What can a careful analysis of local art scenes tell us about politics at the local, regional, and global scales? Quite a lot. Hanan Toukan’s The Politics of Art explores the complex nexus of dissent and counterhegemonic cultural production and their entanglement with foreign arts funding. How is political dissent shaped and represented by artists who lack access to established arts markets? Might local art scenes work as sites for political dissent and counter hegemonic cultural production? Internationally funded nonprofit and nongovernmental art organizations seem to think so, and thus in recent decades they have poured funding into local arts scenes as part of larger civil society and democracy development aid agendas. Toukan explores these processes as windows into the politics of dissent, presenting macro-analytical insights that are then brought down to the micro level through the cases of Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon.
The book is organized into two parts of three chapters each, plus an introduction, conclusion, and “intermezzo” to connect the macro analysis of the first part with the micro analyses of the individual studies of the art scenes in Beirut, Amman, and Ramallah. Part I provides the historical political context for the eastern Mediterranean region, as well as theoretical discussions of the workings of power. It explores the increasingly vibrant art scenes funded by foreign and local nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations since 9/11 and asks whether cultural diplomacy has shaped counterhegemonic cultural praxis and its aestheticization in contemporary art. Although political meaning is constructed through cultural production, Toukan shows how two competing conceptions of contemporary art reveal political tensions over art’s meaning: art may be a critical voice and a counterhegemonic production, but it might also be a “space for cooptation and compromise, as post-colonial nationalism or else as the effect of a Westernized liberalism” (pp. 33–34). Toukan unpacks the concept and meaning of cultural diplomacy for both the senders and receivers of funding, revealing a multifaceted process of international cultural politics. Here the author connects these process of cultural diplomacy—a lexicon that includes public relations, public diplomacy, cross-cultural exchange and collaborations, cultural cooperation, and so on—with evolving foreign development aid agendas, showing how power works in cultural production: the “invasiveness” of this language of diplomacy, exchange, and collaboration “renders funders and fund recipients oblivious, unwittingly or not, to the fact that the funding of cultural production is always an instrument of power, even if it is intercepted by local actors”; that is, even if they are not mere “passive dupes” (p. 42).
The two remaining chapters in part I show how aid to nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations brought about the “professionalization” of the field of cultural production and the changing perspectives of different generations of artists. This professionalization took the form of instructing local artists and art organization directors precisely how they should organize in ways that reflected Western organizational practices—valuing and advancing transparency, accountability, sustainability, gender equality, and so on. One telling quote from the director of an arts organization in Beirut captures both these directives and the funding recipients’ frustrations in trying to implement them:
First, they told us to “network,” and we began to work around this idea, forging partnerships with others in the region and elsewhere, hopping on flights to France and Egypt to learn how to run our own organizations back home. Then they changed their mind and decided what we needed was “capacity building,” then there was the frenzy of “institutionalization,” which we attended to by setting up nominal boards and announcing positions, etc., and now, finally we have arrived at art “spaces” or “informal” art schools. If you have not noticed, they are the hottest thing in town right now (quoted on p. 77).
Toukan then shows how different generations of artists have differing views not only on diverse forms of foreign intervention but also on the role of art in dissent and counterhegemonic production. She divides these generations broadly into two: the 1967 generation, for whom questions of Arab nationalism and anti-imperialism are paramount, and a post-1990s generation, for whom dissent is no longer focused so narrowly or uniformly on specific issues and whose interdisciplinary art is political through its process and the political dissent that it reflects, rather than “doing” dissent through art. The newer generations are at once more radical but also more diverse in how they understand and engage regional and global process, practices, and counterparts. Many public discussions in these countries frame questions of foreign funding for art as either “with or against.” Those who accept funds are accused of being enticed by the West and thus betraying nationalist commitments, thereby becoming willing participants in Western cultural imperialism, regardless of whether the funding was conditional or not. Local artists always insist that funding is unconditional and does not affect the art they create, and yet the funding priorities of the donors unquestionably have an impact.
