A couple of weeks ago Hamid Dabashi's article “Can Non-Europeans Think?” was making the usual hype motions on the web. The New York-based Iranian professor took righteous offense at Santiago Zambala's list of the "important and active philosophers today," which failed to name any thinker thinking outside Europe (except for Judith Butler [does New York count as Europe?]), and used the opportunity to reflect on the geography of Philosophy's exclusions:

They are the inheritors of multiple (now defunct) empires and they still carry within them the phantom hubris of those empires and they think their particular philosophy is “philosophy” and their particular thinking is “thinking”, and everything else is - as the great European philosopher Immanuel Levinas was wont of saying – “dancing”.

The ‘Eurocentrism’ which Dabashi finds in Zambala's list of good philosophers merits the analogy with Levinas (more on him here), whose dancing remark is intended to emphasise the history of this exclusion of non-European thinkers. Thought conversely, the task and activity of philosophy is not so different from that of dancing. But I'm thinking of different philosophers. In an early work, Karl Marx defined the task of his criticism in terms of dancing: ‘these petrified social conditions must be made to dance by singing their own melody to them. The people must be taught to be terrified of itself, in order to give it courage.' This philosophy would not, according to Dabashi's marriage of Zambala and Levinas, be considered "important and active"; perhaps then it is only these unimportant philosophers - Marx and the non-Europeans - who are able to see how the best forms of thinking, speaking and writing are always already a kind of dancing.

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Sufis beat drums during the Dhikr at Mawlid celebrations. Phil Moore, 2012.[/caption] Phil Moore is a photojournalist currently working in Islamabad but mostly based in East Africa. These images are from his 2012 series Sufism in Sudan. The following text is his own.

"If there is a family in Sudan that does not have at least one Sufi member, it is not Sudanese."

Sufism is the mystical element of Islam, with sufis first coming to Sudan in the sixteenth century.

Every Friday at the Hamid el-Nil mosque in Omdurman, groups of sufis come together to engage in the dhikr. Come Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Mohamed (and a celebration which is seen as haram in certain groups of Muslims), thousands of sufis come together across the capital to hear stories about the prophet, pray and dance together.

[caption id="attachment_62131" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Sufis sit during a recital of stories of the life of the Prophet Mohamed during Mawlid celebrations.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_62132" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Mawlid celebrations, Omdurman.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_62133" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Mawlid celebrations in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_62136" align="aligncenter" width="549"] A Sudanese lady fries doughnuts during celebrations for Mawlid.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_62137" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Sufis celebrate the birth of the Prophet Mohamed for Mawlid in Omdurman.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_62138" align="aligncenter" width="549"] A Sudanese man threads Islamic prayer beads to sell during Mawlid celebrations.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_62139" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Sweets sold during Mawlid celebrations.[/caption]

In Africa “biennials are a difficult idea, conceptually as well as financially, to implement and sustain,” Sean O’Toole wrote recently in Frieze. The first Biennale in Lubumbashi in the DRC -- being organised by Sammy Baloji, Patrick Mudekereza and Elvira Dyangani Ose -- was postponed suddenly only two months before it was due to open. O’Toole notes that Okwui Enwezor’s 1997 biennial in Johannesburg closed early in its second year; a decade later two private attempts to do the same in Cape Town closed after two years. The article seems to agree with Ose's assessment, that the future is in ‘informal groupings’ of art institutions in urban spaces, which can be ‘more agile, durable and adaptable than the organizations piloting the continent’s handful of single-city biennials.’ So is this year's Benin Biennale -- expanded successor to the first Regard Benin in 2010 and Africa's latest biennial contemporary art exhibition -- an exception to the rule or an imaginative reinvention of the concept? The problems of the biennial are not solely economic. The politics of accessibility -- how much the art featured in biennials is accessible to the populations of the cities where they are staged -- is a critical problem, even for Dak'Art and Rencontres de Bamako, both in their third decade. Earlier this year we questioned the politics of representation at the 4th Marrakech Biennale. Carson Chan, one of the curators of the main exhibition there, has just published an interesting essay in the November edition of Savvy Magazine, which takes its title from Robbie Williams’s 1998 near-chart-topping single. The Marrakech Biennale -- which included only one artist working in sub-Saharan Africa -- seemed to see the biennial as an opportunity to import international art into Morocco for the pleasure of those members of the public who stumbled across it. Chan's essay concludes with this insight: 'An exhibition is also called a show, because in the end, it should be a space of entertainment, of amusement.' The curatorial appeal, ultimately, shares the sentiment of that same former member of the Backstreet Boys: ‘So come on let me entertain you / Let me entertain you’. This idea, that the curator's job is to entertain, relates to the idea that art should be enjoyed. Theodor Adorno, in his writing on art and the museum, questions this assumption:

"[I]t is only when the distance necessary for enjoyment to be possible is established between the observer and works of art that the question of their continuing vitality can arise. It would probably never occur to anyone who was at home with art and not a mere visitor."

