#BDS: Saudi Artist Ahmed Mater: A Normalizer with #Israel

"The Saudi artist Ahmed Mater has become the subject of an online campaign in Saudi Arabia calling for his immediate censure by the Saudi government, following the inclusion of his work Evolution of Man, 2010, in an exhibition in Israel.

The show, “West End”, opened this summer at Jer­u­salem’s Museum on the Seam, a socio-political contemporary art museum on the edge of the ultra-orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea She’arim. The display garnered extensive media coverage largely thanks to the participation, alongside 21 other artists, of seven non-Israeli artists of Middle Eastern origin. Of these, only two live permanently in the country of their birth: the Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr and Mater."

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#BDS: Egyptian, Saudi, Moroccan and Iranian artists display work in Israeli Museum

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Still, the Museum on the Seam succeeded in bringing in works from seven artists of Middle Eastern origin for its current 28-artist exhibition, called West End, which examines the struggle between Islam and the West. The artists hail from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Morocco and Egypt, all countries with chilly or hostile relations with Israel.

Two of the artists _ an Egyptian and a Saudi _ live in their homelands, although the others in the show currently live mainly in the West. But even shows by Middle Easterners living abroad are rare in Israel. They too face constraints because they return to their homelands or have relatives there, said Raphie Etgar, the museum’s curator and artistic director.

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