RIYADH: The Saudi artist discusses his beading-on-canvas work, on display at Art Dubai May 15, and part of his jazz-inspired “Blue Note” series, on show at Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai from May 13 to September.
Sultan bin Fahad. (Photo by Amer Alsaad)
This project started from a place of not knowing: I didn’t come from a deep academic understanding of jazz. What interested me was discovering that some of the roots of jazz could be traced back to West Africa — possibly even to Muslim communities there. It’s actually made up of West African beads. In Africa, chanting is part of everyday life, and I felt like maybe it was during their journeys — even during slavery — they were using these chants as entertainment; making music up to entertain themselves. To me, jazz music carries a sadness — that’s just my feeling; it’s not necessarily the truth.
It’s really a period series — I was thinking about the 1940s and 1950s, when groups of jazz musicians in the US converted to Islam, whether for spiritual or social reasons, and changed their names. This triggered an interest for me. At that time, in the US, you were black or white — they didn’t have other categories. So, when they took an Arabic or Muslim name, say, Yusef Lateef, they were confusing the other side, who struggled to categorize them. They were resisting.
This piece is based on the album cover of “Outertimeinnerspace” by Ahmad Jamal. From what I believe, it was inspired by stories from the Qur’an, but also by his African heritage. I’ve changed it a bit, of course, and I’ve used a quote he used in one of his interviews. It’s a quote that shows a certain resilience in a hard situation.
My challenge was to make it clear that this piece is about music and Islam, which don’t necessarily go together. You can see the border has Islamic motifs. I don’t really like to explain my work; I feel like if people don’t get anything from it — understand, or feel, something — in the first 10 seconds or so, then I’ve failed.
Throughout the series, the faces aren’t really defined. They’re softened or removed altogether, because I wasn’t interested in fixing identity. I wanted to keep it open. It’s basically about the movement as a whole; and it could apply to new people now — maybe in hip-hop or another genre affected by those social themes, and faith, and diaspora.
I wanted something that provokes curiosity — that makes people want to think and understand more about this subject — about music and the influence of our religion.
