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GOLDSMITHS
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS – ESSAY TEMPLATE
By using this template I confirm I have read and will comply with the
submission instructions contained in the Politics Student handbook.
STUDENT NUMBER ie 3354321 PROGRAMME e.g.: BA Politics
YEAR OF STUDY
33300991
Arts and Politics
2014-2015
ART AND POLITICS 1: HISTORY THEORY EVENT
PO71016A
Dr Stefan Nowotny
The Art of Liberation: The Response of Palestinian Art to the
1948 Nakba.
I confirm that I have read and fully understand the statement about plagiarism
in the regulations, that I signed when submitting my assessment registration
form and are contained in the Politics Student Handbook
DATE January 14th 2014
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1
The Art of Liberation: The Response of Palestinian Art to the 1948 Nakba.
The years between 1947-1949 witnessed the destruction of Palestine and the uprooting and the
expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland. This event, known as the catastrophe
or Nakba, caused a massive rupture in Palestinian society and the means through which it
reproduced its identity. Despite the effects of the 1948 crisis, however, Palestinian cultural
production has retained a significant presence in Palestinian life. This essay will examine the ways in
which Palestinian cultural production engaged with politics after the events of 1948, and will explain
the significance of this cultural production in Palestinian Society.
The use of the arts in responding to the effects of 1948 attempted to transform individual trauma
into a collective cause. This has granted art a significance that has encouraged Palestinian artists to
develop the political role of the arts in the service of the Palestinian cause. This role that was highly
appreciated by Palestinian society and contributed to the creation of strong foundations for arts and
cultural production in Palestine, one whose effects are felt to this day. This essay will focus on visual
arts, particularly fine art, as one of the common practices of Palestinian culture and look at how it
was employed as a response to the Nakba.
This essay will investigate the merits of the first art exhibition in Palestine after 1948 by the artist
Ismael Shammout (1930 – 2006) in 1953 in Khan Yunis Refugee Camp in Gaza. The purpose of the
study is to highlight the significant changes through which art sought to engage politically with the
reality created by the Nakba. This development will be placed within the context of the
institutionalization by Shammout of the political role of art through the establishment the Fine Arts
Department in the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organization), and later, the General Union of
the Palestinian Fine Artists.
2
The essay will first exhibit the historical context by which culture flourished in Palestine before
1948, focusing on the conditions in which the Palestinians practiced fine art. It will then elaborate
how the crisis of the Nakba destroyed Palestinian society and traditional forms of artistic expression.
The purpose of this is to highlight the challenges with which Palestinian art had to contend. Finally,
the essay will discuss the political aspects of the first art exhibition in Palestine after 1948, using
Ranciere’s notion of politics to explain the ways the exhibition sought to play a political role. Finally,
the essay will list the artist efforts in instituting the political role of art and how it served the
Palestinian Cause.
Historical Context
To understand the effects of the Nakba on Palestinian cultural production and fine arts, it is first
necessary to take a closer look at the cultural life in Palestine before the crisis of 1948. Palestinian
cultural life before 1948 reflected the flourishing society that existed in the country. The fertile land
and the availability of water allowed Palestinians to cultivate a broad range of crops that supported
the population and provided the raw materials for agriculture. The geographical location of
Palestine, with a long seashore and accessibility to the Mediterranean gave it a substantial
commercial significance. Meanwhile, the main Palestinian cities were connected to each other and
other prominent Arabic cities by an extensive railway system. This meant that there were significant
cultural as well as commercial interactions both with the Arab world as well as the wider
Mediterranean1.
