual assault and stalking. So if this is not for you, go straight to the 13th minute. Without further ado, here we go. Enjoy Zaynab Salah's episode. Welcome to Exhibitionistas, the podcast about exposing ourselves in public.
00:01:47
Speaker
Sorry, oops, you know, wrong podcast. We could turn. We could do exhibitionists as two. And no one would know which is which. We can just alternate episodes between one and the other. Nice, nice. I like it.
00:02:04
Speaker
OK, listen, sorry, I will welcome you properly now.
Experiencing Exhibitions Vicariously
00:02:08
Speaker
So welcome to exhibitionistas where we visit exhibitions so that you have to. Or so that you can visit them vicariously through this episode and learn some tidbits about the artists in focus. Today we discuss Zainab Saleh's exhibition.
00:02:26
Speaker
It is on until the 23rd of June, and it's part of the Art Now series at Tate Britain that focuses on a contemporary artist. The show was curated by Amy Emerson Martin, assistant curator, and Nathan Ladd, curator.
Chris Ofili's Grenfell Mural
00:02:45
Speaker
And when you go up the stairs to the exhibition spaces, you can have a moment with Chris Ofili's mural honoring the victims of the Grenfell fires of the Grenfell.
00:02:55
Speaker
calamity, really, because there's no other word. And it's a really moving mural. And I urge you to spend some time there. It's good to sometimes just give yourself some time to ponder upon these things and honor the victims. So yeah, that's it for me.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, there's a lot going on at the Tate Britain at the moment. I mean, it is a jam act. Yeah. Museum at the minute. So I'm Emily Harding. I'm an art lover and an exhibition goer.
Emily's Reaction to Zainab Salah's Art
00:03:28
Speaker
So glad you could join us for an exhibition that I loved.
00:03:33
Speaker
It's one of those exhibitions, like I didn't know how much I needed it until I got there and it had such a powerful effect. So I'm a big Zane and Stella fan girl now. I mean, get me to be the president of the fan club. But before we get to this incredible show, how is your week in culture, Joanna?
Joanna's Cultural Week
00:03:55
Speaker
I knew you'd love this exhibition. I knew it. As soon as I stepped in, I thought, this is for Emily. It's for me too, but it is for you. It really is. So my week in culture was quite reading and research focused on my book, which I'm loving. But I did watch a bunch of stuff on Netflix, like really not even worth mentioning, apart from Baby Reindeer.
Analysis of Baby Reindeer
00:04:23
Speaker
I binged it.
00:04:24
Speaker
Me too. I loved it. I loved it. Yeah, this is definitely my week in culture for sure. I mean, I binged it on Friday night after work. That's all I did was watch that show. It is incredible. Wait, we're having a moment here, Emily, because it's the first time we have the same week in culture reference. It is. Wow. There should be a bell we ring somewhere for this. But yeah, it's a phenomenon for sure, this show.
00:04:53
Speaker
It's incredible. So it's actually a true story. Baby Reindeer was written and directed by Richard Gadd, who also plays in it. He is a bisexual stand-up comedian who was sexually assaulted and stalked. So like, double whammy. Not an easy start in his professional life.
00:05:13
Speaker
The first thing to say about this is that he has a profile as a man that doesn't compute for most people. It's not easy to assert yourself as a bisexual man. It's much easier for women for once. It's something maybe easier for women at times. And it's really hard to go to the police as well with certain issues as a man. So bisexuality, male rape,
00:05:39
Speaker
a female dangerous and aggressive stalker because there's also that issue. She is aggressive. She becomes aggressive. So this was real life. So this really happened to him, but it's not obligatory that it's going to become a good series. It could just have been
00:05:58
Speaker
a sort of a bland kind of retelling of a story. And it's so not. It is so good. It's a little bit, it made me think of Tig Notaro, Hannah Gatsby, of course as stand-up comedians, they broke the mold and at the same time brought in to the comedy space really serious issues, illness,
00:06:23
Speaker
assault as well, identity issues. And he's kind of in that vein. Of course, it's not funny all the time. It's really tragic. But it can be quite funny at times as well. And I think it's Paul Rudd who said in the famous Hot Ones YouTube channel, you know, that thing where you eat hot wings throughout, hotter and hotter, and you start crying at some point because it's painful.
00:06:50
Speaker
I think Paul Rudd was interviewed there and he said that comedy for him happens in the most tragic of times. And I really thought about that, you know, during reindeer, baby reindeer. But the thing is that the person who plays the stalker is incredible. Her name is Jessica Gunning and hello and Oscar for this woman. She is
00:07:17
Speaker
Incredible, because you actually love her. This is not fatal attraction. This is much more complex. It's so sophisticated. And you fall in love with her. She is absolutely adorable.
00:07:31
Speaker
and dangerous. And he makes you understand how we fell into that trap. Yeah. And I think that that's a really important distinction because in fatal attraction, she was the femme fatale, who just on the surface looked like she had everything together and she was
00:07:49
Speaker
kind of 80s girl boss as it was back then and and understandably like extraordinarily attractive and this uh this the woman in this series i mean he knows right away she's full of full of it like she says that she's this really impressive lawyer and she's hanging out with
00:08:07
Speaker
Tony Blair and all of these really powerful political figures, but yet she can't afford a cup of tea. So from the moment you hear it's a go with her, you know that there's something very, very wrong with her to be spinning these kinds of lies and all of that, and just to be hanging out at this bar as she starts to do when she starts stalking him 24-7. But yet,
00:08:36
Speaker
that doesn't trigger him to like put up a barrier or put up a boundary that doesn't do it. And that's the interesting part of all this is why he, you know, I wouldn't say pursues, but allows that relationship to happen.
00:08:55
Speaker
pursues, though, in some senses, though, later on down the line. In some senses. And that's why it's so interesting because he explores everything that you hear about sexual assault, about stalking, which is, why didn't you come earlier? Why did you interact with her? Wait a minute. He has, at a certain point, I mean, a bit of a spoiler, but it's just a detail. He has, I think she writes like about 100 message daily to him. Yeah.
00:09:25
Speaker
And at a certain point he responds, just the one message where he responds or meets her. And the police is like, wait a minute, why did you respond? And at a certain point you go, is the world upside down? Did I wake up with my feet on my head and my head on my feet? What is happening? And he's really interesting as well in that sense of why you let yourself be trapped in this people pleasing,
00:09:54
Speaker
situation and in a situation where someone
00:09:57
Speaker
is 120% appreciative of you, and only thinks of you, and is completely dedicated to you, and is destroying you by the same token. Because he had PTSD from the other thing that had happened to him. So he was already a broken man. And there's also another aspect of the series, which is there's a trans woman played by, oh my gosh, the amazing Maeve Mao.
00:10:26
Speaker
all the actors are absolutely mind-blowingly good. And she is heartbreaking. Yeah, I thought it was, I loved seeing a trans person as the voice of reason within the narrative. I mean, she was the one there who was like, she was the one the viewer identifies with of like, what the hell
00:10:48
Speaker
Are you doing it? You know, and I loved that she was the medium through which the viewer kind of understood the story. She was the representative of us and she was a trans person, which was yeah, I loved I loved seeing her on screen. It was. Yeah, you're quite right. Because one of the things that I found really precise in the series is that she has gone through a lot and you can see she's traumatized, but she has it together.
00:11:17
Speaker
And he's gone through a lot. He's traumatized and he doesn't have it together. And you never know the person who's kind of going to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives and carry this trauma next to them, but in a way that can contain it and people who can't. And there's no reason.