If the question of entertainment - or enjoyment - is the product of a distance between art and audience, what realm of experiences would be possible if the curator of art decided to abolish this distance? How can a biennial ensure that the people of a city are not "mere visitors", and establish for the observer the sense that the city where they live is also a home for art? [caption id="attachment_58661" align="aligncenter" width="510"] Zon Sakai performs "Heavy Duty" in Cotonou, as part of Take, Take, Take and ... ?[/caption] One difficulty which the organisers of a biennial face is the event is not simply entertainment, but a massive business venture which demands political sensitivity of its curators but also, crucially, real engagement with the people and infrastructure of the city in which it is staged. Some important questions are raised by Julian Stallabrass in his essay on this year’s Documenta. The festival, which takes place in Kassel, Germany, every five years, opened earlier this year, had a wide roster of international artists, including Kader Attia, Zanele Muholi, William Kentridge and Wael Shawky (there’s a useful, if uncritical, write-up in the NY Times here). Although, as Stallabrass notes, the past efforts of curators Catherine David and Okwui Enwezor ‘did much to push it towards documentary and a greater engagement with politics’, this year’s exhibition achieves little more than ‘quasi-theoretical bluster’. Noting the ‘extravagant self-aggrandizing’ of Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the curator (pictures of her outnumber images of art works in the press release), Stallabrass notes the hypocrisy of the exhibition’s environmental pretensions, belied by the signs of BP’s sponsorship. Lastly, Documenta’s commitment to radical activism is compared, unfavourably, with this year’s Berlin Biennale; the essay describes ‘Christov-Bakargiev’s retrospective welcoming of a small Occupy group that chose to camp outside’, but notices that, in Berlin, Occupy were invited to inhabit the exhibition’s most prominent space. How can the biennial, Stallabrass asks, become, like Occupy, more ‘environmentally light, inclusive, participatory and anti-elitist’? [caption id="attachment_58656" align="aligncenter" width="540"] Christiane Löhr, "Installation sur surface inconnu", Take, Take, Take and ... ?.[/caption] Some answers to these questions might be found in the Benin Biennale, “Inventing the World: the Artist as Citizen,” which opened last month. The ambition and pragmatism of the biennial programme seem to engage and resolve some of the problems which have dogged previous biennial, in Africa and elsewhere, and the hypocrisies which undermine their purpose. In Benin, the biennial programme looks to have drawn international artists into conversation and collaboration with local artists and communities, refusing any idea of importing art into Benin, organising the festival to engage and energise the resources which already exist. Shamira Muhammed tracked down Abdellah Karroum, artistic director of the Benin Biennale, and asked him some key questions about it -- we'll publish the interview tomorrow. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="548"] Members of the Invisible Borders collective at the opening of the Biennale.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_58664" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Theodore Dakpogan, "A l'eau", at the Benin national printshop, Porto-Novo. Part of Take, Take, Take and ... ?[/caption] There are more photos from Regard Benin on their Facebook page.

Last week, as he made a bid to become Egypt's latest dictator, plunging the country into a constitutional crisis, and drawing new crowds to Tahrir Square, TIME magazine interviewed Mohamed Morsi. The 'exclusive' interview took the title 'We're Learning How to Be Free' -- which, in light of Morsi's recent attempt to grant himself un-democratic powers, seems just a little dishonest. The opening gambit seems to credit Morsi for the ceasefire in Gaza, and acknowledges the county's crisis, but the three interviewers -- TIME managing editor Rick Stengel, editor-at-large Bobby Ghosh and Jerusalem bureau chief Karl Vick -- never seem to press him on the point. The interview begins with this note:

in previous stories, TIME had spelled the President’s surname as Morsy, based on his Ph.D. dissertation for the University of Southern California; his advisers in Cairo say the preferred spelling is Morsi.

A kind of pedantry which would have been better applied, in this interview, to Egyptian constitutional law. The interview -- even in full transcript -- seems wildly superficial and full of odd attempts to describe Morsi's personal side:

On accusations that he is a new pharaoh and tyrant: New pharaoh? [Laughs] … I went to prison. [He touches his tie.]

And, apart from that, see the weird mentions of his memories of watching 'U.S. television' during his Ph.D. in California -- does this make him seem more human? -- and his love for Gone with the Wind and the original Planet of the Apes.