Because of this geographic situation, many cities such as Haifa, Yaffa and Jerusalem enjoyed a
flourishing cultural life. This included theatres, cinema houses, museums, schools, educational
1
NASRALLAH, Ibraheem, (2008) Palestinian Culture before the Nakba, (Arabic)
http://www.alawan.org/auteur3.html
3
institutes, publishing houses, and an enormous number of newspapers and publications. Many
Palestinians at the time travelled to study in different countries in the region and Europe, adding to
the vibrant cultural life that was growing in Palestine. Because of Christian missionaries from many
countries in Europe, there was also a need for translation and interpretation from English, Russian,
Italian, French, and many other languages into Arabic.2
Due to its religious significance among the Monotheistic Religions, Jerusalem had become a political
and cultural centre during the Othman rule over Palestine. Many European diplomatic missions took
the city as a centre for their activities whilst many Christian missionaries established educational
institutes that were open for Palestinians from different religious backgrounds. Consequently,
Jerusalem became a meeting point between eastern and western cultures, playing a significant role in
the evolution of Palestinian art.
The Christian icon painting tradition in Jerusalem, existing alongside the Islamic ornamental
workshops, are a visible indication of the primacy and importance of art in Palestinian society.
Christian iconography in particular was influential in the evolution of the modern form of the
Palestinian artistic expression. This art form had developed out of the Byzantian 3 tradition of icon
painting, which had existed since the fifth century across a number of Mediterranean countries. This
was the basis upon which Palestinian iconographers developed the ‘Jerusalem School’ of
iconography which had lasted since the seventeenth century.
The Russian Orthodox Church played an influential role in the Arabic cultural renaissance, which
was present in the development of the icon painting practice.4 The Church’s cultural influence found
2
NASRALLAH, Ibraheem, (2008) Palestinian Culture before the Nakba, (Arabic)
http://www.alawan.org/auteur3.html
3
BOULLATA, Kamal, (2009), The Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present, London; San Francisco; Beirut: Saqi Books,
p.43.
4
Ibid
4
its way to the Arab iconography painting studios, where many of the Arab iconographic artists
received their training. This influence can be traced in the styles of the Arabic iconographic
paintings, which had many characteristics of the Russian Orthodox iconography. Further influences
can be traced to the early presence of photography in Jerusalem, introduced by Western travellers,
who wanted to document their visits to the Holy Land. This impacted on the late stages of painting
development in Palestine before 1948, with many artists relying on photographs to remember the
scenes they were painting. Moreover, photography opened up artistic imaginations regarding the
subjects that they can express through paintings, presenting new compositions and visual concepts.
Other factors directed Palestinian art away from religious iconography to the expression of different
subjects such as the training of Muslim artists in the iconography studios5. In such training, painters
would obtain skills in painting that they would also transfer into artworks related to their own
religious affiliation. Thus, Muslim artists would produce paintings that capture historic moments in
the Islamic history in a fashion that mimicked paintings, topics and techniques employed in
Christian iconography. To this was added a further element: the return from Europe of Palestinian
students who left because of the outbreak of the World War II. These students brought with them
further Western influences, seen most prominently in the Arabic cultural shift towards secularism in
the arts as well as society more generally.
All these factors intersected in the artistic developments that took place in Palestine over the course
of the beginning of the 20th Century. Nevertheless, this situation in Palestine was not consistent due
to the dramatic changes in the political circumstances. In 1917, towards the end of the First World
War, Britain occupied Palestine, ending Othman rule and declaring the British Mandate over the
area of Palestine. Later in the same year, British foreign minister Arthur James Balfour promised the
5
(same previous refrence), (p63)
5
Zionist movement that the British Government will facilitate the establishment of a home for the
Jewish people in Palestine in a declaration that came to be known as Balfour Declaration.
Subsequently, the British Mandate facilitated the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Jews
from Europe to Palestine6.
The arrival of the Jewish settlers in vast numbers at 1920's created a great degree of tension in the
country as Palestinian reacted to the takeover and transformation of the country. Violent
confrontation started between the Christian and Muslim Arabs on one side and the Jewish settlers
and the British mandate on the other, which a number of minor skirmishes and attacks culminating
in a full-blown revolution in Arab Revolt of 1936. The British Mandate began to impose intensive
security procedure against the Arab community whilst largely permitting the militarization of the
Zionist movement.
