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ro Binnale 13th 2019On the Orient and Orientalism: Do We Really Care?
For over two hundred years painters and explorers from the Occident –simply the West,
precisely from the European continent, who came from Empires the colonized the ancient
world-- took fascination from what they saw as “the exotic Orient”. Particular interest among
those adventurers and artists rose to the level of “obsession” with the Arab-speaking terri-
tories of the Orient, a space of particular interest throughout history: ancient, modern and
contemporary.
Edward Said in his 1978 seminal and groundbreaking oeuvre “Orientalism” elaborates that
the term itself, Orientalism, provided a rationalization for European colonialism based on
a self-serving history in which “the West” constructed “the East” as extremely different and
inferior, and therefore in need of Western intervention or “rescue”. Simple as it is, the term
involves a way of seeing the other (the Arab) that justifies an ongoing system of domina-
tion. A clear and distinct line is thus drawn between the Orient –with its people-- and the
Occident, as East versus West, mindsets positioned as competitive and not as collaborative
cultures within the very same civilization. The problematic is that such views became es-
tablished and accepted by mainstream academia, and propagated by mainstream media.
Ever since Said’s clarifications of such an impasse, ones that became references once we
address any concept of “the Other”, were subject of countless international exhibitions,
among which was also the theme of our very last Cairo Biennale back in 2010, simply en-
titled “The Other. Since 2001, such misconceptions emphasize, exaggerates and distorts
differences of Orient / Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of the civilized and
cultured Occident. The Orient is almost always viewed as exotic, backward, uncivilized,
and at times dangerous.
Then an ending century and another begins, a fast two decades elapse: years that have seen
more propositions from great minds like Antonio Gramsci who addresses confrontation and
cultural hegemony, to Michel Foucault’s reflections on knowledge production and power,
and the stagnation of the Orient on such fronts, with Edward Said’s criticism of such schol-
arly propositions (we can add to the pile the likes of Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami) that
come from outsiders who hypothesize on the Orient’s culture (s) from outside.
While creating our Eyes East Bound Cairo Biennale 13 today, we believe that we are at an
age of post “everything”. We share the belief of John Berger, who believes that we have
always been seduced –and many times cheated—by elaborative text proposed by profes-
sionals; words that are transformed from simple “hypothesis” to “factual reference” by time;
simply by age. The consequences are always a reality that lacks clarity, relativity is ultimate-
ly lost, and the prison of terms and expressions follow.
Eyes East Bound is an attempt to shed light on the universality and timelessness of the art and
its makers, collaboratively and non-confrontationally, apart from all barriers and frontiers of
ideology and geopolitics.
Ehab El-Labban
Artistic Director of the Biennale Cairo, 2019
13
For over two hundred years painters and explorers from the Occident –simply the West,
precisely from the European continent, who came from Empires the colonized the ancient
world-- took fascination from what they saw as “the exotic Orient”. Particular interest among
those adventurers and artists rose to the level of “obsession” with the Arab-speaking terri-
tories of the Orient, a space of particular interest throughout history: ancient, modern and
contemporary.
Edward Said in his 1978 seminal and groundbreaking oeuvre “Orientalism” elaborates that
the term itself, Orientalism, provided a rationalization for European colonialism based on
a self-serving history in which “the West” constructed “the East” as extremely different and
inferior, and therefore in need of Western intervention or “rescue”. Simple as it is, the term
involves a way of seeing the other (the Arab) that justifies an ongoing system of domina-
tion. A clear and distinct line is thus drawn between the Orient –with its people-- and the
Occident, as East versus West, mindsets positioned as competitive and not as collaborative
cultures within the very same civilization. The problematic is that such views became es-
tablished and accepted by mainstream academia, and propagated by mainstream media.
Ever since Said’s clarifications of such an impasse, ones that became references once we
address any concept of “the Other”, were subject of countless international exhibitions,
among which was also the theme of our very last Cairo Biennale back in 2010, simply en-
titled “The Other. Since 2001, such misconceptions emphasize, exaggerates and distorts
differences of Orient / Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of the civilized and
cultured Occident. The Orient is almost always viewed as exotic, backward, uncivilized,
and at times dangerous.
Then an ending century and another begins, a fast two decades elapse: years that have seen
more propositions from great minds like Antonio Gramsci who addresses confrontation and
cultural hegemony, to Michel Foucault’s reflections on knowledge production and power,
and the stagnation of the Orient on such fronts, with Edward Said’s criticism of such schol-
arly propositions (we can add to the pile the likes of Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami) that
come from outsiders who hypothesize on the Orient’s culture (s) from outside.
While creating our Eyes East Bound Cairo Biennale 13 today, we believe that we are at an
age of post “everything”. We share the belief of John Berger, who believes that we have
always been seduced –and many times cheated—by elaborative text proposed by profes-
sionals; words that are transformed from simple “hypothesis” to “factual reference” by time;
simply by age. The consequences are always a reality that lacks clarity, relativity is ultimate-
ly lost, and the prison of terms and expressions follow.
Eyes East Bound is an attempt to shed light on the universality and timelessness of the art and
its makers, collaboratively and non-confrontationally, apart from all barriers and frontiers of
ideology and geopolitics.
Ehab El-Labban
Artistic Director of the Biennale Cairo, 2019
13
