Athr Gallery (Special Projects) Ahmed Mater Cowboy Code (Hadith), 2012 Pier 94: Focus Lounge Plastic Gun Caps

Saudi artist Ahmed Mater juxtaposes value systems with this large-scale text installation in the form of a Ten Commandments script. The work is physically made up of baby gun caps, like the ones Mater played with as a child in Saudi. He and his friends would watch westerns and imitate cowboys on TV. Excerpts from the text include: “A cowboy is free from racial and religious intolerance," and “A cowboy is a Patriot." The cowboy code is directly contrasted against the Hadith, an Islamic code bequeathed by Prophet Muhammad; fragments include “He cautioned never to be extreme or fanatic."

 
We spoke to the co-founder of Athr, who is also the vice chairman of the Saudi Art Council, Mohammed A. Hafiz. He greeted us at their booth #542, in Pier 94. Hafiz explained the significance of text and imagery in communicating across languages—English and Arabic—in the carefully curated selections on display this year. The various pieces each hint at the flexibility of text; how language can easily morph, depending on the context. Language, he said, is not limited to the spoken word; it is also based on visual references, even subtitles in a film. The chosen artists, Ayman Yossri Daydban, Mahdi Al Jeraibi, Bakr Shaykhoon and Ahmed Mater demonstrate that in different ways.
 

Ahmed Mater,   Cowboy Code (Hadith)  (2012), presented by  Athr Gallery  (Jeddah) This installation compares two codes of ethics, the former from the American West and the latter from the Islamic code, referring to statements or actions of the Prophet Muhammad, known as the Hadith.  The Cowboy Code (Hadith) , located in the Focus Lounge on Pier 94, is composed entirely of the red plastic toy gun caps, canonical with the image of Western Cowboys and tropes of Mater’s childhood and US popular culture.

Over in the section for Middle Eastern galleries, Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater’s 2011 work, “Cowboy Code,” was hard to miss.
Using red-plastic gunpowder caps often used for Western-style toy guns, Mr. Mater constructed a 26-foot-long mural that juxtaposed informal rules that cowboys historically lived by—such as “A cowboy never betrays a trust”—with similar, Arabic sayings from Islamic teachings like “The Prophet cautioned to always march in the name of God.” Saudi Arabian gallery Athr, which represents Mr. Mater, said the work is still available for $88,000.

"It started as both a visual and investigative experiment," Almalki told The Huffington Post Arts. "From a visual point of view, I -- as a photographer and person -- cherish sight and I've always wondered how veils affect sight and seeing. But on a more contextual level, I've always wanted to understand this sub-culture and I thought if I managed to at least see the world they way they see it, I might scratch the surface of 'walking a mile in their shoe.'"

Awartani: “A lot of people, when they create art, they abide by Western rules. Even the popular artists, even when they take Oriental themes, they use Western forms. Why should they have to follow that? They should be more original and unique. The Arab world should make art as much as the Western world.” 

Athr Gallery's on-going exhibition 'The Language of Human Consciousness' reviewed in ArtReview Asia under "Ten exhibitions you won’t want to miss this autumn".
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Dana Awartani is an experienced traditional artist based in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. Dedicated to the revival of historical crafts from the Islamic world, Dana works with a wide range of materials including ceramics, natural pigments, and woodwork inspired by centuries of historical Islamic geometry and patterns. A Q&A with Dana Awartani.

Rather than merely celebrating geometric art in Islam or the Middle East, the exhibition, under the name “The Language of Human Consciousness,” tries to put geometric works out of their political, social, cultural, or even geographical settings. Away from its context, the viewer is able to appreciate the art works in itself and as a universal language.