00:11:37
Speaker
And I think he carries a lot of guilt for letting himself be broken by what happened to him. And he can't communicate because of that, because you never know what is going to break you.
00:11:49
Speaker
And there's a lot of judgment from society and from within yourself. And I think it's actually useful, this series, to understand trauma denial, to understand the depth that trauma takes you into and the hole you dig around you and the loneliness.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah, within it how the shame spiral works, you know, because there's a very clear, you know, tracking of decisions that he makes based on where he is in his sort of shame spiral and the end, which we will not say anything about.
00:12:25
Speaker
is really jaw dropping. I mean, I think it's really incredible the way that he tied it all up. But the other thing I loved seeing on the screen is just a quote unquote straight man, which is how he's sort of identified at a certain point in his life, grapple with his sexuality. So kind of traverse that long spectrum that lives in all of us to a degree.
00:12:53
Speaker
certainly lives in human nature, of how do I feel about this? What am I doing? And what's happening with my own sexuality? You just don't see that on film. You just don't see that on television. And I loved seeing that. It was really, really great. I mean, really hats off. My stepdaughter Indigo, she mentioned this to me when we were in the car on Thursday night.
00:13:20
Speaker
And the way she hadn't watched any of it either. She was just like, oh, I think I want to check out this baby reindeer thing. Comedian, his life story, a stalker. I thought it was going to be way more on the, you know, the lighter side. You know, I see the funny side.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, oh, it'll be a bit dark, but it's going to be funny. It's a comedian. It was a lot heavier than I thought it was going to be, but in a really brilliant way, really, really well done. Cool. So do you want to tell us a little bit about Zainab Salah?
Introduction to Zainab Saleh
00:13:57
Speaker
Yes, with pleasure. So Zainab Salah was born in, I'm saying Salah because you probably know how to pronounce it better than I do having lived in the Middle East.
00:14:06
Speaker
Well, I mean, she's from Kenya, so I don't know if the Kenyan pronunciation is any different. Why am I associating her? Yeah. But yeah, Salah would probably, I mean, we'd probably have a, we'd probably have more emphasis on the H, but I think Salah is probably fine.
00:14:22
Speaker
So Zainab Salah was born in 1996 in Kenya, as you said. So she's about 30 years old. And despite her young age, she is quite accomplished. I mean, she's at the Tate Britain. She's a British artist who lives and works in London. So she received the BFA from the Slade School in 2019 and almost immediately had a solo exhibition at Camden Art Centre in 2021, titled Softest Place on Earth.
00:14:52
Speaker
She's represented by the same gallery as Aria Deen, which is a funny coincidence because it was our last episode. So the gallery is called Chateau Chateau in Los Angeles, and they both currently have a dual exhibition at Curimanzuto Gallery in Mexico through this program called Condo that invites other galleries from other places
00:15:13
Speaker
in a city. So at the moment in Mexico City, there's a lot of galleries from elsewhere welcomed in the spaces of the galleries, the local galleries. So yeah, our two episodes kind of come together, but their work is quite different.
00:15:29
Speaker
There are some commonalities in terms of the positioning they have, but materially and in terms of what the art they make, they're quite different. So Sala works mainly with painting and drawing, although she has video works as well.
00:15:44
Speaker
And another thing to know about her is that while she was still at the Slate School of Arts, she co-founded with Lemisa Khan and Sara Gulamali, a collective called Muslim Sisterhood. So this was in 2017. And it tries to provide a safe space for Muslim women and non-binary people. So how incredible is that? Yeah, that is great. I mean, gosh, yeah, that's brilliant.
00:16:12
Speaker
So as an artist, she is interested in notions of softness, intimacy, tenderness, serenity, contemplation, and for me it was also about, although I don't think she talks about that, inwardness. Her paintings are often monochromatic,
00:16:29
Speaker
or with monochromatic tendencies, which is actually a great band name, come to think of it. And she says, I am conscious of the energy that colors carry. And that in that exhibition, boy, are we going to talk about that. Yeah, boy. Yeah, that's definitely on full display.
00:16:45
Speaker
So at Camden, her paintings were grey and here they are mostly blue with pastel colours, pinks, whites, greys. However, they're not abstract, I don't think we can say that. They seem to present abstractions from everyday life. You know, like little focuses on elements of an interior such as curtains and rugs.
00:17:09
Speaker
patterns, a doll, a cat, a plant. So Emily, I have a question for you right away, because as I said, I immediately thought of you. And I remember the conversation we'd had about social media and about how you
00:17:24
Speaker
cannot fathom it. And I remember you said, I want to give people silence. And I thought, okay, so is this what Zainab is doing? Is this what Zainab Salah did to you in this exhibition? Yeah, totally.
Calming Impact of Saleh's Exhibition
00:17:39
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I think for me, the future is analog. It's like,
00:17:44
Speaker
I mean, you know, I mean, the revolution will not be televised. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, no, but absolutely, absolutely. She and this is why I love this show so much is I really felt like she was speaking my language.
00:17:59
Speaker
And just so for context, I went to see the show over lunch, so I kind of felt a little bit of a time pressure element going on. You know, I was giving myself the pet talk of like, OK, go in there and just try to focus and be with it as much as you can and, you know, take notes and really absorb it, you know, as quickly as possible before you can get back to work, which is like such a silly thing, you know, because it's like
00:18:26
Speaker
But it's real. It's real. Yeah, exactly. You either do that or you don't visit exhibitions. You miss a lot of it because in London, if you don't make time at lunchtime, when are you going to see everything that's going on? Exactly. The Tate's opened 10 to 6 for crying out loud. I mean, it's hard to get there unless you are able to go and work hours. And the museum was crazy busy, which is like,
00:18:54
Speaker
I mean I guess it would be because again who's going to be able to go there outside of working hours you know but there was this part of me that was like it's always busy Emily I was there mid-afternoon and like Hugh always kind of like oh excuse me excuse me yeah
00:19:09
Speaker
Can I go through? A sea of people, you know. And then, you know, so as you said, so this is in the Art Now space, which is, you know, kind of a one gallery space, you know, amongst a ton of gallery spaces, but it's just one room. As soon as I stepped into the room, it was just like,
00:19:33
Speaker
You know, it was just a giant exhale because of the all, I mean, you're suddenly surrounded by all of these, all of this beautiful, calming color, calming, you know, kind of features. I mean, as you say, like there's one that kind of looks a little bit like an open bed, but there's a lot of them that are like not quite finished as well. There might be,
00:19:59
Speaker
an image in one part of it, but then it kind of disintegrates into just sort of color on the edges. So it's not even, I mean, some of them are edge to edge images, you know, finished, you know, as it were, but it leaves space for your mind to be like,
00:20:17
Speaker
Oh, that's a, that's like a kitchen cupboard kind of looks like right there. And then off to the sides, it kind of just falls away. So your mind just doesn't have to like, engage with everything. It's like, it's cool. You can just sort of fade off here too. You know, I mean, it was it was like, it was like diving into a duvet. And
00:20:40
Speaker
You know, I mean, all of these colors, they were just like a tender sunrise. But without the cliche, I mean, I have to say that could make it sound very sort of cliche. Yeah. But it's I mean, and it wasn't that, but yeah, it absolutely wasn't. Yeah.
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was exactly the antidote to the feeling that I brought in. And, you know, there's a couple of benches in the middle of the room and I was able just to hang out on the benches. And there weren't a ton of people in this one space. And there was one woman there who was on the phone. And I feel like if I had stayed in the frame of mind I was in before I got into the room, if I had stayed there, I would have been like, get off your phone.
