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Research Report Tessa and Anthony Brennand Award

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Research Report Tessa and Anthony Brennand Award RESEARCH REPORT TESSA AND ANTHONY BRENNAND AWARD AGNESE OLIVERI The research grant offered by the Anthony and Tessa agreement allowed me to explore the Islamic ornament in its original setting in the city of Jerusalem. The research I intended to pursue focused on ornamentation and abstraction and its links to Islamic philosophy, as theorised by Valerie Gonzalez. The research laid its foundations also in Vilchez’s writings while deconstructing preconceived notions of Middle Eastern art such as those offered by Grabar or perennialist scholars. Being in Jerusalem has enabled me to explore the sensory experience of the beholder who is immediately impressed by the patterning and repetition of the ornament as well as to confront the experiences of believers and non-believers. In my proposal I had outlined the research as divided into three categories: the ancient ornament in religious and non environments, its presence in the urban setting of the city, and its relevance and role in the modern and contemporary art practices. During the research I increasingly realised how those categories merged together as they all interlaced and contributed in a united fashion to the viewer’s perception of the ornament and to their ways of life. My first days in Jerusalem I went to the L.A. Meyer Museum for Islamic Art, whose collection is based on the research of Hettinghausen, and to the Israeli Museum. Both institutions boasted impressive collections and curatorial expertises. In the former, I also had the pleasure to speak with a researcher in the Museum who exchanged ideas with me and redirected me to look at the pieces mentioned above as works that held the most relevance to my research. In those days I would also spend the evenings in the Hebrew University library (National Library of Israel) which is open to the public, to consult texts such as Rumi’s (particularly recommended to me by a Palestinian journalist), Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, in order to link the impressions gathered during the day with the theorical and philosophical aspect of my research. Following these developments, I began to immerse myself in the hectic reality of the Old City. Next to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, I entered the Barakat Gallery, a gallery that has belonged to a family of Palestinian people since 130 years, whose owner now is the largest collector of antiquities in the world. I then walked around the old city noticing how the area surrounding the Al Aqsa compound is rich of Mamluk architectural elements. Samples can be found in the pictures below, where the red and white bricks are combined in accordance of Ablaq style. These multicoloured architectural insertions are accompanied by inscriptions and ornamental elements that emphasise the architectural constituents. An example is Fig. 1 where they frame the structure of the window. Here, both calligraphy and vegetable abstraction, as well as the Ablaq style, work towards an aesthetic of patterning and repetition which is projected onto the quotidian life of the busy passerby. This aesthetic indeed, does not solely belong to the spiritual and segregated reality of mosques but is very much embedded in the tissue of the urban dynamics of the city. In the same area, I had the pleasure to run into a Palestinian journalist for ABC news as well as Rame, a local collector of Palestinian objects and manufacturer of jewelry. I spent a day walking around the Via Dolorosa and engaging in conversations and looking for different pieces with various collectors (Fig. 2). They offered me precious indications of ulterior sites I should inspect in my journey as well as introduced me to other characters involved in the contemporary creative fabric of the Palestinian people of Jerusalem. I also decided to spend a few days to visit Bethlehem and to see the wall dividing the West Bank and Israel. Having already written an essay on its political and artistic implications, I was curious to witness its presence in person and to reflect upon the spontaneous creativity and resistance that developed on its surface (Fig. 3). The visit at the Dome of the Rock certainly left the biggest impression on me, having not only finally witnessed the great Muslim monument, but also having visited the Al Aqsa Museum. Whilst at the Haram al Sharif, my observations where of course also influenced by the social and political environment of the compound, which influenced my experience (Fig. 4). Despite being aware and expecting it, I still had not realised yet the impact it had on the overall aesthetic experience, which was the focus of the research. This sense was heightened while visiting the Al Aqsa Museum where pieces lay languidly on the floor without any sort of museal refinement. This ultimately led me to reflect about the impressive museal complexes I had a chance to visit in the previous days and to compare these experiences. I concluded that there was a sense of home in the Al Aqsa Museum that somehow completed the pieces exposed and the experience of the beholder, despite the lack of museal appendices. In the other museums or organisation, even though the space was highly curated and refined, something always felt off, and only in Al Aqsa I realised what that was. Moreover, the director of the Al Aqsa Museum was so kind to give me a tour around the space. Another day I visited the Rockefeller Museum, containing incredible remnants of the original constructions of the Haram al Sharif, helping me draw a visual chronology of the developments based on first-hand experience of different pieces and fragments. Finally, I would say that, as it is common in research, I found something that I was not even looking for. The continuous back and forth between East and West Jerusalem, the availability of the strangers who toured me around the city complimented the trip in unexpected ways. These elements did enhance the experience of the objects in consideration and made me reflect even more on the complementarity given by the beholder and by the environment surrounding the object itself. This encouraged me to view things according to a different prospect which was fundamental for my overall understanding. This prospect was informed by a view of the aesthetic piece by being fundamentally tied to a certain capacity of the object to embed itself in the outer elements of its dimensions. The consequence is that the piece does not act as a mere vessel of its times, but it is still lively and rounded in the consequent life it leads and that surrounds it. All of this has to be taken into consideration in the aesthetic experience. Figures: Figure 1: Example of Ablaq style arch with ornament surrounding the window. Figure 2: Collector displaying entry about his collection in an old catalogue book. Figure 3: Bethlehem, wall dividing West Bank and Israel. Figure 4: Dome of the Rock. .
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