Is there any region in the world other than the Mediterranean where history and culture create such extraordinary encounters and diversities? And what is this area experiencing within the context of the maelstrom, called globalization, of the end of the 20th. century? In fact, what new encounter or diversities will this globalization, which is not at all new to this region where it has been experienced at different times under different names, bring to the fore? In this geography where religions, cultures and ethnicities have formed knots impossible to unravel, how do we evaluate the results of the experience of the past century?

The most recent stage of encounter and diversity has taken place in the region when tradition and modernity met with one another with radical breaks, rough resistances, loaded submissions, and painful assimilation's. Large transformations which have left behind wars, migrations, cities destroyed or forced to change, are difficult to comprehend in the framework of one human's life...

The millennia-old cities of the Mediterranean conceal in them- selves deep and complex memories of all their transformations. Artists today, who refuse to accept reality and life as they are, trace these memories scrupulously and patiently. They claim that in order to understand the Mediterranean and all the phenomena it implies it is perhaps necessary to pay attention and investigate to the postmodern art produced in this region: They claim perhaps this is the easiest way, and that metaphors are often more meaningful than realities and lives.

In most Mediterranean countries, art bears broad meaning. With their presence in museums and instances blending in with the architecture, the traditional arts do not carry cronographic value; they are also symbols that respond to the identity problem of the masses. In this context, to the extent they can survive, traditional arts influence contemporary art in a variety of ways. Most people still resist the replacement of traditional art by the modem. For them, modem painting and sculpture continue to be crafts. While traditional art is seen as an organic aspect of the cultural identity, modern art is seen as an interference in this culture. But, at the same time, forms of modem art constitute the scream of repressed identities and the essential material of the subculture. Modern art is a source of restlessness for the masses because it contains contrasts, is open to diverse ideologies. But at the same time this restlessness is, for the masses, a way of expressing themselves. It would not be an exaggeration to claicri that the creators in the two areas do not really know each other, that for each the other is an "other." This distance, which was more distinct in the past, is decreased today because the interest of the postmodern artist has turned toward micro-cultures. Though it is known that modernism has given way to a universal culture, the fear of losing authenticity is still apparent. Samir Amin's words offer a solution to the dilemma: "Despite the polarization of center/periphery upon which it is erected, the unified world insistently presents, to every culture that seeks to found a better future based on solutions to the real problems of today, what is essentially universalism. Multiplicity has to serve the constitution of universalism instead of being posited as its absolute opposite."

However, the difficulty of becoming universal while preserving cultural diversity is apparent, especially in the Mediterranean cultures' phases of passage into the 20th century. We have seen, and continue to see, the exceedingly tasteless results of the modem, functionalist employment of architectural elements in modernism and postmodernism. The preservation of the spirit of the past requires knowledge that is deep, distilled, and subtle and involves the difficulty of re-creating the "causality" of cultural elements that have, within the spirit of the times, survived to our day. Nor in the past century, have the phases of painting and sculpture offered satisfactory results. While West European artists were using colors, forms, textures, and concepts belonging to the Mediterranean, it fell to East Mediterranean and North African artists to imitate what they produced. This was a contradiction impossible to live through. But they lived through it. They were compelled to become re-acquainted with what had been originally theirs, by re-processing it through modernism, which was not theirs. Now, at the end of the century, they are able to experience the results of their own modernism.

To view and offer for viewing the results of a modernism peculiar to the Mediterranean in architecture, literature, the cinema, and in contemporary art is now almost the only possible way of establishing links with the past cultures of the Mediterranean, generating hope for the future, and creating a "retro-visionary" reflection specific to the region. Because modernism in politics, economics, and the media does not appear to provide an intellectual richness that would offer people hope, it has become very important for art to preserve its prominence in social life.

The infrastructure of the project of "globalization" foreseen for the coming century may consist of the reinforcement of the relations between the artistic agendas of Mediterranean countries and the comparison of the results of their artistic experiences.

After Cario, it was essential to visit the next legendary Mediterranean city: Beirut.

During my five-day visit to Beirut, I was hosted, by Christine Tohme, who tirelessly took me to the artists' studios all around the city, driving through the brand new avenues and dangerously narrow streets: Within the traditional and modem urban texture, the most striking aspect of the city was the absence and the abundance reflected respectively in the gothic-looking facades of the ruined apartments and villas and on the mirrored fronts of the high-tech skyscrapers. Among them, an extremely hollow-eyed and spooky looking yellow "konak" like building which stood off by itself on a large street comer, caught my eye. Later, I heard Rita Awn talking about this once exquisite building. She has visited it several times, looking for traces of a past life, reviving her own memories of life before the civil war, and documenting whatever was possible.

All of the other artists I visited, Walid Sadek, Walid Raad, Marwan Rechmaoui, Nelly Chemaly, Jihad Touma, and most of the video-films I had the opportunity to see during the past year, had an insistent and enduring approach to the problem of re- thinking and re-constructing the past. This seemed to be the common attitude. Putting aside questions on the nature of this pursuit, such as "is it nostalgia?", I listened to the description of past and recent works and future projects. The works mainly by-passed the outdated modernist ways of categorizing the past and the present local-world. The artists were aware of two things: The bizarre chapters of the history of the Middle East should be investigated painstakingly and in detail, in order to challenge the limitations of any world view that was constructed in the 20th century Middle East, and an earnest critique should be made of the polluted and disordered thinking of such views.. This attitude has a constructive trajectory. Even more so when we recognize that most of these artists, having lived and worked abroad before and during the war, willingly caine back to Beirut to have a hand in re- building. Secondly, the city was intensively present in their works. It became a perfect metaphor for their common and private histories. We all know that history in our region continuously flows towards us and beyond us and we hang in between this perplexing transition; sometimes we run away from it, but at the same time, addicted to this perplexity, we always come back to our cities. It is not that they had a wish to return to those days, even if they can no longer find the solidarity, attachment, and devotion they had during the long days and nights in their shelters. They want to convey that their attitude to the past is a very critical one, that they want to get a grip on the past. They know that through their f knowledge and experience they can find and display infinitely many perspectives toward a contingent paradigm of a future city.

When compared to their contemporaries in the Western centers, there is a certain difference in their attitudes. The new artists in the West (Western or non-Western) claim that art and the everyday (the. trivial) are collaborating in re-defining the commodity culture. They believe that they are not afraid of playing by the rules of the commodity. There is not only a certain philistines in attitudes, but also in the mega-exhibitions that are being designed in relation to this kind of art. It has to be said that most of these artists come from working class and middle class back- grounds; evidently they pay their tribute. This seems not to be the case in Beirut. The artists mostly come from the upper-middle class; they are well-educated, intellectually engaged and committed. Their works represent a radical configuration of the context and have a critique which is rather in the domain of conjectural reference. Even if they penetrate into the deepest levels of every- day life, the forms and values of the art works do not favorably interfuse with the popular culture of the street, which is extremely influenced by "wild" capitalism. The artists obviously utilize the strategies of critical post-modemism. I think they know very well that the outcome of their detailed preparation and their strategy to transform in the hope of promoting social changes is ultimately immeasurable. As in Istanbul, art in Beirut is still the performance/activity of a handful and not a total culturalisation, as in New York, London; or Berlin, where "change through art" has become purely utopian. There is still a certain promise of social change in the air and the artists can still have an effect, especial- ly when they invite the people to consider the spatial and social interdependence of the private and the public, of the state and the citizen. It seems very likely that in Lebanon as well as in Turkey, artists will contribute to the making of a civil society of the 21st century.

Beral Madra

Mart 1999