The main hall of Darat al-Funun was clad with the beautiful black, a black created by the artist Ali ‘Kaaf’, who presents a particular way of thinking about ‘creative’ artistic work that is far from colorful. Ali studied at the hands of the Syrian artist Marwan Kassab Bashy, who resides in Germany and was affiliated with Darat al-Funun, an institution that through its support of young artists gives ample space for free thought in artistic work. However, it is clear that Ali has been able to sincerely go beyond the influence of his teacher, and the influence of color, to take from the deep black a refuge for an abstract expression – a refuge akin to a Sufi haven from which he can examine his soul and the life of the world, a life of the ‘mountain’ he lives in. In fact, the letter ‘Kaaf’ in his name was not an accident but pays homage to the ‘Kaaf’ mountain in Islamic history. For the mountain to him is a psychological and emotional state far from its conventional shape, where we stand in front of a collection of free exercises in black medium, pencil, charcoal, asphalt, soot, gum, until ‘black’ becomes a more majestic label to Ali’s state of revelation. This adventurous experiment started to take its course through different forms of expression in exhibitions of slides, photography, or free hand drawing, and the point was to bring attention to the shocking difficulty of finding personal space for the contemporary artist in the face of an artistic heritage that appears to have accomplished everything. In comes Ali ‘Kaaf’, to enter the stage of the artistic voice and stay in his own path, the path of the self and its revelations. In most of his work, he depends on locating new forms for interpretation of the art work, such that each piece is called to the interpretation of what is hidden in abstract shape. The face becomes a black domain covered in fine hues of black; these works present a specific reading which exposes the veil of the face, to suggest what might be beyond the apparent black space. We see a clearer testament to this in his photography that brings together the cover and the human body. The cover is a central medium in the ‘mask’ of the canvas. Sometimes it is a real cover, and other times it is imaginary….Understanding it is a magnified understanding, akin to the Sufi philosophy of reaching the pleasure of the peak of blackness, which is full of light.
In another frame, we find that the surface of the paper has been utilized to bear witness to the history of the hand movement. This is a violent movement that tears the surface, making holes that break the supremacy of the black, like light spots that came from recording the instant of emotional reaction — similar to lightening in a dark night. To understand similar actions we have to return a little to his photography as a key to the artist’s thinking. We find the photography as if in a hermit state, where the body is peaceful and quite, the body that is hidden behind a black cloth and the freedom to be concealed from nakedness, pure and sacred. We find this mood in his lines, which accurately capture the state of drawing in that moment, the state of thought in breaking the balance of things to find a new truthful equilibrium that reflects the artist’s spirit.
Originally published in Al-Dustur, 9/8/04, on the occasion of the artist’s 2004 exhibition at Darat al-Funun, Amman
Republished with the author’s permission.
Translated for ArteEast by Rana Hajjar.