I remember a movie. Which one? Planet of the Apes. The old version, not the new one. There is new one. Which is different. Not so good. It’s not expressing the reality as it was the first one. But at the end, I still remember, this is the conclusion: When the big monkey, he was head of the supreme court I think — in the movie! — and there was a big scientist working for him,  cleaning things, has been chained there. And it was the planet of the apes after the destructive act of a big war, and atomic bombs and whatever in the movie. And the scientists was asking him to do something, this was 30 years ago: “Don’t forget you are a monkey.” He tells him, “Don’t ask me about this dirty work.”  What did the big ape, the monkey say? He said, “You’re human, you did it [to] yourself.” That’s the conclusion. Can we do something better for ourselves? I saw it 30 years ago. That is the role of the art.

Issandr Amrani, writing at the Arabist, comments that Morsi is calling the Supreme Constitutional Court a "monkey". TIME magazine missed a critical opportunity to ask 'the most important man in the Middle East' the most timely and important question: What does Mohamed Morsi think of James Franco?  

Rachid Khimoune grew up in a small mining town in Northern France where his Algerian parents had settled. It was there that he saw first hand the end of industrialisation: his father lost his job at the local mine and the family moved to the suburbs of Paris. The waves of urban immigration to the cities is a phenomenon important to Rachid's work -- his word for it is 'transhumance', or the seasonal migration of grazing flocks, their exodus to the city, a new forms of verticality -- and he is particularly attentive to its effects in the capital cities of the world. The Algerian war broke out before the move to Paris, and Rachid remembers how his family -- who "felt French, completely integrated" -- were treated by the other villagers. He remembers hearing about the hundreds of Algerians driven into the Seine by the French police in 1961. He speaks of a certain look they received, and connects this to his interest in the manhole cover -- called, in French, 'un regard'. This bizarre confluence of meaning, between the intangibility of the glance and the object wrought in iron, expresses a contradiction central to Rachid's work. He is, he says, a maker of poetic images. His most extensive work to date is Children of the World, a project long in development which culminated with an installment at the Bercy Park, Paris in 2001. To celebrate the transition into the twenty-first century, Rachid took from twenty-one different capital cities a 'flesh of the street' (he retranslates it 'peau de la rue'). Moulding objects and collecting ephemera from various streets, Rachid put together twenty-one figures of 'children', ambassadors of cities entering a new century. A more recent public project involved the installation of a thousand bronze tortoises on Omaha Beach in 2011, to commemorate the landings of Allied troops [top image]. There are several tortoises, in plastic and bronze, on the floor of the Friedman & Vallois gallery in New York -- and I'm reminded of the tortoise in Huysmans's novel A Rebours (Against Nature) whose shell is encrusted with jewels. Rachid's tortoises, however, are cast in bronze and moulded by the shape of the helmets of the soldiers who fought in the D-Day campaign. Tortoises, Rachid says, are used in North Africa to clean the house, at the same time as warding off "bad luck and evil spirits". The tortoise is "a symbol of wisdom" and a metaphor for the longevity of war. The works reminds me of Jacob Epstein's Rock Drill or Picasso's work in bronze, and Rachid talks of its relation to art of the early twentieth-century: "they said never again, but every decade there are more wars." In Mozambique Gonçalo Mabunda has also, recently, been making tribal masks from weapons. Rachid's newer works, also on display, are masks and totems cast in bronze: poetic images forged in a furnace. Rachid uses discarded objects and disused parts of machines, to create new human and animal forms. Here his interest in metal-working and African art coincides with the assemblage of found objects; one mask is constituted by a large model of the Eiffel Tower stuck into the end of a trumpet. Another has a jerry-can for a face, and the golden patina and surface-working of the bronze does not dispel the idea which this image creates: of a human mouth drinking oil.

Rachid is adamant that the artist has no country, his craft enables him to access cultural traditions across the world, the metal-working in Burkina Faso, for example, or China. Walking through the gallery, the last work you encounter is the largest and most striking work, which stands in front of a large bay window, through which the sounds of Madison Avenue can be heard: a tree in wood and bronze, masks hanging on chains from its branches. This is Strange Fruit - it is, Rachid says, a tribute to Billie Holiday and the city where she lived - and here is the link between the forging of metal and the fixing stare which communicates to its object the belief that it is foreign, unwelcome.

Rachid Khimoune's work is on display at Friedman & Vallois, 27 E 67th St and Madison Av, NYC, until 21st December.

In Egypt earlier this year I was taken by my host to a nightclub in downtown Cairo where I was introduced to a cosmopolitan group of friends -- musicians, artists, poets -- all drinking beer and dancing until the early hours of the morning. When the DJ played the songs of the revolution they punched the air, mouthing the words, and offering me spontaneous translations. Leaving the club around four in the morning we encountered a middle-aged man I'd been introduced to a few hours earlier -- a painter, I had been told, and political satirist, he had impressive long, flowing hair, flecked with grey. Slightly unsteady on his feet, the satirist had his arm around a shorter man, a street-sweeper, speaking to him with great vigor. "He is saying," my host explained, "the revolution is still alive inside the After 8 Club." The other man, who had sparkling black eyes, said nothing.