A short “intermezzo” summarizes part I and serves as a transition to part II, shifting from theoretical debates about power and the contours of the macro-structural dynamics of the region to the micro level to explore how these factors play out in the individual art scenes and in local politics in Beirut, Amman, and Ramallah. The chapters are illustrated with images of artists, as well as their art, giving the reader a clear sense of how the cases are distinct given their local political context but are also interconnected, given the escalation of cultural diplomacy funding after 9/11 and again after the Arab uprisings.
With deep knowledge of the local art scenes and the politics of the three cases, Toukan’s analysis is both sweepingly historical and global in scope and intimate at the local scale. It explores questions of nationalism, belonging, regional and international connections, postcoloniality, and affect. The Politics of Art is an important and original contribution to the growing body of literature that examines politics and political dissent in spaces and places outside either formal institutions or the field of contentious politics. It matters that we find politics in these places, not to romanticize resistance—a pitfall that Toukan adeptly avoids—but because understanding where and how dissent emerges, is expressed, and is reflected is central to understanding how art and artists can—sometimes unwittingly but sometimes not—play a role in the reproduction of the very forms of power that they seek to challenge. Toukan brings this tension out beautifully in her examination of how the art scenes evolve in part in tandem with broader processes and values of neoliberalism.
The book has much to say about many political issues, but the discussion of neoliberalism is particularly interesting in its departure from analyses that focus on neoliberal economic reforms as austerity, privatization, and opening markets to foreign direct investment. Instead, Toukan shows how neoliberal values have shaped all forms of foreign development funding, including cultural diplomacy. Beginning in the 1990s but particularly in the aftermath of 9/11, the foreign funders of arts and the artists who received funding were both increasingly constrained by “neoliberal culture” (p. xii): an almost obsessive focus on individualism and entrepreneurialism translated into the aforementioned “professionalization” of both the directors of art centers and artistic practice itself. Cultural production was increasingly discussed as a “product” that could circulate on global platforms, rather than “seeing art as embedded in and part of critical discourse at the local level, even if it was still part of global capital flows” (p. 7). Some cultural producers recognized and reflected critically on this language and emphasis; yet Toukan reminds us that economic and political systems still encompass us, “even when we’re sure they haven’t because we believe we dissent from them in our creative expression of resistance” (p. xii). Still, the work of the new artists during this period was radical in conceiving of cultural production as an opportunity not only or even primarily to express or reflect political dissent but also to alter and reshape the meanings and spaces of the urban built environment. Their interdisciplinary art worked as an alternative form of political engagement and expression of dissent that operated outside formal politics, producing localized occasions to engage with global flows of ideas and praxis of cultural production.
This raises a question about the political effects of cultural production beyond the art scenes themselves. Were the funders entirely wrong in believing that support for cultural production might foster democratic values and desires for broader political or cultural change? I would have liked a more direct answer to the question about whether these three art scenes work as sites for political dissent and counter hegemonic cultural production, particularly given the neoliberal cultural turn Toukan describes so vividly. Likely, we see effects that are both counterhegemonic while also working to reproduce the status quo politics. Relatedly, how do artists engage with more traditional forums for expressing opposition and political dissent, from political parties to other forms of activism? I know of several Jordanian artists in Amman who were very active in women’s rights protests, leftist political parties, and so on, so I wonder what those patterns might look like comparatively.
In sum, The Politics of Art is beautifully written and engages the relevant literatures from mainstream debates to more critical thinkers from the Frankfurt School to Rancière and Foucault. Written without jargon, the book is both theoretically sophisticated and accessible. The three chapters on Beirut, Amman, and Ramallah are particularly engaging, giving voice to their artists and their work in ways that bring the theoretical contributions to life while illustrating the similarities and differences between the local contexts. The book will be of interest not only to larger debates not only on cultural production but also on the diverse effects of neoliberalism, political dissent, the politics of urban space, and foreign development aid.
