We Could Call This an -Ism: ‘Desert Displacements’ at Lawrie Shabibi

By Daniel H. Rey
Published on February 8, 2024

A known piece of wisdom paraphrases that nobody is a prophet in their own land. These words prove timely in Lawrie Shabibi’s latest show. Peruvian artist Ishmael Randall Weeks greets Dubai in a bold gallery solo titled ‘Desert Displacements,’ but, what exactly is being displaced? And in which desert are the artworks preaching?

Nested in a corner facing one of Alserkal Avenue’s entrances, Lawrie Shabibi is a fairly monumental site: a large sign, a two-storey warehouse, and a roster of artists making Venice moves, London sprints and among the Gulf’s hottest public art feats. Entering the gallery, I am greeted by a wall text whose handful of paragraphs beg the question, who wrote them? I am left hungry for first-person words from one of the six Latin American artists represented by a gallery in the Emirates.

1. Installation view, Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Desert Displacements, 11 Jan - 9 Feb 2024. Photo by Ismail Noor of Seeing Things. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi.

The wall text authorship query doesn’t last me long. In a world where the Tex-Mex sombrero has become a meme, I see a familiar Andean hat as part of a work levitating a few feet off the gallery’s floor. With the hat, a few birds sit on windowsills. In a walkthrough of the show, the artist mentions flying birds helping him strike a parallel between the symbolism of falcons in the Gulf and the Andes. Randall Weeks’ previous showings in Dubai have abstained from much representation of living species or humans even, but the birds in this solo chirp the clear message that flying animals, contemporary humans and artworks follow migratory patterns that traverse the sky.

Before we reach other parts of the show, Randall Weeks’ work makes me think about birdwatching having commonalities with galleries watching artists. This requires curiosity, subtlety, research, and… an eye. With this, experiencing the solo show of a Peruvian practitioner in Dubai feels huge. Representing a South American artist in a fellow underrepresented region is very telling of where Dubai’s place in the arts is headed: compressing the distances between “Global South” artists and their foreign audiences without a need for intermediaries north of Mexico or Morocco. The exhibitions’ multiple parts are a few exercises of acercamientos / rapprochements / التقارب / approximations? to the Gulf, to the Levant, to Peru and, Dubai-ly enough, to the future.

Representing a South American artist in a fellow underrepresented region is very telling of where Dubai’s place in the arts is headed: compressing the distances between “Global South” artists and their foreign audiences without a need for intermediaries north of Mexico or Morocco.

2. IIshmael Randall Weeks, Retablo IV, 2023, Bronze, Grout 700, corrugated steel, notebooks and pencils, 200 x 120 x 5 cm. Photographed by Juan Pablo Murrugarra. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi.

The star of the show is a foldable work of brass frames and concrete fillings with insertions of pencils, crayons and school stationery. A Peruvian branded notebook with late 20th century psychedelic motifs reveals itself as one of three panels fold. The work, more than a playful trip down memory lane, is the artist’s timely regret of many children’s deprivation from education and learning opportunities amid the ongoing war in Gaza. The gesture is a skillful reflection on a crisis making ripples around the world, with Peru not being the exception.

3. Installation view, Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Desert Displacements, 11 Jan - 9 Feb 2024. Photo by Ismail Noor of Seeing Things. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi.

With an aching heart, how does one navigate the show further? On the opposite side of the room the metallic casting of an olive tree branch makes two appearances. The artist speaks of their longevity and importance throughout history. The room links this to the Mediterranean world and the subsequent arrival of the olive tree in the Americas by way of Spain. The olive tree branch is a bridge between Peru and the Arab World, and also a form of punctuating geographies throughout the show. In Randall Weeks’ words, “the exhibition space is where you put periods and commas.” So with this, what stories are paused, stopped or resumed in the exhibition? And, at this stage, what are the desert references in the show?

A levitating work with tiles and a futuristic arrangement in a curve seems to have the clues. The artist’s observations in Peru’s Samaca Valley led him to focus on geometries, particularly the curvature of desert dunes, and their possible reading as parabolas. Rather than serving a mathematical purpose, the parabola here seems to serve more of a conceptual reference: parabolic antennas, things having an effect in seemingly unrelated places, and, why not, the invisible evolutionary links between places, people, and knowledge.

The exhibition space is where you put periods and commas.

_{- Ishmael Randall Weeks}

‘Desert Displacements’ inhabits a riveting tension: a broad wall-text edging Orientalist undertones versus a detailed articulation of the European influences in the artist’s work. The detailed sculptural gestures of the show clash occasionally with the vague treatment of the geographies they refer to. “Arabian” and “Pre-Columbian” feel too broad for a show with such specific imagery and underlying research connecting the Arab World and the Americas. What counterweights the geographical scrumbles of the wall text are the artist’s thoughtful placement of his work in dialogue with art and architecture histories, these—for better or worse—European. Randall Weeks’ traces influences in his works in the show back to Bauhaus, Russian Constructivism, and his engagement with the work of Spanish-born architect Félix Candela. To his credit, there is something refreshing about artists locating their work in wider art historical genealogies.