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This problem -- the role of dancing (and pleasure more generally) in relation to radical politics -- is exemplified by 'You Was Dancin Need to be Marchin', the 1976 funk classic by The Advanced Workers With The Anti-Imperialist Singers (written by Amiri Baraka and musicians from The Commodores, Parliament, Kool & the Gang).

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The same problem emerges, more recently, in Hassan Khan's film Jewel (2010), one of the most remarkable works of art in The Ungovernables, this year's triennial exhibition at the New Museum (which we wrote about here). YouTube yields an illicit video of the piece. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="589"] Still from Hassan Khan, Jewel (2010). Courtesy of the New Museum.[/caption] The occasion for this reflection is a new interview with Khan, recently published in the new 'Platform' ('004') over at Ibraaz. Khan gives a really useful description of the inspiration and making of Jewel:

A few years ago (maybe 2006), I caught for a few seconds out of the corner of my eye two men dancing around a home-made speaker with a flashing lightbulb attached to it as the taxi I was in turned a corner on my way home. This moment (maybe it was the flashes of the lightbulb) initiated a sort of reverie or daydream in the taxi, where I imagined the whole piece as an artwork in one go. I remembered the piece when I got back home and noted it down. However, to achieve the piece I had to abandon the idea of replicating that daydream and to rediscover from scratch where this 'moment' could be found. [...] In the end the piece was choreographed [...]

Some of the gestures were taken from street dances, others from fights, and others from ways of greeting. The way the actors were dressed was very important because it implied a specific position within contemporary Egyptian history: the older, heavier man in a brown leather jacket is the epitome of 80s street machismo -- he is someone who maybe at that time made some money, smoked imported cigarettes, but is definitely lost nowadays. While the younger man dressed in a cheap approximation of office clothes is a university graduate probably from a small village and whose parents in some way (maybe unknown to even themselves) still subscribe to the 'decent' dreams of the 60s Nasserite state. [...]

In the end, both of them are members of the crowd and the crowd is always many.

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Another artist from the New Museum triennial is Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, the London-born painter, who will feature in The Progress of Love, an upcoming exhibition to appear simultaneously at the Menil Collection (Houston, Texas), the Pullitzer Foundation (St. Louis, Missouri) and CCA Lagos. [caption id="attachment_57402" align="aligncenter" width="517"] Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Milk for the Maestro (2012). Courtesy of the Chisenhale Gallery.[/caption] The exhibition promises to explore "the conception of love in Africa", and the other twenty artists include Zoulikha Bouabdellah, Kendell Geers, Mounir Fatmi, Malick Sidibé (in whose native Mali civil war has made dancing politically dangerous) and Yinka Shonibare. There's also

[I]n Romuald Hazoumé's new project the artist has founded a nongovernmental organization based in Cotonou, Benin, and is inviting his fellow Beninois to express love for self and others by making contributions to Westerners in hopes of helping them live better lives.

The mapping of the concept of love on the African continent is an intriguing prospect. We're eager to know more.

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Lastly -- in the interests of semi-shameless self-promotion -- my essay on the work of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Hassan Khan, has just been posted over here. The link between dancing and revolution is made in the final paragraphs: In 2011 political protests and occupations announced collective desires for the transformation of government in gestures which established a common understanding of bodies in Cairo and New York and London. Shaabi became the sound of the uprisings in the early, optimistic days when there was dancing in Tahrir Square; Hassan Khan’s images continue to find significance in relation to ongoing hopes for the Egyptian revolution. Karl Marx, in the introduction to his ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’ (1843), described how the ideologies and systems of representation which freeze man in violent relation to man could be overcome only by a reorientation of bodies; ‘Religion is only the illusory sun about which man revolves as long as he does not revolve about himself.’ The dialectical thinking which Marx proposes will move between a critique of religion and an understanding of the ‘true need’ to which it responds and thereby dissolve the opposition between them:

‘[T]hese petrified social conditions must be made to dance by singing their own melody to them. The people must be taught to be terrified of itself, in order to give it courage.’

Dancing here has a satirical function and revolutionary potential, an expression of mass submission to a common need, the most intense negation of misery and a real form of social organisation, through which the people is able to realise its power. In 2012, the year which produced Step Up! Dance Revolution 3D, it is reassuring to be reminded that dancing is not merely the product of tired myths about personal liberation sold to excited and indifferent nations of millions: if art participates in the freezing of social relations between people, it can also work to unfreeze them. The violent gestural quality of Yiadom-Boakye’s painting, the playful disjuncture posed by the title, and the attitude it strikes towards a history of portrait painting means it dances before the viewer’s gaze, echoing Marx’s proposed reawakening, simultaneously celebratory and satirical, terrifying and courageous.