The tense situation triggered the nationalist feelings among the Palestinians, who became more
involved in political actions such as strikes, demonstrations and attacks against the Jewish settlers
and the British mandate military forces. The general mood in the country affected cultural
production, mainly the literary culture through national poetry and journalism. Although artists were
also influenced by the political situation, the restricted of art to within elite circles meant that many
could not find a way to engage with public issues. In contrast, however, there is a significantly
greater representation of the urgent issues of the day in literature. Unlike the other forms of cultural
production, the modern practice of art did not benefit from being exposed to the public.
At the time when literature and music were accessible by the public, the modern art practice was still
unfamiliar to the greater part of the population. The visibility of art was confined either in religious
6
PAPPE, Ilan, (2006), The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (p12)
6
locations within religious contexts or private showcasing for certain class members, in the artist's
studios. Moreover, the it was often the case that Palestinian elites and foreign diplomats and tourists
purchased the artworks that were produced in that era, making them even less accessible to the
public.
Jerusalem, 1933: The First Public Art Exhibition in Palestine
The first solo public art exhibition in Palestine was by the artist Zulfa al-Sa'di7 in Jerusalem in 1933.
It was held in the Palestinian pavilion of the first Arab National Fair, which was held at the palatial
new building of the Supreme Muslim Council outside Jaffa Gate in the city. Al-Sa'di who was born
in a well-known Muslim family in Jerusalem and was the first woman in Palestine to have art training
in Nicola Saig iconography studio. In her exhibition, Zulfa presented a series of oil portraits,
depicting historical, cultural and national figures, such as Omar Al Mukhtar, the famous Libyan
rebel, Ahmad Shauqi, the famous Egyptian poet, King Faisal the first, the king of Iraq. The portraits
were copies from photographs at that period, capturing the facial features of the subject figures and
presenting them like Byzantian Icons with Arabic writing below the portraits with names and titles
of the subject figures.
The exhibition was highly publicized and impressed many of the country's major national figures
and visitors from Arab countries who were participating in the fair, alongside with the audience who
attended the opening of the exhibition. Al-Sa'di's artworks were highly appreciated by the audience
because of the talent she has shown in mastering the painting techniques, and the exhibition marked
the first public endorsement of such form of cultural expression. Apparently, the subsequent
political developments did not give the opportunity for other artists to conduct their solo or group
7
BOULLATA, Kamal, (2009), The Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present, London San Francisco Beirut: Saqi, p.68.
7
exhibitions. Zulfa al-Sa'di was forced to leave Palestine in 1948, and to live in Damascus, and to
abandon art.
The Effects of the Nakba on Palestinian Art.
The Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe, by which Palestinians refer to the events that took
place between the end of 1947 and the beginning of 1949. This period witnessed the fall of Palestine
and the uprooting of around 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, the destruction of 531 villages
and the emptying of more than 11 urban neighbourhoods. These actions were carried out by the
Zionist gangs in accordance with a proactive plan to cleanse the country of its native population,
paving the way for the establishment of an exclusivist Jewish state in Palestine.8
The Nakba entailed a wholesale destruction of the entire Palestinian social, economic, and cultural
structures. The result has been the forcing of Palestinian to the margins of the societies which they
have sought refuge, living in squalid refugee camps under inhuman and precarious conditions.
Amongst these refugees, many Palestinian artists, and other cultural producers also became refugees,
living in the camps or elsewhere in exile. Many of them stopped practicing art altogether, whilst
others disappeared temporarily, only to emerge at later periods.
The Refugee Artists
This essay focuses on the artist Ismael Shammout (1930 - 2006), one of the most famous artists, of
the post-Nakba period. His work has had considerable influence on the Palestinian artistic
movement which had a significant presence in the Palestinian Revolution that began in 1965.
