Abdulnasser Gharem and the Art of War: The Saudi artist on his mission to uncover an “unofficial history” | Rolling Stone Middle East | 3 March 2011 | by Adam Grundey

There aren’t many artists who are trained to kill. And you don’t hear of many soldiers who say stuff like, “We need a philosophical analysis of the relationship between the technological and the natural.” Abdulnasser Gharem is an unusual man, then. A lieutenant colonel in the Saudi army, Gharem is also a conceptual artist described by Wheel Me Out as the “rock star of Saudi contemporary art.” Which is, admittedly, a little like being called “the outspoken Trappist monk.” Still, the point is Gharem is a deeply unconventional figure (he admits his paradoxical lifestyle “sometimes confuses me”). And he’s an inspiration in a scene – and society – that’s long been hamstrung by convention.

In one of his best-known pieces of performance art, “Flora and Fauna,” he wrapped himself and a tree in plastic, implying he was surviving on the oxygen produced by the tree. He didn’t do this in a gallery, but in the middle of a street in Saudi Arabia. It was a kind of protest against the importation of conocarpus erectus – the tree is originally a native of Australia and was brought into Saudi Arabia as part of a beautification project, where it unfortunately ended up killing a bunch of its new neighbors as its roots spread horizontally, interfering with those of the native trees. Gharem’s performance was unlike anything the people of the city had ever seen before.

In the Middle East, art is more commonly something you’ve already seen a thousand times – a horse galloping through the surf, an abaya-clad woman sat with her back against the wooden door of an old villa, a falcon. These are the kind of things that Gharem started off drawing at Al Miftaha Art Village near his hometown of Abha in the south of Saudi Arabia. “There were no museums, no galleries, no books,” says Gharem of growing up in Abha. “As an artist, really, these things make you crazy. You don’t know where to start if you want to do something. But I didn’t give up.” Encouraged by one of his teachers, Gharem headed to Al Miftaha. “Most of the artists from our region were there and we started to exchange experiences.”

But he soon found that “drawing butterflies or flowers didn’t seem reasonable” given the conflicts raging throughout the Middle East. “We were classical painters, always doing landscapes,” he says. “And if you looked around you, there were all these wars. They would keep saying we should change. They’d keep saying it. So I said to myself, ‘I think a real artist is one who makes a change, rather than saying they should make a change.’ It’s not only in art; in politics, in economics, everyone says we should make a change, but no one does anything.”

So Gharem changed his art. Which was when his family lost interest in it. “In the beginning, they supported me a lot,” he says. “But lately they’ve said it’s kind of a weird thing. They don’t really talk about it anymore. When I was drawing colorful things, giving them a massage for the eyes, they were so happy. But when they saw artwork that made them think, made them analyze the things around them, they said, ‘OK, we won’t bother.’” It’s a common attitude in the region when it comes to art. “But I don’t blame anyone,” Gharem continues. “There’s no medium in Saudi for people to see what’s going on. No one is educating society now.”

That’s a role Gharem sees himself fulfilling through his art. In “The Path” – which he says is his favorite work – he restored a bridge that had collapsed during a flash flood in the Eighties, taking with it a number of villagers who had gathered there, thinking it would withstand the onrushing water. He then covered the bridge with countless repetitions of the word “sarat” in Arabic (meaning “the path”). “It’s an important word not only to Muslims, who mention it thousands of times in prayer during their lives, but in most religions and ideologies people are looking for the right path,” says Gharem. He adds that in pieces like this one he is trying to “write an unofficial history, things that don’t get mentioned in the official books. It’s my mission to put things on the agenda.

“Those people died because they put their faith in concrete,” he continues. “Not only that, but they believed a man who told them it was the safest place. He said, ‘Follow me’ and they went. That’s what I’m trying to analyze visually. Nowadays, people think it’s not good to think for themselves. Most Arab people don’t think for themselves. It’s like the culture of the sheep. I don’t believe in it. I like the culture of the individual. I like to have my individual opinion.”

Gharem has taken his work – and his message – overseas. His work has been shown in Los Angeles, London and Venice, amongst other cities, and this month he’s in Dubai for two exhibitions. He’s particularly keen to gain greater exposure in the Middle East, as he feels that in the rush to develop their cities, many regional leaders have neglected “the development of humanity.”

“In this region, they develop these big buildings, these big cities, but they don’t develop the people or the environment. They show you these big 3D presentations of cities, but what does it give to humanity? Nothing. It’s hard to believe these ‘Economic Cities’ and other developments will succeed, because we are not developed in our administrative systems or bureaucracy,” Gharem says. “That’s the secret message in my artwork. I’m not saying it’s bad or wrong, I’m trying to help. I want to help my people make a future for themselves. That’s my mission.”