Middle East Europe at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art

The opening of DOX’s new exhibition Middle East Europe on Wednesday evening was full to the brim. This was a joyous contrast to many of my previous visits, which have seen staff outnumber visitors to an embarrassing and undeserved degree. 

This new exhibition presents the contemporary and conceptual work of a number of European artists responding to the Middle Eastern conflict and considers the historical connections between continental Europe and the Middle East, contrasting anti-Semitism with Islamophobia.

But is a film reconstruction of real life events (albeit one accompanied by a mock-up of the bloody dorm room where at least one of the Israeli Olympiads was murdered) art? Is it important? The film is interesting historically, but does not seem to add significant dimensions to the events themselves.

The exhibition’s press release tells us: “Many artists find the roots of today’s [Middle East] problem in European anti-Semitism”. Fine, although this is not a terrifically original interpretation – akin to what many high school essays on “The causes of the current Arab-Israeli conflict” will also suggest.  Certain installations provide a fresh perspective on this though, including Yael Bartana’s (fictional) film about Polish Jews returning from Israel to Poland. 

This is an eerie and moving piece. A montage shows the establishment of a new kibbutz and returnees commencing a fresh life in Poland: members learning Polish and women planting flowers outside their make-shift wooden huts. All too quickly, though, a watch tower is erected and the settlement is covered with barbed wire, grotesquely similar to a concentration camp or the modern guarded settlements in the West Bank.

März’s work is constructed on the imaginary premise that Kafka did not die from tuberculosis in 1924, but actually travelled to the Middle East with his monkey-friend as a companion. He died at a grand old age and went to heaven (which is a place where you have to tolerate one hundred versions of yourself – can you imagine?) until he was granted a reprieve and allowed to return to earth, to Israel. Due to an unfortunate mix-up Kafka actually landed in modern day Palestine, where he has been trying to cross to Israel ever since, all the time writing letters to various government officials.

Got it? No?  Throw into the mix dozens of small but vividly painted figurines of Kafka, lots of frog maquettes and some red-eared donkeys and you’re nearly there. In the notes I made during the opening night I scribbled “A mixture of genius and utter nonsense”.  I have reconsidered this since and will now settle for “Weird but strangely compelling, and very colourful.”

I heard the mutterings of a number of visitors complain that the exhibition did not offer much in the way of ‘art’. I agree that there is not much in Middle East Europe that will make a viewer think “gosh, I wish I could paint like that”. But this misses the point. This exhibition is highly conceptual and politicised, and thoroughly interesting. American artist Sol LeWitt provided a definition of conceptual art, suggesting “In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.”  Middle East Europe is very, very, conceptual. 

Showing until 20 April 2012 at DOX – Centre for Contemporary Art, Poupětova 1, Praha 7

The chillier months of January and February are a good time to explore Prague’s galleries and museums, and there’s a lot to see.  These four particularly stand out:

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