Categorical Imperatives

By: Anni Venalainen

This exhibition shows a collection of works that each reflects the subject of Kantian categorical imperative. Categorical imperative can be defined as a rule that advises us to act in accordance with what we would want to be a universal law. This underlying theme connecting these works is not always obviously manifested in each individual piece. These works cannot be said to present a maxim that would sum up the piece, as would be the case with children’s stories that end with a simplified moral lesson. If there is a lesson it is rather something that the viewer needs to find.

Ayman Ramadan is using Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper as a reference point for his work Iftar (2004). The set-up of Da Vinci’s painting resembles the Islamic breaking of the daily sunrise-to-sunset fast (’Iftar’ in Arabic) during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Each afternoon during Ramadan free food is provided for all those who cannot afford a meal and also those men away from home who have come to the city to work. The similarities between Last Supper and the tradition of Iftar are not only visual, but there are also other parallels that bring in the religious tradition. In his work Ramadan underlines the aspect of equality and social justice in Islam, which is in contrast with the fact that extreme poverty in Egypt within the working class persists.

Ayman Ramadan says that his work is always inspired by his immediate environment, typically downtown Cairo and popular urban culture and street culture. He grew up in a small village in the district of Sharqiya, 50 kilometers out of Cairo, where according to him, family and community are top priorities in society. The only jobs available for most of the young people from that are in the nearby city of Benha or the factories of Cairo. Ramadan says that moving to Cairo in search of work, the impact was enormous in terms of the chaos of the city, and also in terms of his sense of community and human relationships. He attempts to channel his experiences through his work, trying to make visible things that often stay overlooked or otherwise taken-for-granted elements of the life and society. Ramadan says that through his work he wants to provoke the viewer to consider issues relating to labor, the anonymity of the individual in the urban landscape, and frustrations stemming from local political realities.

Religion, church and art bind together in the Christianity forming the core of western pictorial tradition and art history. By using Da Vinci’s work Ramadan shows the common history of East and West and how the roots of our cultural and religious heritages are mixed and equally bound together. This way the mysterious “other” is brought closer. Charity is a fundamental virtue in both Islam and Christianity. Sharing food together on the other hand is one of the most profound things in humanity. You may say that as a metaphor sharing food means sharing beliefs and values.

There is another theme in Last Supper that perhaps needs more attention. We are familiar with what happened to Jesus after the meal he shared with his disciples. The political tension currently happening between East and West makes one ponder who plays the roles of martyr and the traitor here. As the viewer our perspectives become challenged and we need to look for our own position in relation to this scene. Where do we place ourselves? By the table or somewhere in the shadows observing the event? There are also no women dining here. Exclusion of women both in Christian and Muslim traditions gives women the role of somebody mourning the martyr. This work can also be seen from a conceptual arts point of view as a piece studying art history, history of religion or the way that art tells stories of religion and history, and furthermore how art is also used as a means of education. In the background we hear Arvo Pärt’s piece Fratres,which also has Christian religious connotations.

The theme of food continues in Khaled Ramadan’s Hysterma (2009). This is most of all a conceptual art work. In this four minute video we see filmmaker Raed Yassin sitting by a table in the street of Cairo. People and cars are going by. He eats a falafel sandwich. This work refers to Andy Warhol’s video where we see the artist sitting by a table with the American flag, eating a hamburger and then announcing that he just did what we saw him doing. In the same manner Raed Yassin states in Arabic that he just finished a falafel. When he says this, he claims the falafel to be his cultural heritage. The culture of food can also be a means of colonization like we see what is happening with big hamburger companies spreading around the world. For instance, there is hardly a place on earth that doesn’t have an American fast food joint today. The existing reality, however silly, of  “who invented the falafel” between Israelis and Arabs is part of the larger conflict in the Middle East and different players involved. This video was a reaction to the 2008 war between Israel and some Palestinian militants.

Raed Yassin’s The New Film (2008) is a montage of snap shots from Egyptian films from the 1980s to the present day. In every shot we see President Hosni Mubarak’s portrait hanging on the wall of an office where officials bark at their subordinates and people who arrive telling about their concerns. The omnipresent president watches over his subjects like a supernatural eye that sees into minds and thoughts. The artist is using ready-made footage to comment on the political circumstances where artists try to express their points of view. By always cutting into the president’s portrait he makes his point through the material that has received the official seal of approval succeeding to actually make it look like something other than what it was originally intended.

