Vision
and Division
In the studios of ASHIK MENE and RINO STEPHANI, in the north
and south of Cyprus respectively, Philadelphia-based sculptor Elizabeth
Doering probes the realities of making art on a divided island
Ashik Mene in his
studio; this and all photos courtesy the author
Ashik Mene, a Turkish Cypriot
artist living in the north part of Nicosia, was welcoming and unsurprised
when he heard American English on his mobile phone. In a typically Cypriot
way, word had already arrived that a foreign artist wanted to speak
with him. It happened when he was waiting at the border crossing from
the south: another Turkish Cypriot in line in front of him flashed him
a business card, and then walked on. "...She wants to see you,"
he said as he passed. Cyprus still operates as a small place, even though
opening the official lines of communication has significantly enlarged
the breadth of the population in the past two months. Arranging a meeting
on the Other Side - whichever side that is - can be awkward unless that
local network of passing the word is in operation. A phone call, difficult
already because of language differences, can sometimes be cut three
or four times during the course of a short conversation. In some cases
telephone calls must be routed through Turkey. If one disregards the
UN Buffer zone cutting the city in half, then we are only a few blocks
apart, within the same Venetian walls of the old city.
In divided Cyprus, memory
and geography are inextricably linked with self-identification, and
they are themes common among artists in the island today. The Cyprus
Problem, the result of the inter-communal troubles of 1963-1974, has
shaped the psychological heritage of artists of both communities. The
island has remained divided since the summer of 1974, when a Greek-backed
coup attempted to unite Cyprus with Greece. The Turkish army, ostensibly
defending the island's then 18% minority of Turkish Cypriots, clapped
the island with an invasion from the North, and seized more than 30%
of the island. The UN has remained as a presence since then, maintaining
a divsion ("The Buffer Zone", or "The Green Line")
that stretches from coast to coast, and bisects the capital city of
Nicosia.
Like the two Cypriot populations, "division", and "vision"
are similar words without similar roots. Most Turkish Cypriots and Greek
Cypriots will identify themselves with one another first, as Cypriots,
and then become more specific about their own lineage, either Turkish
or Greek. Artists are a special case. They generally have politics to
the left of the mainstream, and they have shown together in exhibitions
abroad and at home consistently over the past 29 years. Even during
the most difficult times in the last five years, Cypriot artists (Greek
and Turkish) have made contact with each other and shared ideas over
the Internet. Perhaps "division" could be regarded, in relation
to contemporary art in Cyprus, as "di-vision": Two visions
of the same act of separation and reunification.
Ashik Mene arrived at our
meeting point, the Ataturk Cultural Center, and took me in his SUV over
to the part of the Arab Ahmet Quarter where he has his studio. We drove
up onto a dirt parking lot, and from there picked our way through some
rubble, dried palm fronds and mashed cyclone fencing to his door. Inside,
we went up a flight of dark, wooden stairs past the word "Amen"
written on the wall, and sheaves of unstretched paintings in storage.
Mene's work space is two small rooms with tall ceilings and whitewashed
plaster walls. A red carpet, and a plate of fruits set off the colors
in the large canvases that leaned and hung all around; and the perfume
of varnish went everywhere: "It's a drug, yes... I must have it
every day," he commented on the varnish. My company, Cypriot anthropologist
Stephanos Stephanides, sat on an old patterned sofa below painted-out
window panes and slumping jalousies that had given way to a modern air
conditioner above.
Ashik Mene studio,
various works in progress
The paintings are all in
process. "I don't want to say I paint in Cypriot ways, but I know
the air, the earth. I am trying to... [remain] international, while
at the same time [acknowledging] a responsibility to experience and
memory." The canvases depict soft forms, figures, slipping in and
out of an apparently unstructured ground. There is no sense of place
in these paintings, but there is a lot of air, a lot of space. Figures
make themselves invisible into apparent interiorscapes, and seem to
overlap, to wrestle with an undefined 'other'. He favors a range of
oranges, and blues. Sometimes an area of lead white will envelop a vast
space like a creeping fog: obscuring structure and surrounding - upholding
- only the salient among the subjects. A few identifiable, symbolic
props are included in these pastiches of pose and gesture. One is a
large screw. Mene's work is a wrestling mat where forms struggle to
maintain their substance and their structure, against an encroaching
void.
Ashik Mene was born in Larnaca, a major city on the south side of the
island. He spent his life in the midst of Greek Cypriot friends until
he returned from art school in Istanbul, for summer vacation. That was
the summer of 1974, the summer of the Turkish invasion; the division
of the island; and a massive transfer of populations. Mene and his family
left for the Turkish Cypriot side of Nicosia. "If you leave people
together, he says, "they'll solve their problems. If you live together,
you have no problem - you are living, and you know each other. It's
when [someone] pushes The Button that everything is changing..."
He narrated a long list of years in which, outside of Cyprus and on
holidays at home, he had taken part in Cypriot movements for unification,
and more recently in Cyprus he has taken part in "bicommunal"
dialogues that have convened members of both communities in the shared
(Greek-Turkish) village of Pyla. "[Artists] are the people who
need peace... We don't always agree with the politicians..."
One of the reasons artists need peace is economics: this is one of the
major differences between the north and the south in Cyprus. It is also
the most obvious way in which Turkish Cypriot artists can benefit. They
may suddenly have a market for their work, and more than two state-sponsored
places where they can exhibit. The difference in economics between the
artists was highlighted recently when, because of the border openings,
there was an opportunity to stage an open studio tour in the whole of
Nicosia. On one side, Greek Cypriot artist groups are usually successful
in getting financial sponsorship from corporate entities, like banks,
as well as support from the Cyprus government and some foreign embassies.
The backing is used for excellent publicity and formal catalogues. But
the Turkish Cypriot authorities, on the other side, prohibited participation
of their artists because the Greek Cypriots had netted this commercial
support. At least, that is one version of the story. In the end, "Inside
the Walls of Nicosia 2003", the studio tour named in recognition
of the Venetian walls that encircle the city and its divisive buffer
zone, featured only Greek Cypriot studios. Mene comments on the situation,
"...we put up another kind of zone: A commercial zone."
Loulli Michaelidou, a Greek Cypriot educated in London, is a cultural
officer for the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture. Busy with
her major concern, the 2003 Venice Bienniale, she spared a moment to
comment on politics and artists in Cyprus. She said, "...the struggle
[the Cyprus Problem] is political, but it's also an individual one;
it's part of a cultural identity". She elaborates: Cypriot art
"...tends to be criticized for being homogenous, if not conventional...
Beautification and aestheticization are still [very popular trends]."
"Homogeneity, she clarifies, "is typical of small countries
where deviation has traditionally not been rewarded, and where assimilation
and 'widened horizons' have not, in the past, been valued as much as
adherence to tradition." In Cyprus there is a great market for
what could be termed traditional Mediterranean painting and sculpture.
Interestingly, Mene mentioned the same issue: "Conformism is dangerous
for an artist... We have the exact same interests, the artists north
and south. But it's the lifestyle... If you have enough pain, you have
to create".
