In one of Saudi artist Ahmed Mater’s best-known works, the silhouette of a gas pump is transformed into a man holding a gun to his head – a clear critique of the harmful effects of oil.
Still, most Saudis weren’t able to see the play, titled “Evolution of Man,” for several years as local curators felt it was too sensitive to show in the oil-dependent kingdom.
Its inclusion in a recent exhibition in the capital, Riyadh, is just one sign of the changing times.
With Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman the de facto ruler keen to rebrand conservative Saudi Arabia as a global arts destination, officials Mater and his ilk are accumulating previously unheard of opportunities.
They unveiled the latest on Monday: a plan to feature Mater and another politically-minded Saudi artist, Manal AlDowayan, in a series of permanent installations in the deserts outside Al-Ula, a burgeoning tourist hotspot in the north-western Medina region.
To critics of the Saudi royal family, such projects smack of “artwashing,” an attempt to wash the image of a country notorious for silencing dissidents, particularly assassinated journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
But for artists like Mater, government support is a welcome relief after years of struggling to reach Saudi audiences and nurture a vibrant domestic arts scene.
“I usually believe in creating an organic grassroots movement, but what if there is support for it from above? Even better,” he told AFP.
“That’s the change. That’s the new.”
– ‘Valley of Arts’ –
The project in Al-Ula — known as Wadi AlFann, or “Valley of the Arts” — is ultimately intended to cover 65 square kilometers (16,000 acres) of the Saudi desert with new examples of “land art,” the sought-after movement of art from the galleries into nature bring to.
Alongside Mater and AlDowayan, contributors include land art giants like Hungarian Agnes Denes, who planted and harvested two acres of wheat just blocks from Wall Street in the 1980s.
It’s part of a broader goal to transform Al-Ula, famed for its ancient Nabataean tombs set amidst sandstone mountains and wadis, into a premier arts hub, complete with luxurious eco-resorts and a posh theater covered in mirror slabs.
The Wadi AlFann works “are big and ambitious, and they have such a vision behind them that I think people will want to come for many, many generations to visit them,” said curator Iwona Blazwick, former director of London’s Whitechapel Gallery.
AlDowayan, one of the Saudi contributors, told AFP that until recently her work had been seen more often outside the Kingdom than inside the Kingdom, although she dismissed the notion that it had anything to do with censorship.
“I’ve spoken about very difficult issues when it was really restrictive here and I was fine. They published me in every single newspaper. I was never censored,” she said.
The nature of visual artists’ work gives them more space to express themselves than Saudi activists might enjoy, said Eman Alhussein, non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“Artists can express themselves more freely because their artworks can be interpreted in different ways,” she said.
That seems especially true these days, with Saudi authorities leaning on the arts to temper their harsh reputation.
After two decades of performing mostly for foreigners, AlDowayan is now basking in a surge of domestic attention.
“I’m on permanent display here,” she said. “I am rediscovered by my people, my community. They used to follow me on Instagram. Now they can actually go and look at the artworks.”
– Legacy of Limitations –
Mater has also had mostly positive experiences with the Saudi authorities.
But he has also seen the limits of free speech in Saudi Arabia through the case of his childhood friend Ashraf Fayadh, a fellow artist who has been behind bars for nearly a decade.
Fayadh, a Palestinian poet living in the kingdom, was charged with apostasy in 2014 after a Saudi citizen accused him of promoting atheism.
A court sentenced him to death in 2015, although his sentence was reduced to eight years on appeal.
Mater sees Fayadh’s case as a throwback to a less open time and doesn’t think it would be like that today.
Despite this, “the case is still very important because Ashraf needs to come out,” Mater said, adding that he hopes his friend will be released soon.
Meanwhile, Mater pushes his politically charged work forward.
His project for Wadi AlFann involves building tunnels that visitors can enter. Once inside, their hologram-like images are projected across the dunes – an effect akin to a mirage.
The idea is to use a monument to center ordinary people, a concept not necessarily consistent with monarchical rule.
“Typically, sculpture is about symbols of power,” Mater said.
“And what I mean here is that the power is in the people themselves.”
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