ISSA TOUMA VS. THE SYRIAN STATE
By Kaelen Wilson-Goldie

The Daily Star
Friday, September 15, 2006

Organizer of International Photography Gathering in Aleppo faces
last-minute closure … again

BEIRUT: If all goes as planned, the ninth edition of the International
Photography Gathering in Aleppo with open tonight. The gathering is
an annual exhibition that runs over the course of 10 days. This year,
it is set to highlight over 1,000 works of art – heavy on contemporary
fine art and documentary photography with a few pieces of video art
by a nascent generation of young Syrian talent thrown in for good
measure – by 50 artists from 30 different countries.

But in the world of Issa Touma, the festival’s founder and organizer,
rarely does all go as planned. For years now, Touma has been struggling
with the Syrian authorities, who seem to be more than just a little
reluctant to let him do his own thing. At press time, the venue for
the gathering had just changed again (a slew of postindustrial spaces
have fallen through in the last 10 days, with the owners or directors
reneging on their promises to host the festival).

Those working with Touma on the festival’s last-minute details say
he is currently in "hiding" from the Syrian security services (though
he still hopes to make it to the opening on time).

Reportedly, the Aleppo governor and the head of the security services
have also filed a lawsuit against Touma, allegedly for re-opening
his gallery after it was ordered to close a year ago.

Touma, a photographer in his own right, studied Armenian art in Aleppo
and decided to open a gallery there in 1992. Called Black and White,
the space stuttered and stalled and ultimately closed, at which point
Touma opened a second venue, a gallery called Le Pont.

He has also launched a number of arts initiatives in Syria, including
the International Photography Gathering and the Women’s Art Festival,
all of which focus on young and emerging talent, unknown in Syria
and abroad, at the expense of older, more established painters and
sculptors who are a part of the Syrian canon and anointed by the
Syrian state.

Last year, Le Pont was shuttered by the authorities three times in nine
months. The year before, Touma says the electricity was deliberately
cut during the opening of the eighth edition of the International
Photography Gathering, a problem "solved" by one of the participants
pulling his car around and using his headlights to illuminate the
works on view.

Touma is one of a number of high-profile dissidents, including novelist
Ammar Abdulhamid and filmmaker Omar Amiralay, whose troubles with
the state suggest that the arts, broadly speaking, pose a threat to
authoritarian rule. The freedom of the fabled art space is problematic
because it can’t, by definition, be co-opted.

For his part, Touma insists that he is in fact entirely apolitical. But
few could deny the contributions he has made to the development of
a credible and critical contemporary art scene in Syria.

"He has done a lot," says Beirut-based curator Christine Tohme,
director of Ashkal Alwan (the Lebanese Association for Plastic
Arts). "He’s done something big on the level of the Syrian scene."

Tohme attended the International Photography Gathering several years
ago, the same edition in which the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation
participated. She says she finds the news of his troubles year after
year puzzling.

"It’s becoming like a game between him and them," she says. "Every year
we hear Issa Touma is having trouble with the Syrian authorities. It’s
becoming a pattern.

Why is this happening? This is why I ask: ‘How can you have galleries
and art spaces in a hegemony?’" It’s a question Tohme extends not
only to Syria but other autocratic countries in the Arab world.

Yet some artists and curators tend to believe Touma’s problems are
in some way self-perpetuating, and stem as much from disorganization
and a general reluctance to play well with others as they do from
political contention.

"He’s a kind of one-man show," says Lebanese photographer Gilbert Hage,
who joined the International Photography Gathering the year it began
and participated in several of its early editions.

"The work he does is good, but we’d always find out where the festival
was happening two days before the opening and the way the works
were hung was bad, the way they were framed was bad, and the dust,
the humidity," all left a lot to be desired, he says.

"Can you imagine what it is like to look the artists in the eye
now?" asks Touma, on the line from Aleppo, explaining how he’s
been dealing with the last-minute complications. "I feel so sad and
embarrassed in front of the 32 artists who have come to Syria for
the festival. But they have offered such good support. The festival
is continuing because of the artists."

When asked why he has become such a thorn in the Syrian regime’s side,
Touma says: "Because I’m not kissing the shoes of the government. But
we don’t know why, really. Some people say it is because I welcome
foreigners to the gallery, or because I welcome diplomats. But I have
a gallery. It is open to the public. If anyone comes, I welcome them."