00:21:26
Speaker
What the heck? But it's like, I was so chilled out. I was like, you just do your thing, honey. Do your thing. Honey, you may need to do this phone call. Yeah, exactly. Take care of yourself. So it had a really profound effect on my state of mind and my state of being, which was incredible.
Art's Emotional Influence and Calmness
00:21:50
Speaker
When I went in, same thing.
00:21:55
Speaker
your heart rate just kind of lowers. And people were hanging out on the two benches. So the benches are kind of like these kind of comma-shaped benches that are blue as well. And people sitting on the benches just having a chat.
00:22:11
Speaker
like you could see they were friends, like really happy to be talking to each other. And then people were there and you kind of felt that people were slowing down. And it's just one room. You come in, you have the big statement piece at the end of it, like a big painting that I'll talk about very soon. And then the two walls that lead to it have mostly paintings, five or six paintings each and a few drawings. And that's it. And yet,
00:22:41
Speaker
So powerful. And one thing I did is that a painting I really loved that is very pink. I love the color pastel pink for me just drives me nuts and in a good way. And so I took my phone and I started filming it from afar and walked towards it and then explored it with my phone.
00:23:03
Speaker
And then a few days ago, I clicked on that. I went to my photos, I clicked on the video, and I had that feeling again, like really physical of excitement. And it kind of brought home the fact that in each painting, there are several areas where you can stop.
00:23:24
Speaker
And I just felt sad going away because I thought, I want those paintings with me for a long, long time because I think they can sustain repeated relationship with them. They hold your gaze and they reveal themselves to you ever so slowly.
00:23:42
Speaker
And I was sad to go away. And that thing that Arya Deen said that we mentioned in our last episode, it's not about what art expresses. It's what it's doing to you. And here it's actually doing something quite powerful. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think for me, one of the things that felt quite powerful is she had the, in a lot of her images kind of in the background or like with the cat and there's loads of rugs on the floor,
00:24:11
Speaker
There's rugs everywhere. So like hanging over a railing or hanging on a line you'd imagine prayer rugs and This is something you see a lot in the Middle East So having spent a lot of time in the Middle East there was sort of this connotation of the Middle East juxtaposed with this enormous peace and serenity and
00:24:35
Speaker
I especially now with everything that's going on. That was such a wonderful thing to have brought together, you know, rather than, you know, doom and war and strife and hunger, of which there is a lot in the Middle East, of course, you know, but to have, you know, this other element of life and reflection and calm of which there exists there as well. You know, I mean, having that juxtaposed
00:25:05
Speaker
just I, you know, it was really unexpected. I didn't expect to see that or feel that, but it like filled something in me that, you know, really needed filling, which was amazing.
00:25:20
Speaker
the title of that statement's piece, let's call it like that. So the big painting that you see as you go in, which is quite big, it almost takes the whole wall. And although the paintings are quite big, they don't come across as big, you just kind of notice, oh, they're taking the wall, but they're so understated and subdued in some way. And so that painting is called Sovereignty of Quiet.
00:25:44
Speaker
And it alludes to a book called Sovereignty of Quiet Beyond Resistance in Black Culture, and it was written by Kevin Quashie, and it argues for quietness as the means of resistance to an obligatory political and social condition of the black subject.
00:26:03
Speaker
not even of resistance, but like as a recognition of humanity.
Quietness as Resistance
00:26:08
Speaker
And the fact of having this power of inwardness is what makes us human. And it's what makes us resist in terms of just being tokenized and just being subjects of some form of resistance that we must perform. I say we, that Black people or other people must perform every day.
00:26:27
Speaker
So we're talking here as two white women. The painting in particular shows a pet, but also prayer rugs, like you said. And Sally also mentions about one of her Camden paintings, the henna hand paintings that you do during Eid, which is a religious celebration that marks the end of Ramadan.
00:26:49
Speaker
as a motive of her paintings. So she's not showing or claiming these moments of her life as a Muslim woman, and it made you think of the Middle East. She's not particularly just saying, and they're just naturally there, part of her inner and private life.
00:27:05
Speaker
And that made me really want to read an excerpt of the book because I think I don't explain it half as well. And as you know, I don't live that experience. So I think it's maybe better to give a voice to Kwashi. So this is about the famous act of resistance of two Black American athletes.
00:27:25
Speaker
Tommy Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. So when the national anthems or the American anthem plays, they both raised their black-gloved fists in resistance against racism, poverty, and inequality. And there was another man on the podium, an Australian athlete called Peter Norman,
00:27:51
Speaker
And in solidarity with them, he wore a pin for OPHR, which stands for Olympic Project for Human Rights. And so Kwashi writes, their paired bodies have become a precise sign of a restless decade, and especially of Black resistance. But look again closely at the pictures from that day, and you can see something more than the certainty of public assertiveness.
00:28:19
Speaker
See, for example, how the severity of Smith's salute is balanced by the yielding of Carlos's raised arm. And then notice how the sharpness of their gesture is complemented by one telling detail, that their heads are bowed as if in prayer, that Smith, in fact, has his eyes closed.
00:28:42
Speaker
The effect of their bowed heads is to suggest intimacy, and it is a reminder that this very public protest is also intimate. There is a sublime balance between their intentional political gesture and this sense of inwardness, a sublimity that is often barely acknowledged. In truth, the beauty of the protest is enhanced by noting the intimacy
00:29:05
Speaker
in reading Smith and Carlos, not only as soldiers in a larger war against oppression, but also as two people in a moment of deep spirituality, in prayer, as vulnerable as they are aggressive, as pensive as they are solidly righteous. In this reading, what is compelling is their humanity on display, the unexpected glimpse we get of the inner dimensions of their public bravery.
00:29:34
Speaker
So he talks about everything, about how everything is political later on, but that not everything is protest. So in the case of Salah, the quietness, the very personal universe she's claiming here for herself and sharing with us can be political since everything is really political.
00:29:53
Speaker
but is also the affirmation of our humanity as a place of irreducible uniqueness, as a one-in-a-lifetime story, even though it's banal and trivial. She often refers to, I think, the softest place on Earth is a song by Escape, a little bit like Aria Dean, with I Think We're Alone now by Tiffany. She kind of picks
00:30:15
Speaker
these songs and she says that she listens to music a lot in her studio. So, of course, it's trivial. Of course, it's probably not high culture. It's not rugs that come from some sort of history and they're extremely expensive. It's just her home rugs, the things she sees in her home every day.
00:30:36
Speaker
So these patterns, these henna paintings are repeated cultural gestures. They can even be political, but they belong to her, they belong to a culture, and they belong to her in an absolute singularity. So yeah, I just wanted to read that because thank you, thank you Zaina Abzala, to have made me read this book because it goes really deep into this notion of
00:31:06
Speaker
where humanity lies and how representation even within your own culture sometimes can lead to this performative superficial aspect of resistance and sometimes denies humanity within you.
00:31:22
Speaker
and this kind of irreducible quality of being human. So yeah, that was a good read. But it's time for a break, I think. So we'll be back shortly. Sounds good.
00:31:56
Speaker
Hi again! So we're back, and we are in a misty blue interior, or interiority, somewhere between both, in one of the rooms of the busiest Museum of London, with Zainab Salah's works, mostly paintings and drawings.
00:32:13
Speaker
How is this possible? How can you find such peace in such a crowded place? Or in the words of Arie Dean, what is this art doing to us? Which was the question that we were asking before. I have to say personally, this isn't the type of painting or art that I'm drawn to.
