36 January 2014 www.bahrainthismonth.com happeningsartsculture The Kingdom will celebrate four decades of association with art this month, the oldest for any country in the region. One of Bahrain’s earliest painters, Shaikh Rashid Al Khalifa, has been a driving force behind the thriving arts scene here. “We’re proud that Bahrain has held cultural events for the last four decades. Thanks to the support and encouragement of HRH Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, we’ve been able to have an uninterrupted cultural calendar. Artists need that encouragement and support to continue working,” notes Sh. Rashid, who held his first exhibition in Bahrain in 1970. While the Kingdom has hundreds of practising artists and there’s no dearth of talent, Sh. Rashid believes Bahrain should undertake an active programme to nurture creativity if it is to produce groundbreaking talent. “There are many Bahraini students who have won competitions abroad until the age of 12; but why not after this age? This is something we need to look into,” he observes. The Kingdom needs more workshops, frequent visits from foreign artists and more trips abroad for Bahraini artists to make its art circuit richer, he believes. This month will also see the Bahrain Arts Society (BAS) celebrating its 30th anniversary, with Sh. Rashid as the honorary president. The Ministry of Culture led by Shaihka Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa is putting together a celebration that will see important artists from abroad visiting the Kingdom. BAS was born in 1983 when a group of young Bahraini artists led by Sh. Rashid got together and requested the government to form an arts body. “We were all youngsters then who’d studied in the US, the UK or elsewhere in the Middle East region. We had the ambition and the drive to build a vibrant active arts scene in the Kingdom,” he recalls. “Then Minister of Culture Tariq Almoayyed suggested that we go ahead and establish it on our own.” Since then, the fortunes of BAS have risen and ebbed until the present moment, when things are looking up again. The society, which currently has 250 members, has found a new home and will be moving out of its Budaiya premises in the coming months. “We’re putting together a fresh programme for this year with more workshops and are trying to modernise the society’s administration,” adds Sh. Rashid. “In this digital age, we aim to have better channels of communication, including social media platforms to be in touch with the rest of the world.” The artist’s eye It was Oscar Wilde who remarked, “No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.” “Perhaps that suggests that our approach to art should be open-minded and questioning rather than outright rejection or negative,” he opines. “There is no such thing as ugly art. What you like, someone else might hate. God made everything beautiful in its own way. You have to have the eye and a feeling to perceive it.” An Art Affair SIMI KAMBOJ This month marks two milestones for art in Bahrain. Sh. Rashid Al Khalifa takes us down memory lane and talks about the future of art on our island. Shaikh Rashid Al Khalifa
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