Shammout not only practiced art in an early stage after the Nakba, but also played an important role
in creating the contexts through which new Palestinian artists could emerged and engage in their
own artistic practice.
8
PAPPE, Ilan, (2006), The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, (p10)
8
Ismael Shammout was born in 1930 in Al Lydd, a town northeast Jerusalem. His first encounter
with art was when he was in school, his teacher Daoud Zalatimo had his art training in one of the
distinguished iconography studios in Jerusalem. Zalatimo admired Ismael's early talent, who had a
patriotic sensibility and drew pictures of national leaders and Arab fighters.9
In 1948, the 50,000 inhabitants of Al Lydd were forcibly expelled from their homes at gunpoint.
Amongst them were Shammout’s family who, upon leaving the town, fled to the Gaza refugee camp
of Khan-Yunis. The experience of the expulsion was curved in Ismael's memory and reflected in his
later artworks. Shammout lived in the refugee camp for two years until, in 1953, he moved to Cairo
to study art the Collage of Fine Art. During his studies, Shammout did not have any financial
support and had to work in an advertising studio to make a living. In the model drawing class,
Shammout used to add to his drawings, the facial expressions, and the Palestinian costumes, turning
them into pictures expressing the expulsion of the Palestinians out of their homeland.
The turning point in Shammout’s experience was in 1953, when he finished his studies. He went
back to Gaza and conducted his first solo exhibition. The exhibition included artworks showing the
events of the Nakba; such as "Where to?" which captured the feelings of the Palestinians on their
expulsion out of Palestine, "Dose of Water." which captured the thirst and hunger and despair on
the way to refugee camps.
On that exhibition, wrote Samia Halabi, a Palestinian artist, and scholar:
'Shammout’s career as an artist and popular hero of Palestine began with his 1953 exhibition of oil
paintings in Gaza of the catastrophic march through wilderness. The exhibited paintings objectify and
socialize a pain that had simmered on a private level. Refugees in Gaza saw themselves reflected in
Shammout’s work and felt relief. An immense attendance of the general population in Gaza, including those
9
ALI, Aziza, (2006) The last Interview with Ismael Shammout, (Arabic)
http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=76800
9
living in refugee camps, overwhelmed Shammout, then studying in Egypt. This stunning response to the show
was a hint of the bottled up hope for liberation. In response, Shammout committed his life’s work to
Palestine and the art of liberation.'10
To elaborate on the political role as a reason behind the success of Shammout's exhibition; the essay
will examine the different aspects of the exhibition against the backdrop of Ranciere's notion of
politics. Ranciere defines politics as 'whatever breaks with the tangible configuration whereby parties and parts
or lack of them are defined by a presupposition that, by definition, has no place in that configuration that of the part of
those who have no part.'11
According to such definition of politics, for art to be political or to play a political role; is when it
challenges / disturbs the structural configuration that undermines equality between parts within that
configuration. Art is therefore political when it confronts any social, economic, political or cultural
system that marginalizes a category or a class or a group of people on any basis. This is most
apparent when art expresses in its themes, processes of production and means of distribution the
legitimization of voices that the system has delegitimized. In such instances, we can define them as
art expressions with a political role.
10
HALABI, Samia, (2006), In remembrance: Ismail Shammout, 1931-2006.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/remembrance-ismail-shammout-1931-2006/6067
11
RANCIERE, Jacques, (1999) Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota
Press, (p29)
10
Ismael Shammout, “where to”, Oil on Canvas, 1953
The Nakba as a political event produced a new political, social and economical reality, wherein the
Palestinians had lost their homeland, and with it the basis upon which they might collectively
determine their future. The status of fragmentation and lack of life vital resources have judged the
Palestinians with despair. The first art exhibition in what remained of Palestine, which addressed the
refugees, is a political action because it challenged the given configuration on many levels:
11
The Location of the Exhibition
Choosing Gaza as the location of Shammout’s first exhibition not only holds a symbolic meaning, it
shows a political intention to address the refugees with specific messages. The inhabitants of Gaza
and the refugees who fled to it, were not at that time familiar with such art forms, neither were they
in a mental or emotional situation that would make them interested in attending such an event. It
would have guaranteed Shammout better visibility if he conducted his first exhibition in Cairo,
where, trained artists and art exhibitions are more familiar to people.