Joanna's Unexpected Connection
00:32:30
Speaker
like full disclosure, when I saw her work on the website when we were deciding what to do an episode about, I thought, okay, so this is going to be one of those where I'm like, I like it, I appreciate it, but it's gonna leave me, you know, I'm gonna love it and leave it, and that's it. And I've been obsessed with the paintings
00:32:53
Speaker
I must say I'm a fantastic so I don't visualize and if I want to visualize something it's even harder so I have compulsive images that come once in a while and it's not a complete blank my mind they do come in once in a while but if I try to remember
00:33:08
Speaker
things, images, especially things that I've only seen once, it's really difficult. So I keep finding myself in this conceptual blue mist and I keep wanting to go back to the paintings. And funnily enough, my daughter came to me this week and was saying, do you know what? I have to admit my favorite color is blue. She had a book in her hand called Blue It by Maggie Nelson, which is a book of poetry, like really beautiful book of poetry.
00:33:38
Speaker
I love Maggie Nelson. She wrote The Argonauts, maybe a bit more famous book. And the book is blue. And I was thinking, this is definitely the blue week. And I told her, I think you really love this exhibition because she's all about, it's a bit like you, she loves quietness and she loves serenity and she's always trying to find
00:33:59
Speaker
a peaceful, mindful place to exist from and to have in the world. So that was funny. And I love it when something that would not be the thing that you're drawn to suddenly finds its way into your heart and soul and just stays with you and just teaches you a lesson, really. For sure. Yeah. And I mean, while bits of her work actually reminded me a little bit of Yoko Ono.
Comparing Saleh and Yoko Ono
00:34:28
Speaker
I mean, it's necessarily an, you know, an explicit link there, but I just think the fact that, you know, those corners of her paintings are unfinished and she just allows your imagination. She just, there's just so much space for imagination in the works that she's done. She's not telling you what to do. She's sort of giving you an impression as a starting point into a portal of, yeah, this interiority that she has on offer.
00:34:57
Speaker
But I think that, you know, the last two artists that we've looked at have been conceptual and very, very philosophical and theoretically driven and have been concerned with, you know, maximalist ideas. I mean, you know, I mean, Yoko Ono, the imagination and the power of the imagination and here, take this hammer and hammer this nail and how did it feel? What did you think? You know, I mean, so it's all very
00:35:26
Speaker
There's a lot of work involved. And fill the space with sound. Yeah, exactly. And so it's, you know, kind of simple in one sense, but also requires a lot of participation. And, you know, I mean, Aria Dean, you know, focusing on very deep quest philosophical questions and
00:35:44
Speaker
You know, to my mind, very obscure kind of French philosophy that I, you know, is not sort of in my day to day. And then going from that to this, where she's just like, you know what, come on inside, chill out. And you have this space inside you.
00:36:02
Speaker
And I'm going to help you get there, because this is also a universal space. And I just think it was in a way the sequence of shows that we've been to recently.
00:36:18
Speaker
this one was needed at this time. I mean, to just kind of be a bit slower and be a bit more intimate. I mean, I love that as you pointed to earlier, she's depicting things that are in her immediate environment or that are in her immediate memory. She's bringing you what is within arms reach of her, so to speak.
00:36:48
Speaker
And I love when people do that and you still feel it, you know, it's like, because there is that universal in the particular. And yeah, I just felt really moved by that. And I felt like there's a certain closeness to her as an artist, you know, that that that you might not get
00:37:11
Speaker
from another, from coming at, you know, art, you know, conceptual art from a different angle. I have two things to say to that, actually. Can I go? Please. Because you're thinking like a curator, or like the curators I love, and like I curate myself, which because I love my curating, you know, let's say it, you know. Yeah. No self-hatred here. Yeah, good.
00:37:35
Speaker
And I love that you compared Zainab Salah to Yoko Ono, because I do think there's a proximity there. And, oh well, the color blue in the sky for sure, because obviously when you look at that blue and that atmospheric blue of the paintings, even though they're interior driven, there's also some kind of atmospheric, because the paintings were grey also at Camden, so they really do speak to atmospheres and to the sky.
00:38:05
Speaker
But also, I love to make connections between works that are not formally the same, but that basically are telling you something or that are speaking to a certain space in your soul that is common.
Saleh's VHS Tapes and Familial Themes
00:38:21
Speaker
And here I agree when Yoko Ono talks about peace and she talks about inwardness as well, like you were saying, you know, it's about togetherness, but it has to come from a work on the ego.
00:38:33
Speaker
And there's something similar here. So that's really strong. And the other thing I wanted to say is that she works from VHS tapes from her family, like home videos, which it really explains a lot because it's that grainy texture of video.
00:38:53
Speaker
that she plays probably in a VHS player that none of us have anymore at home. A relic. Where did she get that? And there was a family film. So she's also worked with video. And in her Slate School degree show, she showed a video called Four Star Wedding. And it was with footage, family footage. I haven't watched it. I read the description of it.
00:39:21
Speaker
And it seemed to be, and the way she describes what she picked from it, she talks about someone giving a kind of a side eye to an auntie who's kind of overdoing it and some sort of hand picking something or some patterns on the table. And so she's going to pick that up and she's going to isolate these things already from a texture that speaks of the past.
00:39:46
Speaker
And that's really interesting because she's not only working with her own environment, but she's also working on the ability that you have to go into a memory that was recorded so it has an interface to show it to you. And how weird that I did the same thing, like I took my phone and I took bits
00:40:12
Speaker
and I filmed it in that kind of way like I'm gonna explore this painting through my phone because I want to go into those details I want to live there exactly that's the feeling I had I want to live in that detail there's some bits where you just go oh okay this is really speaking to me and I don't know what it's saying but it's very familiar at the same time absolutely instant and also because I mean she uses
00:40:38
Speaker
So just to describe the paintings, they're quite layered. I mean, there's a lot of depth to them. And then she sort of has these almost like watermarks in some of them, which are like script of some kind or imagery of some kind that feel of the region, perhaps. But I mean, my question for you is what would you call, I mean, what would you call
Intimacy in Saleh's Paintings
00:41:05
Speaker
these? Are they script?
00:41:10
Speaker
So these are two drawings that for me made me think of the cyanotypes of Anna Atkins from the 19th century because they're blue and they seem to show specimens of algae or plants of some kind of some area but at the same time they also look like Arabic
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah, writings or letters. It's not Arabic script though. It doesn't look like Arabic script to me. Yeah. Anyway, I mean, I think I think the point I'm trying to make is that she it is so, you know, intimate and you feel familiar.
00:41:54
Speaker
But yet there are these things in there, this images, I don't, this is the thing is I don't know what to call them. Um, these figures, what have you that feel very of the region that feel very representative of Islam or of the
00:42:13
Speaker
you know, culture of the region, whatever. They don't feel like they're from the UK, but yet they feel familiar. That's an impressive thing to pull off, to have this kind of image that is in these little details layered into the paintings.
00:42:31
Speaker
that are distinctly very much not Western as you know with you know quotes around it, but also pull you into this huge familiarity. I don't know how she does that. I don't know how she does it, but it's a really incredible feat.
00:42:49
Speaker
And going back to this notion of quiet in between those layers, there's a sort of a space for you to come in. So she does say that there's this real need to instill serenity and to give people a space for contemplation. She really talks about this inward look. So I would love to read you another excerpt from Quasi's book where he talks about
00:43:18
Speaker
quite brilliant i am gonna have to get this honestly this looks i think this book's for you yeah because it gives so much density to something that is
00:43:31
Speaker
sometimes a bit despised by society. I think she talks about that, the fact that slowing down can be really nice and well, and you read in The Guardian, people who left everything behind and went to the mountains. But most of us, us commoners, we just have to work and work and work and work.
