Being Within the Change
A saffron-painted merry cow, and the mass-market dairy products it produces—including cheese glowing with golden, technicolor vibrancy—is the centerpiece of (2006–10), a multi-part installation by the Saudi Arabian artist Ahmed Mater. Utilizing mass marketing and commercial advertising, Mater catapulted the Quran tale of the yellow cow into the present day. That Mater the provocateur—who also co-founded the galvanizing Edge of Arabia organization to promote Saudi art and ran the underground Pharan Studio in Jeddah—was recently appointed executive director of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Dubai desk editor Kevin Jones asks in his Feature: “Will the soft-power posturing and cultural-diplomacy of his job curtail or delimit his own artistic practice?” As Mater’s story, and those of other artists in the July/August issue of demonstrate, something can be learned from fluid adaptation and internal resistance, as opposed to outright rejection of institutionalized systems and singular narratives.