The Timing of the Exhibition
Five years after the Nakba, the refugees inhabitants of Gaza were traumatized on the individual and
collective level. Mainly the refugees who were still absorbing the new reality of their life, and
shocked by the way they reached to it, with Palestinian not only losing their material belongings but
also their place of birth, memories and the ways by which they lived and inherited their identity.
These feelings were not unknown for Shammout since he has lived them himself as a refugee, and
by the content of his exhibited artworks, he intentionally sought to challenge them.
The Content of the Artworks:
The artworks presented in the exhibition captured chronologically the unfolding events that lead to
the reality in which the Palestinians had been living since 1948.12 The artworks subsequently
captured the ways by which the people were attacked in their villages and by whom, other artworks
captured the pain on the expulsion, depicted by desolate paths leading into the wildness. The third
category of drawings captured the misery of life and the broken spirits of the refugees in the refugee
camps. The fourth category, highlighted the political and prescriptive approach of the exhibition
12
BOULLATA, Kamal, (2009), The Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present, London San Francisco Beirut: Saqi
(p131)
12
through artworks that pointed to the future, presenting the Palestinian right of return as the
inevitable fate of the Palestinian people.
With these various pieces, Shammout did not only tried to give a collective voice to people who
were denied their basic rights by force and terror, moreover, he suggested a collective envisioning
for the future. Such envisioning that is not to surrender to reality, but to challenge it.
The Artistic Form
Shammout expressed his thoughts and feelings in a direct symbolic way, borrowing from verbal
imagery13 that does not enquire much effort from the viewer to interpret the relations between the
artwork elements to perceive the meanings. He therefore focused on delivering his messages rather
than manifesting his personal aesthetical approaches. Nevertheless, Shammout showed the passion
that motivates him through the rich colour gestures and dynamic compositions of figures with vivid
facial expressions and high aesthetics, all of which he used to convey uplifting messages to an
audience of which he was a part.
The intersection of these levels in the exhibition enabled the refugee audience for the first time after
the Nakba to see the reality outside of them as a collective defined by a common desire and shared
objective to return to their homes. This overwhelming success of the exhibition can be explained by
this passionate combination between the aesthetical and the political in order to evoke a collective
transformation of conscience of in the present and to point towards the future.
The successful political employment of art through Shammout’s first exhibition inspired him to
initiate a new context through which the Palestinian Art could compensate the lost life through
13
BOULLATA, Kamal, (2013), Memory takes a body, (Arabic)
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/13748
13
which it could have evolved differently. In his last interview, Ismael commented on how the success
of this exhibition changed his life forever:
'After that exhibition, I felt the responsibility towards the art and towards the painting that could touch
people’s feelings, because the inhabitants came from all over Gaza to attend the exhibition and reacted with it
in a remarkable way that really touched me and determined the path of my life forever.'14
In the following year, in 1954, Shammout conducted his second exhibition in Cairo alongside the
Palestinian Artist Tamam Al-Akhal, who later became his wife. The exhibition was endorsed by the
Egyptian President Jammal Abdel Nasser and Hajj Amin Al-Hussaini the Palestinian one of the
Palestinian national leaders during the British Mandate, and Yasser Arafat, who was at that time the
head of the General Union of the Palestinian Students.