00:43:50
Speaker
and don't have a lot of moments of quietness. And if we do, we feel guilty about it. I mean, speaking as a workaholic, obviously I don't know how to create these moments of quiet. So it gives it density and it ties it into our humanity.
00:44:07
Speaker
Quasi writes, the idea of quiet is compelling because the term is not fancy, it is an everyday word, but it is also conceptual. Quiet is often used interchangeably with silence or stillness, but the notion of quiet in the pages that follow, so he's talking about the book, this is right at the beginning, is neither motionless nor without sound.
00:44:34
Speaker
It made me think of the exhibition. It's so loud, everything around, and yet she does that magic of quiet. Quiet instead is a metaphor for the full range of one's inner life, one's desires, ambitions,
00:44:50
Speaker
hungers, vulnerabilities, fears. The inner life is not apolitical or without value, but neither is it determined entirely by publicness. In fact, the interior dynamic and ravishing is a stay against the dominance of the social world. It has its own sovereignty. It is hard to see, even harder to describe, but not less potent in its ineffability. Quiet.
00:45:19
Speaker
In humanity, quiet is inevitable, essential. It is a simple, beautiful part of what it means to be alive. It is already there if one's looking to understand it. An aesthetic of quiet is not incompatible with Black culture, but to notice and understand it requires a shift in how we read, what we look for, and what we expect, even what we remain open to. It requires paying attention in a different way.
Quiet Sovereignty Quotation
00:45:49
Speaker
Lovely.
00:45:51
Speaker
Lovely what else is this? Yeah, I know it. When did do you know when this was written in 2012? Okay, and it's called the sovereignty of quiet beyond resistance in blackness And it really is powerful really is and I want to talk to you about that painting the painting that bears the title sovereignty of quiet Because when I looked at it, so I went through the whole wall on the left with those beautiful paintings and i'll tell you in in a second
00:46:21
Speaker
what they made me feel. So you're in that very powerful thing where she really, really draws you out of that madness of the Tate and of London. And then you get to that painting. And so the painting is quite big. It's horizontal. And it is a weird kind of weird stance of overlooking the floor, kind of like if you've taken a picture with your phone kind of
00:46:49
Speaker
you know, holding it a bit forward. And so you have the floor, the wood floor, and then you have some prayer rugs, kind of overlapping at times, and you have a cat. But the cat has on its fur, motifs,
00:47:06
Speaker
a crescent moon, a star, some other undulating marks that I didn't quite recognize. And I thought, what is this corniness? What is this? Why is this cat like this? And I got a bit upset and I thought, why? What is this? And then I went on to look at the other paintings on the other wall and my aesthetic
00:47:32
Speaker
I don't know, my aesthetic demands were met finally again. And then I went back to that painting and I could see that lots of people were drawn to it. I took pictures of people taking pictures of the painting and it kind of stayed with me and it didn't quite fit the aesthetic. What did you think of it? Yeah, I think it was, yeah, I loved it. I'm not going to say it was my favorite. I don't know if I had a favorite because I feel like the power of her work. That's the question for the end.
00:48:01
Speaker
True. The power of the work is so in the collective of it. But I loved this one. I had this feeling like I was almost falling into it. You know, that's sort of the angle is that yes, you're about to fall, you know, just kind of curl up on the floor next to this cat and maybe it's sunshine and have a little nap on the floor.
00:48:25
Speaker
You know, it's like, that's what it was evoking. The crescent moon is in Islam. I mean, that's the Ramadan moon, essentially. So I quite liked that on the cat and the kind of star cross things that she has on there as well.
00:48:47
Speaker
But yeah, so after you went back to it after seeing the rest of the exhibition, did you come at it differently or where did you end up with this one? I did. It's funny because now that you're describing it, and that's why it's so powerful to talk about exhibitions,
00:49:06
Speaker
I'm realizing that maybe it's one of the few paintings that is kind of together and shows you a whole setting rather than fragments.
Analysis of 'Sovereignty of Quiet'
00:49:17
Speaker
And maybe that's why I was a bit puzzled by it. And the only pattern that is kind of overlaid and playing with being where it shouldn't be is the pattern on the cat's fur, so those symbols. And
00:49:36
Speaker
That's, I think, why it kind of stood out, but in some ways it corresponds to what she does in a humorous and playful way this time. And it always makes me think that sometimes the things that you don't like or that kind of create friction, and that's why I find it's very cleverly done, this exhibition, with that big painting, because that painting is going to create friction in that very
00:50:02
Speaker
quiet feeling that she manages to create and that she creates against that laugh that you have over there of looking at the cat with the crescent moon that is saying something about her identity without saying it because it doesn't really matter, it's playful. And the thing is that sometimes liking something
00:50:23
Speaker
is not the best thing you can say about a work of art. That's the conclusion I come to. Sometimes something that really shocks you or creates fiction or takes you out of that contemplative moment is giving you a key to what you should be looking at in the work. Why blue? And why does this blue is making stuff to you and then suddenly you find yourself in the room with kind of a playful
00:50:49
Speaker
take on her own work. It made me go back to the idea of blue and what this color is, really. What is this color to us? Is it a universal color? You know, I don't like the notion of universal, but like Yoko Ono said, and it's not a coincidence that you thought of her, the sky is what we all have in common. We all have, we're all in the same sky, and that blue is both aquatic and atmospheric.
00:51:19
Speaker
Did you notice the materials? So yeah, so I mean, it's interesting because when I first saw some of them, it almost looks like crayon. It's like, you know, yes, but it's charcoal, right? Like she's putting charcoal over the top or, you know, is that right?
00:51:38
Speaker
At a certain point, I was thinking, is this really painting? What is going on here? And like you, I thought there was kind of pastel or kind of a dusty material that was dragged across some of the paintings. The paintings, so the works on linen, they're acrylic and soft pastel and fixative. But you're right, they also have charcoal. She works with different textures and that gives a sort of an almost dusty,
00:52:08
Speaker
a dry texture to the paintings. And I was thinking, this is halfway between a drawing, a print, a rubbing, a
00:52:18
Speaker
a painting, it's quite complex in terms of textures. So she really does materialize the painting. The painting kind of becomes almost sculptural and at the same time it's so ephemeral, it's so diaphanous that it almost looks like an apparition. Yeah, apparition is the exact right word.
00:52:39
Speaker
I didn't think of that before, but I think that that is the perfect word to describe what she puts on linen or canvas or whatever. It's like it feels so like it's there for a moment. But if you went back, would it still be there? You know, I mean,
00:52:56
Speaker
That's a wonderful feeling. How to capture that is incredible. Being in that room gave me a very Rothko vibe. When I was younger and not seeing the point of Jackson Pollock,
00:53:21
Speaker
We're going to have a whole list of all the painters you rejected when you were young. He was in there. I was like, oh, come on. And that it wasn't until I went to see a room of his in the National Museum in Washington, DC.
00:53:39
Speaker
And I was like, oh, wow. Okay, I get this. Like, I am having an experience right now. And that's how I felt about her is because like you, when I saw her online, I just kind of had an interest in, you know, a young artist who had sort of, you know, kind of a couple nationalities in her background. And yeah, let's go check that out.