A different side of the everyday life is studied in a work called The Sea Is a Stereo by Mounira Al Solh. This work is an ongoing series of reflections on a group of men who swim everyday at the beach in Beirut regardless of the circumstances: rain, wind, war, etc.

Al Solh says that even as we read this, the men might be swimming or preparing themselves to jump into the water. The part of the project now seen, called Paris Without A Sea focuses on interviews that Al Solh has conducted with the men. Al Solh has lip-synchronized her voice over the men’s voices, which immediately puts everything that is said in an unexpected light. By asking the men about basic and almost banal matters she touches on much deeper social issues.

By using her voice Al Solh seems to be making fun of the men. But why is it that a woman’s voice makes men look ridiculous? As we see, this trick is actually loaded with the issue of the women as the “other” of the patriarchy or the male dominated world. Again humor is used as a way of talking about serious or painful issues. Yet the artist takes on the funny side of the matter thus disarming the men or assaulting their masculinity and depriving the men’s control over themselves. In a way these men appear to be “possessed” if we think of the Arabian folklore with wandering spirits and genies. Furthermore it recalls the cheapest way of dubbing films and tv-programs by using one single voice to perform all of the roles.

Al Solh’s strategy makes it obvious how foolish the men sound with their machismo and their arrogant statements, when they try to maintain their status while Al Solh is asking them silly questions. The everlasting male vanity makes them an easy target for ridicule.

They show their muscles and boast about the distances they’ve swum. They also brag about their womanizing and girlfriends in a manner that is not very far from the stories of catching big fish, which makes the viewer doubt the truthfulness of the stories. Some of them seem however a little uneasy as if suspecting that the artist has a double agenda. Nevertheless they end up playing by her rules. Many things here lie between the lines; things that are not spoken out straight but are nonetheless there. In her work Al Solh is bringing in the female voice. She is addressing the men in a very equal or even condescending manner, pressing them to give her answers.  This way she is using a counter strategy of patronizing, pointing it back to the men.

Dalia Al-Kury’s work Caution! Comment Ahead (2006) continues the same theme of the power relations between men and women. In her documentary work Al-Kury investigates why there are so many men ready to verbally harass women on the streets. Traveling on the roads of Amman she is trying to find out what is going on in the men’s heads.  Her work highlights the social, psychological and moral complexity, the reasons that have happened to normalize this daily practiced phenomenon of catcalling.

Al-Kury states that although Caution! Comment Ahead was her first documentary film it was widely screened in all the cities of Jordan and aired nine times on the most popular Arabic Television station MBC channels. She says that the popularity of this film confirmed her belief in the necessity to talk about what is supposed to be seen simply as a casual and normal street phenomenon. According to the artist this film stirred a controversial debate about woman’s continuous fight to walk in the streets without being verbally harassed. She says that the film also empowered women to take their rightful place on the street more seriously and made men realize that women are truly uninterested in being "flattered" in this way. When asked straight it is very seldom if ever that anybody can give a convincing and justifiable reason for sexual harassment which is always based on the offensive chauvinistic attitudes in the society.

We stay at the level of an individual also in Najib Mrad’s work Lebanese Cockroach (2007).  According to the artist this work was inspired by the moment in his life when he was about to get his drivers license, and was preparing himself to be a part of his country as a full citizen. He says he was then discovering that there were so many conflicts in the government of Lebanon as well as chaos in the everyday life and the relationships between people that the circumstances prevented him many times from achieving his goals. Mrad says he made this film to show how a small insect which here is the alter ego of the artist, a young guy, a harmless creature who tries to make his way through big Lebanon, a city full of conflicts and chaos. In his work Mrad makes a remark on those many Lebanese who have left their country to live elsewhere and how it is not always necessarily better there, as well as showing the way people who stayed think of those who have left.

All of the works in the exhibition Categorical Imperatives one way or another deal with socially related issues. They study ideologies, moral concerns, religion, and politics as well as gender issues. With the title we want to encourage people to reflect on their own opinions and attitudes in relation to the subjects dealt with in the works and the thoughts that the works provoke.

Anni Venäläinen

Visual artist MA and Co-curator of Categorical Imperatives