In 1965, Shammout was appointed the director of the Education and Arts Department in the
Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). Working in this position Shammout encouraged young
talented Palestinian refugees who didn't have the opportunity to observe art or to study it, to
employ their talents in expressing their commitment to their cause.15
Later on, in 1969, Shammout cofounded the General Union of the Palestinian Fine Artists and was
elected as its head. The Union played a significant role later in instituting the General Union of the
Arab Fine Artists which connected with the cultural movement across the Arab World. Through his
art practice and political involvement and alongside other Palestinian cultural producers, such as the
famous writer and critic Ghassan Kanafani, the poet Mahmoud Darwish and a long list of artists, all
of whom evoked the culture of return upon which the Palestinians began their revolution. The
ALI, Aziza, (2006) The last Interview with Ismael Shammout, (Arabic)
http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=76800
14
BOULLATA, Kamal, (2013), Memory takes a body, (Arabic)
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/13748
15
14
goals of the revolution were the liberation of Palestine and realising the right to return to it as a
means of determining their future.
In the introduction to his book, The Palestinian Literature of Resistance in the Occupied Land:
1948-1968, wrote Ghassan Kanafani wrote about the relationship between the armed resistance and
culture:
'The resistance is not just a peel; it's the fruit of a plant that has its roots deep in the earth. And if the
liberation "comes" from the muzzle, the gun itself comes from the will of liberation, and the will of liberation
is nothing but the natural, logical and inevitable result of the broad notion of resistance: the resisters. At the
level of rejection and the level of firm holding the positions and roots.
Such kind of resistance takes its pioneer form in the political and cultural practices. Both combined practices
which complement one by the other and together form the fertile land that stems the armed resistance,
accommodates it and guarantees its continuity.’16
The Conclusion
The relationship between arts and politics in the Palestinian context has a great deal to offer in
understanding the relationship between arts and politics in general. This relationship has not been
adequately explored for various reasons.
This essay tried to highlight the significant political role of art and culture in the Palestinian cause
through presenting the major changes in the development of the Palestinian art practice on of the
most influential political event in the Palestinian modern history: the Nakba. Moreover, the essay
sought to examine these developments against the backdrop of political theories. These efforts were
KANAFNI, Ghassan, (1969), The Palestinian Literature of Resistance in the Occupied Land: 1948-1968, Beirut: The Institute
of the Palestinian Studies (Arabic) (p9)
16
15
to open the way to ask political questions about the development of the Palestinian arts and culture,
in order to contribute to it.
The political role that the Palestinian Cultural Production played in response to the Nakba was the
most significant role in developing art and culture in Palestine. In the absence of the natural contexts
through which the Palestinian People have produced their identity; the political efforts to restore
these lost context becomes the bridge by which all aspects of Palestinian life could mould
themselves towards the shared goals of victory, freedom and return.
End.
16
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http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=76800
BADUIOU, Alian, (2005) Metapolitics, London and New York: Verso.
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Beirut: Saqi
BOULLATA, Kamal, (2013), Memory takes a body, (Arabic)
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/13748
FISCHBACH, R, Michael, (2010), The Impact of the 1948 Disaster: The Ways that the Nakba has Influenced
Palestinian History. International Symposium, Berlin, Heinrich Böll Stiftung.
Ismael Shammout Offical website
http://ismail-shammout.com/
KANAFNI, Ghassan, (1969), The Palestinian Literature of Resistance in the Occupied Land: 1948-1968
(Arabic) Beirut: The Institute of the Palestinian Studies.
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LAZZARATIO, Maurizio, Process of Subjectivation and Micropolitics’,
http://eipcp.net/transversal/0811/lazzarato/en
NASRALLAH, Ibraheem, (2008) Palestinian Culture before the Nakba, (Arabic)
http://www.alawan.org/auteur3.html
PAPPE, Ilan, (2006), The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
HALABI, Samia, (2006), In remembrance: Ismail Shammout, 1931-2006.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/remembrance-ismail-shammout-1931-2006/6067
RANCIERE, Jacques, (1999) Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Minneapolis and London: University
of Minnesota Press.
17