00:54:00
Speaker
And but I wasn't terribly moved by what I saw online. And then it was just being in their presence and being in their collective presence that was, you know, just that's the thing that does it. So, yeah, she I mean, there's definitely Yoko Ono kind of hints in her work or connections that I felt, but also Rothko for sure, just because she is creating a vibe.
00:54:29
Speaker
Should I say this? Yeah. I should say this. Oftentimes, I think that it's also the setting of the paintings, because it was quite precise about how you should hang them, where they should be, how isolated it should be, and not to establish here a battle between Salah and Rothko. Let's do it. Let's not do that. Come on. Oh, my gosh. If they're both in my regret, then hash it out.
00:54:58
Speaker
But listen, you go through a crowded corridor, the largest corridor and the tallest ceiling you've ever seen in a museum. There's the Sargent exhibition right next door, and the shop actually, right next door to her exhibition. And she just hangs her paintings in a very traditional, normal, you know, subdued manner.
00:55:25
Speaker
And she creates that atmosphere. Whereas Rothko, you have to create the atmosphere, you have to close the room. Only a certain number of people can be in there. He even did the, I think it's in the Manil Collection, the chapel where you can go and visit. And to be honest, sometimes I ask myself,
00:55:47
Speaker
Did I? Am I feeling something, the thing that I should be feeling, that people tell me that I should be feeling? I'm not quite sure. And I prefer Cline. I love Clifford Still. No one likes him. I love Clifford Still.
00:56:04
Speaker
I'm not into the Rothko thing and I think it's a colour thing for me. I'm much more drawn to drawing and I think that's why I love Salas paintings because they're very drawn, they're very kind of a mix, such a mysterious mix between this material of the pastel and the acrylic
00:56:23
Speaker
And then these lines, these kind of undulating lines that, like you say, are not very much of our culture. But Hogarth defended the serpentine line, to be very honest with you. Apparently it was like the line for him. Not too much, not too little, just a little bit undulating.
00:56:41
Speaker
And I don't know. I think I'm impressed by her. And she made me think as well, which of course, knowing me, there had to be something intellectual in there.
Mindfulness and Art
00:56:53
Speaker
Did you self-analyze a little bit? Because I'm interested in you, Emily, because you are such a mindful person. I want to learn from you. And maybe our listeners can learn as well. Oh, gosh. I mean, I think that what she did was just notice the state change.
00:57:10
Speaker
that I had going the state of mind change going from from before it to to being in it. I mean, that was the most profound thing was just like, I mean, I didn't take my blood pressure before and after. But if I had, I'm sure that I would have had, you know, data. Yeah, definitely. Just bring it with you wherever you think that should be done.
00:57:32
Speaker
For the next exhibition, I'll do that. But there is certainly a physiological shift in what I was experiencing. And I think that was the most profound for me. But in terms of ideas, it was really that juxtaposition of seeing the prayer rugs and imagery that I equated in my mind and experience of being Middle Eastern with this
00:58:00
Speaker
calm, etc. But yeah, it did make me think, you know, I've done lots of meditation in my life and fallen in and out of good practice all the time. I'm definitely out of good practice at the moment. But, you know, even the readings that you gave just in this podcast, you know, just
00:58:23
Speaker
You know, that act of being quiet does not come naturally in our culture, our society, in our monkey minds. And it's a lot easier to throw yourself at work, which I do constantly, you know, which I do quite a bit of.
00:58:39
Speaker
or other activities or other responsibilities in life. And just carving out that time, not for watching television, but for just truly being quiet and sitting with yourself and seeing what
00:58:54
Speaker
what ephemeral notions come out of that is extraordinarily good data, is extraordinarily rich. And I think she just reminded me of that, of like, you know what? You don't have to come in here and look at every piece and see what you're going to see and try to work out what you think of it.
00:59:16
Speaker
fuck that noise you know sit down on this you know this crescent sofa this crescent bench and just be with it and that was just such a powerful invitation and and such a powerful reminder of something i already know which is the best kind of reminder you know it's like yeah
00:59:38
Speaker
That's so beautiful. It's true that I hate the wellness culture nowadays because I think it's stressing us out more than anything and making us very poor because it's very expensive. You're so right. She makes you think of things that you already know about yourself. The other day, and she did have a beautiful painting at Camden with two candles,
01:00:03
Speaker
I was saying to Diogo, you know, getting really tired in the evening, we should do something different. We had this idea when the energy crisis came in and the prices went up. We said, you know, another thing we could do is just light candles in the evening. Because I had read that electricity stimulates you anyway.
01:00:23
Speaker
And as soon as you had electricity, sleeping patterns kind of changed. You went to bed later. It doesn't mean that you don't sleep as well, because I think sometimes you make too much of these things. But it did change the way you sleep. You go to bed later, you don't go into your circadian rhythm as naturally.
01:00:42
Speaker
And so we lit those candles, and I felt so sleepy, like I hadn't felt in a long, long time in the evening, because I have a hard time winding down. And it really brings a quietness. But like we were saying before, quietness is not just quietness. It brought back
01:01:02
Speaker
a kind of connection to darkness. And Tanya Kovac talks about that as well when she moved to the countryside, a connection to the sky outside, even though you don't see much of it in London because of the pollution. And you become hyper aware of little things, little noises, and small pleasures start kind of creeping into your body and your life and your evening. But can I tell you what my thought was?
01:01:29
Speaker
Tell me. As soon as I got in, so I went to the left and there's a very, very blue painting with not a lot of detail in it. Here's one of those that have these flower, algae, scrips kind of patterns in a sort of white overlay and they're in deeper blue and they kind of reveal some doors and some lines in the back. And I just remember feeling a huge wave
01:01:57
Speaker
of summer in Portugal kind of impression. And immediately, because I'm allergic to nostalgia, as I said to you many times before, and immediately I kind of reacted viscerally against it. And I was like, why am I bringing these experiences here? I don't want this. I don't want to be nostalgic. I want to be in the present.
01:02:22
Speaker
And I want to be present for these paintings and I want these paintings to be a presence for me. And then I realized that it wasn't me who was thinking this, it was the work itself that was doing that to me. Because I was making too much space for my own experience and my own memories.
01:02:41
Speaker
maybe someone else will bring their own memories and feel super comfortable about it. I don't think the paintings are prescriptive that way. It was a collaboration, let's say, between the paintings and myself, maybe. So how did that feel then to kind of not think, to not to be sort of have that stream of
01:03:05
Speaker
you know, kind of thoughts whizzing through your mind. So it sounds like those kind of ebbed a bit. Is that right? And how did that feel?
01:03:15
Speaker
It felt playful spending time and just being present within yourself and letting something else kind of take over. And I think that's it, that something else is taking over. And that's something that happens in exhibitions and should happen more maybe, I don't know, or maybe I'm not always available as well. Did you notice the wallpaper in the back?
01:03:37
Speaker
Yeah yeah yeah on the other side of the floating wall so in the room you walk in the main entrance and there's the image with the cat on a big floating wall and you go behind the floating wall and there's a it's basically a still from one of these VHS tapes.
01:03:56
Speaker
No, it's from her video, A Four Star Wedding. That is made from these VHS tapes anyway. It is the lower side of a sort of wreath or a bouquet and you have this ribbon and then you have these flowers that are coming
01:04:16
Speaker
from the top of the of the wall and then there's this sort of fabric you think that's white fabric floaty fabric and you can see that it's a still because i'm looking at my images kind of is bringing everything together and you don't see the pixelization because it's a small picture but when you're there it's highly pixelated
01:04:36
Speaker
You could really see the squares, so you can see that it's taken from an old tape. It felt like a different exhibition, maybe. But I mean, I have a friend who's a curator who said something really, really liberating because people, especially in commercial settings, always say an artist needs to be consistent, there needs to be a thread across the work. And my friend keeps saying, artists don't need to be consistent.
