Nathalie Leleu* Bassel Al-Saadi - Sculpture as a Conductor The sculptures of Bassel Al-Saadi have their feet on the ground - even those that hang on walls. Forms and not figures, substances without being bodies, his works do not exclude reality by a mimic representation. Solid or void alike, these works are in a direct connection with their energy. Such objects obviously function as conductors- the same way water carries electricity- thanks to the iron formation. Just like earth that communicates with each of our steps by transmitting into us the energy of its mess, the iron-carved space aims at catching the fluids that drive the earth, the sea and all that inhabits them and restoring them in forms to finally, grant them the chance to exist throughout exposition. Translating the vibration, sensation and instinct into a mass is the foundation of Bassel Al-Saadis artistic project, while his works are transmitters of one conscience to another. Initiated by totemic and monumental structures that are positioned in a specific manner, Bassel Al-Saadis sculptures managed to define, with the passage of time, their own space of exposition inside a quadrilateral that is totally detached from its environment; a box that contains and solidifies, at the same time, elements of the sculpture. The box is, within the same space, deaf and playful: a sky and an earth of a scale-less world. Several boxes form a sequence that is developed horizontally and/or vertically. Thus, a sculpture would assimilate an organism that lives on the dynamic relation existent among its elements. All elements are drawn from the vocabulary of geometry, such fragments of circles and squares, ellipses and triangles, formulate together a space that is identical to ours. They follow the same path of our bodies and reach the same levels to which our bodies extend. These Kleine Welten (small worlds)- developed by Vassily Kandinsky in the two dimension painting in another continent and in a different century, introduce an alternative sensual perception in terms of nature and culture. The sequence of boxes amplifies the mobility of forms that the eye beholds from one part to another. Until, perhaps, it absorbs these spaces that are seemingly artificial yet all too familiar. The sculpture may be a question of a spatial equation of sensation: this is a hypothesis that can only be verified by experience. These works breathe with their environs, within a system of communicative vases making the sculpture a place for reception, a place for life. This space of transition is an echo, in the history of Western Contemporary Art, of Merzbau (1923-) and of the German Kurt Schwitters whose apartment in Hanover was partially transformed into a field of experiments with an abstract identity. On the walls and ceilings, there are masses of transplantations, among others, which were modeled by Schwitters carving, thus, a real resonance of his internal scene. Through these similarities, we seek to clarify the intimate and intestine relation between the work and the person inside a space that is, by all means, inhabited. Bassel Al-Saadi is used to saying that he seeks in his work to create a vital space, regardless of the contingencies. (BASSEL : I do not quote you but I can do it if you prefer, I have the original sentence recorded). East and West do not handle the weight of contingencies in the same way or, even less, the meaning of signs. In 2002, Moroccan philosopher and sociologist Abdul Kebir Khatibi presented an analysis of the Arab contemporary art in an essay, where he re-defined concepts by saying: The contemporariness constitutes in itself a node for several plastic identities. It is a fabric of images and signs and an abstraction of the Arab-Islamic art taken from the sign civilization where a book, with its calligraphy and decorative power, remained a temple that gives meaning to all visualizations; this abstraction of pure and geometric forms does not have the same history or the same esthetic composition of the Western abstract art. Bridges among the different cultures existed and still do, but the challenge lies in understanding how signs (codes) communicate and travel. Almost twenty years ago, the internationalization of the art market and the circuits of production/exposition (Biennale... etc.) paved the way for a globalized civilization of inter-signs which Khatibi sees as a dangerous trend because it leads to the erosion of differences and of territories. A while before that, geo-politics imposed their esthetic features on pictorial and figurative or abstract currents that prevail in Maghreb and the Middle East, under a strong influence of modern European schools (but not contemporary ones) as a result of colonial and semi-colonial cultures. Sculpture is not a penetrable field, and this is why its excluded from the recognized and well known domain of architecture in the Arab culture. The question of its function has not been resolved yet in the environment of contemporary art. Sculpture, in Syria, is shyly present in an essentially figurative form that is worked by using noble raw materials on a monumental level and in public spaces. Amongst exceptions that prove the opposite, Bassel Al-Saadi survived the conformity to French, Italian and East European academies after the World War that had influenced and formed the first generation of Fine Art graduates in Damascus. Born in Beirut in 1971 with a Syrian nationality, Bassel Al-Saadi is self-taught and is running the heritage of his national culture with the means available at his time, especially the internet. Workshops and exhibitions in which he participated in the Netherlands, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan and France have opened up new horizons, and so did his numerous readings to which he abundantly refers as he speaks. Calder, for example, taught him the syntax for assembling the different forms, Anthony Caro taught him how to turn the ordinary to beautiful, David Smith from whom he learnt how to invent a space, following Jackson Pollock in the quality of artistic gesture, and finally Donald Judd with his ideally ontological forms. We can also whisper to him names like Eduardo Chillida and, before him, Julio González in the early 20th century: the brilliant iron assembler. As well as other names that had influenced such people. Bassel Al-Saadi learned how to find limits in his personal project and he does not aspire to follow the steps of Western sculpture of the twentieth century. The main reference for Syrian sculpture remains Marwan Kassab Bashi, a Syrian artist who immigrated to Germany since 1957. He is glorious in his country because of his overflowing activity and generosity with the generations that followed. Likewise, Youssef Abdelki, is another prominent sculptor. He is a Syrian painter who returned in Damascus after 25 years of exile in Paris and succeeded in maintaining a constructive dialogue with the entire art scene in Syria. None of these two artists is fundamentally a sculptor or an abstractor in the sense of the word, but they are influential in their country. Their artistic practices remain openly questionable while contributing to the circulation of ideas and forms that surround them. It is not the literal transportation of signs, nor the inter-signs trend which was evoked by Khatibi, that relates Al-Saadis works to the formal vocabulary of European and American abstractors. His works synthesize a multi-central approach: an approach that is a combination, and sometimes a paradox, of building the future with present conscience and past memories. Once again, the conducting and dynamic character of these sculptures is unquestionably a great asset as it places the interior of bodies and spirits so as to become a confluence of signs. Mobile bodies and spirits, migrating signs, but a perception of time and space with fixed coordinates. The viewers experience is not easy: no mimetic images, no social reference to facilitate this relation. The aesthetic dissection of the internal space is a tricky task in the Arab community where appearance is a value in itself as opposed to being explosive in the Western society, where interiority became a subject for media interpretation. For this reason, the intimate practice set by Bassel Al-Saadi, in his own country as well as other such places, is far from provocation or instrumentalism. The private and the public can be found in various forms in all societies and filters are more than diverse. Art has often worked as an intermediate between these two dimensions. Today, it continues to function as such, and in everywhere. *Nathalie Leleu has been part of the curatorial and management office of the Musée national dart moderne /Centre de création industrielle - Centre Georges Pompidou
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 14:17:16 +0000
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