The aim of the exhibition is to promote Palestinian national issues through the art of caricature
Ramallah- In the hall of the Yasser Arafat Museum in the city of Al-Bireh, the works of 104 cartoonists from 43 countries were displayed, during which they presented their own vision on the Palestinian cause and the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The exhibition, which bore the name “Palestine and Yasser Arafat”, was a “portrait” of President Arafat, and includes other works on Palestine and its cause under the Israeli occupation.
However, hours after the opening of the exhibition, in which Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh participated, social media sites were filled with publications accusing this exhibition of distorting the “symbol of the Palestinian cause” Yasser Arafat with the exhibited works.
The protest developed into statements from the leadership of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) and protest statements from it, demanding that the Yasser Arafat Foundation remove “the offensive images of Yasser Arafat’s revolutionary personality and his symbolism of struggle immediately, and apologize for that.”
In a statement to the Fatah movement in Ramallah, he threatened to remove it, while holding responsible those who gave the instructions to organize this exhibition, which is what actually happened.
The state of controversy made the museum’s management issue a clarification statement, in which it said that the displayed drawings were subject to discussion and examination, and accordingly it was allowed to publish these drawings, and that they represented the viewpoint of their authors on how they support the Palestinian cause and support the late President Yasser Arafat.
The statement also said that the Yasser Arafat Museum is keen to preserve the image, biography and career of Yasser Arafat, and that what was published in the exhibition does not affect Yasser Arafat, “but the art of caricature is a controversial and creative art.”
Despite the clarification, the museum reviewed all the displayed drawings and removed the drawings, which it said “did not receive any understanding from the Palestinian public opinion,” without specifying these drawings and the artists who drew them.
The goal is solidarity with Palestine
During the opening, Al Jazeera Net spoke with Palestinian cartoonist Osama Nazzal – one of the exhibition organizers and organizers in cooperation with the museum – about the exhibition that he oversaw its implementation, starting from presenting the idea to the museum until communicating with artists around the world and receiving their works, printing and displaying them.
Nazzal said that the remarkable response and desire to participate in this exhibition during communication with artists, especially Arab artists.
It is noted that the drawings that were shown, which are 150 works out of 205 works, reveal the fingerprints of the artists and their cultural backgrounds. Yasser Arafat used Chinese features in the drawings of 9 artists from China, and in other drawings with Western features.
As for the drawings by Arab and Palestinian artists, they were closer to the Palestinian reality, and reflected a closer knowledge of the reality of Palestine under occupation and their view of Yasser Arafat. The painting of the Egyptian cartoonist Tamer Youssef was “We Separate and We Continue”, which talks about the continuation of the aggression on the Gaza Strip, and the drawing of the woman who protects Palestine with her body from the Somali artist Omar Shedi.
According to Nazzal, the main objective of this exhibition, and others that are planned to be held in the future, is to promote and revitalize Palestinian national issues through the art of caricature, especially that every artist has a pulpit that is followed by many around the world.
For his part, Mamdouh Al-Farroukh, from the museum exhibition team, commented on the controversy surrounding some of the drawings, saying, “All artists participated in the exhibition with the aim of solidarity with the Palestinian people and Abu Ammar (Yasser Arafat), but the diversity of cultures for some differs, which is not accepted by others.”
Al-Farroukh told Al-Jazeera Net that the displayed paintings were chosen carefully, and there is no painting that offends the late Yasser Arafat, on the contrary, all the paintings show him as a global icon and a symbol of peace.
The exhibition will remain open to its visitors for a period of 6 months, and these works will be documented in a book sent to all participants in the exhibition.
Exaggeration based on caricature
The exhibition included drawings specially prepared for this artistic event, and others drawn in the past and dealing with exhibition topics such as the work that the Jordanian painter Imad Hajjaj participated in and painted after the departure of Yasser Arafat.
Hajjaj told Al Jazeera Net, during a telephone conversation with him from his place of residence in Amman, that this exhibition includes the legacy of President Arafat in all stages of his life, and he is the character who has been present in the cartoons’ drawings since the seventies.
Hajjaj expressed his regret for removing some of the drawings from the exhibition, noting that all the painters participating in it are well-known and skilled in this art.
Hajjaj explained that the art of “portraiture” in caricature is an art known worldwide for exaggeration. The painter has the right to form and manipulate the features of the face, by focusing on the key of the face, just like what some artists, especially foreigners, have done.
He continued, “Usually this manipulation is accepted, and even if this character becomes strange or funny, this is the basis of the caricature portrait.”
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