01:05:04
Speaker
And I think it kind of represents another side of her work. She does video work, but it's kind of like a, oh, and did you notice what it was in the room in the back? I did wander in there wondering if it was going to be more Salla, but it was not. And it was like, no, destruction or something. I mean, it was like very, very harsh.
01:05:25
Speaker
And it really jammed up my vibe, I gotta say. I was like, I took about two steps in, looked around and I was like, uh-uh, not doing it. You're not gonna destroy my vibe. I'm gonna go back into the duvet of, you know, Zainab's Allah and the peace and the calm. But yeah, it was, it felt a little bit jarring to go in there after kind of that,
01:05:53
Speaker
magical experience. Yeah. Oh, Emily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is so true. I remember I went back and I thought, oh, let me see. Because you know, you're always like guilt ridden, obviously, that's our natural state, as we saw with baby reindeer. And I thought, gosh, I should maybe go in through the other rooms and just see a bit of the permanent collection.
01:06:22
Speaker
And I, but I was like you, I was like, but I'm so comfortable here and this is so new to me. I want to experience it more. I'm just going to see the room in the back. You are absolutely spot on. It was destruction and it was the Gustav Metzger works that we mentioned in the Yoko Ono exhibition, the Yoko Ono episode. And I thought,
01:06:46
Speaker
Ah, no, no, no, no, no. And it's funny because Yoko Ono, people criticized her for being there. And she herself didn't quite feel that her work was about destruction. Her work is constructive. And it's about building up something out of almost nothing.
01:07:03
Speaker
And it's true that you see Metzger's works with a wooden piece with like ink, kind of patches of ink on it. And then you have Carol Ichniman's performances. And then you have a beautiful Mira Chandel that is in Portuguese, so probably I was the only one or one of the very few people who could read the text.
01:07:22
Speaker
It's not translated. There's so much text all the time everywhere and there where you could use a translation. It's not. And it's a religious text. So it's beautiful because it's the creation from a monotheistic religious perspective. And it's also connected with writing. I love Mira Shandell's work. And I thought it connected really well with Salah. And it's funny because you go around the room and Mira Shandell was the last work I saw and I thought, oh, OK. Yeah.
01:07:51
Speaker
He's going back in again. Hang on to here in this room, yeah.
01:07:57
Speaker
Today is not today, not today, Jose. Yeah, I know. It just really felt like being in a plane crash. You know, it's like you're up there floating around in the sky. And then it's like, kaboom, destruction. I don't even know what I saw. I didn't even look like at anything. I just felt it like I'd sort of scanned the pieces and I was like, no, I'm not doing that. Not today.
01:08:23
Speaker
So Emily, what do exhibitions do? That bears the question.
01:08:32
Speaker
What do we expect from exhibitions? What we're talking about here is that we are preserving the experience of a specific exhibition, but had you not experienced that, you would still feel that that room's quite harsh. It's the 60s and the 60s, it's a very powerful room. So what is it? When do exhibitions kind of harm you or do some nasty stuff to you?
01:09:01
Speaker
What do they do? And I'm asking this because Ariadine really kind of made us also explore what art does.
01:09:10
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, I think, yeah, the Erudin thing was going through my mind as you were saying that, you know, liking it is not exactly the highest honor to give to an exhibition. And I completely agree. I mean, but I mean, what do they do, I guess, is whatever they do. I mean, you know, it's sort of, you know, I mean, it's I mean, I think I think that's the thing about
01:09:37
Speaker
about going is just being open to whatever it is they have on offer and what they're going to do to you, because it's going to be different for you, Joanna, than it is for me, Emily, than it is for all of the listeners. And that's the beauty of it. And I think of all of the things, I think attraction is
01:10:02
Speaker
something to pay attention to. And there's a huge attraction to what Zainab Salah is doing for me, you know, and it sounds like for you too, you know, I mean, so I think that, you know, it is interesting because aesthetically, what I necessarily need feel the need to have something of hers on my wall at home,
01:10:22
Speaker
I don't know, maybe, maybe, I don't know. I mean, but there was certainly an attraction to that room and what those, that collective group of paintings was doing for me and reminding me of.
01:10:35
Speaker
that was really, really valuable for me. But yeah, I mean, I think going into that destruction thing, it was more of a juxtaposition. I went from a state of kind of work mode pressurized. I've got to watch the clock at this exhibition so I can get back and dig into work again.
01:11:00
Speaker
too. Wow, this is amazing. You know, let's just hang out to explore this peaceful interior feeling and then accidentally stepping off that cliff into that destruction room and thankfully clamoring my way back into Zain and Salah. So I mean, I think if I
01:11:21
Speaker
had come in knowing I'm going to see some 1960s brutalism happening in a room or this destruction thing. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. No, no, no. No bad mouthing brutalism, please, in this book. I love it.
01:11:36
Speaker
I love it. I genuinely, I mean the Barbican is a thing of beauty. So what would you say, what's your answer to that? So what would you say is the purpose of exhibitions? What do they do? Well, we've been talking so much, I think, since Moriyama.
01:11:55
Speaker
about the idea of representing and the idea of expressing something and delivering a message, as opposed to maybe question the notion of representation, what it means to represent, and if it's as valuable as we think it is.
01:12:12
Speaker
if maybe we shouldn't deconstruct these notions of representation because it's always about who gets represented, how and what, who is doing it as well and how they're doing it. And that's, you know, Ariadne's writing really kind of struck a chord with me and I've been really thinking about that and thinking about exhibitions and Yoko Ono as well with this idea of creating another space, how art has the power
01:12:42
Speaker
to expand your reality and your horizons rather than just denouncing stuff that you know is happening anyway because you read the newspapers and you listen to the news and you listen to podcasts. Are images really here to tell us what's going on and give us a feeling and tell us that we're so good because we're having this feeling?
01:13:02
Speaker
and we're not racist and we're not this and we're not that. Yeah, I've been really thinking about that. I think these artists have been teaching me a lot and kind of like comforting me in things that I was already thinking, but maybe not with a lot of precision or maybe not thoroughly. And I think exhibitions do that. They expand and contract and they talk to you in a way that a text cannot talk
Art's Nonverbal Communication
01:13:25
Speaker
to you. And they take you to a place that might be nonverbal, that might be more instinctive.
01:13:31
Speaker
and they bring you back to that verbal place again, once you've left. And even language-based art is doing something to language. Rosie Bradoti has a really beautiful text about nomadism. And she says that language, and Irma Blank, the artist, also told me once, words are fossils. So everything that is language is already in the past, if you think about language like that.
01:14:02
Speaker
And Rosie Bradote says that language carries all the white supremacists, imperialists, class powers in itself because it's made by that society.
Exhibitions vs. Other Art Forms
01:14:18
Speaker
So we have to be nomads in language. And when we were writers, we need to deconstruct that language and interrogate it and maybe work it a little bit and change it.
01:14:29
Speaker
So even when you're really working with language, you have to question yourself, what words you're using and how you're using them. So I don't know, for me, I'm just thinking lately and maybe thanks to the podcast and thanks to you as well and to the ideas you bring to the table.
