Yesterday, Reuters ran a story about Saif Gaddafi's 2002 painting exhibition that was shown in London. Called 'The Desert is Not Silent' it was scheduled to go on tour to Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Madrid, Sao Paulo, and Moscow. After looking at the on-line gallery of photos on Boing Boing, it's pretty obvious why the tour never happened: the paintings are not particularly good.
But what interests me about Saif Gaddafi artiste is what this can tell us about power. For some critics, like Jonathan Jones of the Guardian, the relationship is straight forward. Jones argued:
The exhibition was an ugly display of power, not in Libya, but in London ... the fact of their being vaunted as worthwhile art in a fancy exhibition spoke of hideous self-delusion and imposture.
Thus, Jones positioned the exhibition as a manifestation of the megalomania of dictatorship. Such an understanding is very similar to a primary characteristic of psychopathy that is noted by the criminal psychologist Robert Hare. He claims that affected attempts to be appear 'sophisticated' through superficial displays of cultural knowledge are a common practice for 'psychopaths'.
My take on the power-relations underpinning Saif Gaddafi artiste is slightly different, though not necessarily mutually exclusive to those that look to the pathological. What strikes me as interesting are the resonances of colonialism at play. I see this in at least two senses. First, the paintings are ersatz versions of Western styles, traditions, and conventions (e.g., surrealism, still-life, pop art). The exhibition shows that these have been internalised and mimicked--albeit with limited ability. Second, is the desire that the work be shown in metropolitan centers of financial and cultural power. It is not the paintings themselves but where the shows take place that confers the legitimacy and authority of Saif's artistic 'vision' and 'talent'.
In the end then, I think the collection is a microcosm of the complex power dynamics that contributed to the longevity of the Gaddafi regime. Gaddafi's Libya was both defiant of, and compliant with Western norms in seeking acceptance as a legitimate global actor. Concurrently, Western powers were too often willing to confer undeserved legitimacy when Libyan mimesis flattered their specific preferences.