Architectural elements increase the size and volume of the show, both in the main hall and its appendix room. Folding structures, panels and mini cabinets add storage, privacy, movement and depth to the show’s material investigations. Randall Weeks’ architectural references in his works make this a show of sliding, concealing, undigging, rotating and revealing, a show of possibilities. The books-in-concrete-blocks that have made him world famous, a series of 100 pieces titled Codigos, are partly present in the gallery and speak to the artist's empirical archaeological samplings of the built environment in his home base of Lima. At the back of the room, a grid of concrete and glass panels that can be rotated echo the artist’s conviction that “play and exploration are very important in art."

4. Installation view, Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Desert Displacements, 11 Jan - 9 Feb 2024. Photo by Ismail Noor of Seeing Things. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi.

5. Installation view, Ishmael Randall-Weeks, Desert Displacements, 11 Jan - 9 Feb 2024. Photo by Ismail Noor of Seeing Things. Courtesy of the artist and Lawrie Shabibi.

Structurally and thematically, Desert Displacements is a tangible commentary on the adaptability that current life needs —as well as its limitations, abandoned histories, ruminations and material nostalgias. Ishmael Randall Weeks is pursuing what we could conclude by terming “tangiblism:” transforming speculations about relegated pasts and once distant places into the material consciousness of existing in more than one place. With roots in Lima and presented in Dubai, Desert Displacements professes that we are closer than we imagine, and that our physical existence—as unpredictable as sand dunes—functions with more commonalities than we presume.

^{‘Desert Displacements’ is on view at Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai until 9 February 2024.}
About the artist Ishmael Randall-Weeks (b. 1976)’s practice encompasses installations, sculpture and video to works on paper. In these works, issues of urbanization, transformation, regeneration, escape, collapse and nomadic existence have been predominant. While the work in the drawing studio serves as a means for a more intimate exploration of these issues, the foundation of his larger scale work lies in the alteration of found and recycled materials and environmental debris, often on site (including such source materials as aged books and printed matter, empty tins, old tires, bicycles, boat parts and building construction fragments) that are often altered to create sculptural objects and architectural spaces. These works take the visual form of functional objects while stripping them of their productivity to address notions of labor and utility, forcing an examination of our understanding of culturally specific forms while simultaneously exploiting and adapting their particular codes and associations.

About the gallery Lawrie Shabibi was founded in 2010 and opened its doors in early 2011 in Alserkal Avenue, located within the light industrial warehouse district of Al Quoz in Dubai. The gallery’s initial focus was on the practices of emerging contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa (the “Global South”), and in the last five years it has introduced artists from other regions and generations, yet with the same focus on the “underrepresented”. A major focus remains the support of artists from the diaspora who create work in all media to explore issues such as identity, memory, history and socio-political issues specific to the diasporic experience. Another part of the programme is to organise art historical exhibitions, working with an older generation of artists. Of note are the historic shows presented for the Moroccan pioneer Mohamed Melehi (1936-2020) and most recently Iraqi/French Mehdi Moutashar (b.1943).

About the writer
Daniel H. Rey researches, programs and curates between soils and Wi-Fis. His work is concerned with communities in the “Global South”: how they cross-pollinate, communicate, host, and experience hostility. Today, Daniel coordinates public programs at Art Jameel. In parallel, he has launched Almacén المخزن Armazém, a multimedia research project archiving and exhibiting creative practices tied to Latin America and the Arab world. Daniel feels at home in Asunción, Oslo, Dubai, and possibly Mars.

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer/Fall 2024

E-08++
Summer/Fall 2024

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Chronological Archive ––

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

E-07++
Winter/Spring 2024

🔍 Legal

We Could Call This an -Ism: ‘Desert Displacements’ at Lawrie Shabibi

Representing a South American artist in a fellow underrepresented region is very telling of where Dubai’s place in the arts is headed: compressing the distances between “Global South” artists and their foreign audiences without a need for intermediaries north of Mexico or Morocco.

The exhibition space is where you put periods and commas.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SELSummer/Fall 2024

E-08++ Summer/Fall 2024

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Chronological Archive ––

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB Summer 2020

E-01++ Fall/Winter 2020-21

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

E-Issue 02 –– NYC Spring 2021

E-02++ Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO Fall 2021

E-03++ Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST Spring 2022

E-04++ Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE Fall 2022

E-05++ Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJSpring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUHWinter 2023-24

E-07++ Winter/Spring 2024

🔍 Legal

We Could Call This an -Ism: ‘Desert Displacements’ at Lawrie Shabibi

Representing a South American artist in a fellow underrepresented region is very telling of where Dubai’s place in the arts is headed: compressing the distances between “Global South” artists and their foreign audiences without a need for intermediaries north of Mexico or Morocco.

The exhibition space is where you put periods and commas.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer/Fall 2024

E-08++
Summer/Fall 2024

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

E-07++
Winter/Spring 2024