01:14:47
Speaker
how you react to things and watching someone else so vividly reacting to the same exhibitions I go to and being available to talk about them for an hour or more than that is really making me think about the power they have and that they lack nowadays. It's not inscribed in society anymore, but when we start thinking about them, they are ever so powerful and ever so resistant to trends and to
01:15:14
Speaker
one-liners and two, especially artists we've been looking at. So I think exhibitions do a lot and it's quite difficult to say what they do exactly. And I'm thankful that I'm able to see these exhibitions and to dig into them and to bring them to our listeners as well.
01:15:33
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, I think I would not be seeing as many questions as I do if it weren't for this podcast. I mean, I've always looked at them, but it's like, again, if eight Britons only open from 10 to six, when the heck am I going to go? Except for on a weekend, which are already quite packed. Yes. So it's been great to have the impetus to do it. And it's been
01:15:58
Speaker
I mean, I've always loved going to exhibitions with you, which is why this was even interesting in the first place. But it's been nice too. It's like sharing the excitement about them with others as well. So I just had a casual chat with a woman at work this week.
01:16:18
Speaker
about Zain Absala, but also in the context of the two previous of Yoko Ono and Aria Dean, and just sort of this journey that we've been on with the three of them in particular. And it's just been really nice to share that with other people. And she was like, oh, Aria Dean. And where Aria Dean is showing is right around the corner from work. And I was like, go. They are actually open late. It's only a five-year-old. They are. Yes, bless them. I know. I know, right?
01:16:48
Speaker
and it's only a fiver to go and you know just I would love to know what you think so I don't know maybe she'll go maybe she won't but it's it's fun to to share you know these unique experiences with others
01:17:04
Speaker
And it is something different than a show. It's great to talk to you about Baby Reindeer. But I would say it's almost at the same level as Zeynep Salas' work, Baby Reindeer.
01:17:21
Speaker
is a masterpiece, and I hate that word. I know, I know. Just putting it out there, you know, it's really good. But it's not the same language. And it's a language that we're more used to in our society than I see. Of course, I understand what you're saying. Yeah. And it's like, you're right, it would be wonderful to just
01:17:43
Speaker
If you went to work and at the water cooler, it might be just as common for someone to say, wow, I went to this exhibition. And as it would be to, wow, I just saw this thing on Netflix. I mean, what a different world it would be. Would it be better? I don't know. It would be maybe broader, maybe the
01:18:09
Speaker
Yes, broader. Yeah, the level or the breadth of experience at least would be, you know, absolutely a wider aperture than it is at the moment, which would be interesting. Yeah, for sure. So is this the right time to ask you what painting, drawing
01:18:29
Speaker
What do you take home? You know what? I am going to do the cat. I'm doing the cat. I'm doing the cat. You are. Look at you. I am. Wow. Just because, you know, there's something about the relationship that the viewer had, the angle you talked about.
01:18:47
Speaker
that is just so inviting to just take a note from that cat's playbook and lie down on some rugs on the floor. Just stop and see what happens. And maybe, maybe like the cat, maybe some
01:19:06
Speaker
Powerful spiritual imagery will come through or you know, maybe you'll just find some time to rest But it also just brought to mind Trisha Hershey this woman who wrote Who's done this whole? Movement really about rest is resistance and she has a book by the same name. She has a organization called the Nat Ministry which is about
01:19:33
Speaker
which is about just taking rest, like real rest when you can, because everybody needs it in this hustle culture. But she's brilliant. But anyway, it kind of brought to mind that as well, that it's like it can be this quiet in terms of a place of seeing what emerges, but it also can just be a place of quiet because
01:19:55
Speaker
you need a rest. So I think I'd go with that one. Since I was a kid, I said sleeping was akin to dying, didn't like it, was waste of time. Totally. My undiagnosed ADHD kicking. Exactly. So it was reading a book by Ursula K. Le Guin called The Word for World is Forest.
01:20:22
Speaker
where there's these tribes of people, of aliens, who value much more their sleeping state and dream state than their awakened state. So it's exactly the opposite to us. And they speak telepathically. And everything that is truthful, meaningful, spiritual comes to them in their dreams.
01:20:46
Speaker
And that changed me. It's so funny. Sometimes I just need something a little nudge, because I had also been reading other things about these kinds of perceptions of the mind and what the mind does. And it just made me think, yeah, if you're trained, if you're attuned to what's going on and what your brain is doing, like lucid dreaming,
01:21:11
Speaker
Of course, of course. That makes complete sense. And I reconnected with the notion of sleeping because neurologically, your cells are just rebuilding as you sleep. You are actually healing through sleep and your body can do that. And if you trusted your body a bit more,
01:21:29
Speaker
But anyway, going back to the artworks, I would take two of them. I'm greedy like that. And I would take one with a door on the left and with a rug just hanging suspended in space. And then another one of the big
01:21:49
Speaker
flower-like shapes that are darker in a sort of sea of whiteness that reveal stuff in the back that you quite don't know what it is. I have to do some more soul searching. Am I being nostalgic? Maybe I am. I don't know. I'm nostalgic of the exhibition already.
01:22:08
Speaker
Mark the calendar, the day that Moana was nostalgic. I like it. But yeah, the one with the doorway, I'm with you. I think that I would very, very happily take that one home. There's so much there. Oh, God. I mean, honestly, Zaina, we're going to be talking about her for years. I mean, she's a caper.
01:22:32
Speaker
She's a keeper. She's 30, you know, so beautiful to see younger people kind of reinventing stuff and reinventing these languages that we have since prehistory. It's beautiful. And I think that's also the kind of thing that takes me and makes me think of prehistoric drawings or paintings or whatever you want to call them. It's quite, it doesn't really matter. These inscriptions on the walls are so skilled when you see them and for real, it's just
01:23:00
Speaker
so incredible and at the same time so simple. And, you know, there's these theories of, oh, these were rituals. These were made for rituals. These were the things they hunted or whatever. And maybe it's the same thing as in this exhibition. It's just markers of something that you can't quite say with words and that just kind of bring it back to you with the kind of skill of the line
01:23:25
Speaker
and the magic of the color that you take from... Do you only think that really... You know what? You only think that really kind of...
01:23:33
Speaker
kind of always bugs me now, but I think it's also a problem of perception, is that she uses acrylic, and acrylic is incredibly polluting. But I have many friends who work with acrylic, cannot work with anything else. It's what they grew up with, it's what they're familiar with. You know what you did, Joanna? You know what you did? You just brought us into the destruction room. Brought us from Sane and Silo. We crossed us over the threshold. You have crashed as we played.
01:24:08
Speaker
So what do we have next? Do you know, do you remember who we're going to get to next? Yes. So we're going to talk about Sufiana Barbry's installation at the curve, which is a very special exhibition space at the Barbican, which you just referred to. So the exhibition is open until the 30th of June. And by the way, just to mention something a bit more positive, like I'm really making an effort here. Salah's exhibition is free.
01:24:29
Speaker
I did! I took a straight to Gustav Metzger.
01:24:35
Speaker
Yeah. And Sufiana Barbaries as well. Great. All right. Well, look, it's a wrap. Thank you so much. This is great. I mean, what a, what a joyful. Yeah. I don't know the whole thing. I loved it. I loved Zainab. I love the chat. Baby reindeer. Yeah. So thank you. This is lovely.
01:24:55
Speaker
What a wholesome episode, right? Thank you for, you know, sticking with us. I hope we brought you some joy with this episode and some lightness and some quiet, you know, much needed quiet. And, you know, I'll just say thank you, Emily, as well. It was such a beautiful experience today. OK, everybody, thanks so much for listening and look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you, everyone. Bye bye. See you next time.