An artful Saudi charm offensive

Quite a bit has been written recently about the efforts of the Saudi state – and its de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman, in particular – to win influence in the White House. Little has been said, however, about the parallel track of Saudi public diplomacy aimed at shifting the opinion of the common American.

This charm offensive has ratcheted up in recent days since the announcement of Mohammed bin Salman’s multicity tour of the U.S., which began last Monday. Since then we’ve seen a rash of public-facing events featuring the ambitious Crown Prince: he’s meeting with Oprah; he’s getting a latte at Starbucks; his magazine is on sale at Rite-Aid.

One of the more illuminating events put on during bin Salman’s visit involved the Crown Prince only tangentially. On the night of March 21, the Saudi embassy in Washington teamed up with the Middle East Institute to organize a one-night-only exhibition of Saudi art at Foggy Bottom’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The event was sponsored by MBS’ personal philanthropic venture the Misk Foundation, with art curated by the associated Misk Art Institute. Despite that morning’s snow, the event saw hundreds of attendees until late into the evening.

Unless you’re among a select sliver of the world’s population, you probably have little familiarity with the world of contemporary Saudi art. Let me assure you, this is exactly what the event’s organizers expect of you. A newly-published overview of Saudi art summarizes the conversation they want you to have:

For the Kennedy Center, Misk chose to feature a variety of pieces from Saudi artists, ranging from modernist installations to more traditional paintings. There were quasi-political works such as Ahmad Angawi’s installation Street Pulse, whose microphones reflect a thirst for free expression, and Nugamshi’s video Mirage, in which the artist uses crude oil to write out the title. Both Amr Alnagmah’s photography piece Digital Spirituality and Ahmed Mater’s Magnetism to frame the Kaaba in a new light, while Angawi’s Wijha 2:148 (see below) depicts the massive development taking place in Mecca since the 1980s. Not everything is new, however – the event also featured a number of massive murals, painted by a team led by husband and wife Ali Moghawi and Fatimah Hassan in a style known as Al-Qatt Al-Asiri, recognized in 2017 on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

As if to certify the importance of the event, the exhibit was visited by a number of Saudi dignitaries, including Minister of Culture and Information Awwad al-Awwad and royal family member (and noted art enthusiast) Prince Badr bin Abdullah. If the intent behind visits from these big names was to draw in more attendees, I can vouch for its success – many people I spoke confessed they had no knowledge the event was happening until they spotted the Saudi delegation moving through the Kennedy Center. The extra publicity attracted some unfriendly attention as well, with protesters from Code Pink arriving early to demonstrate against the Saudi war in Yemen.

Beyond the quality of the art, what does all this effort say about the Saudi state? The ruling clique in Riyadh is trying to sell themselves as ambitious reformers of their aging system. So far, the Saudi soft power initiative has been focused on personal outreach. This event, however, confirms Mohammed bin Salman’s ambitions for advancing not just his own image to a US audience, but also the image of a new Saudi nation that he intends to debut. If the Misk Foundation’s art initiative is any indication of a trend, MBS aims to convince even the average American that a dynamic, cultured Saudi Arabia is on the rise. So yes, art from Saudi Arabia. And undoubtedly a whole lot more to come.