Magic Squares at the Textile Museum of Canada
Until Nov. 20, 55 Centre Ave., Toronto; textilemuseum.ca
Call me delusional, but occasionally I walk into an exhibition and think: This show was obviously put together for my particular pleasure and edification. There are worse cognitive disorders.
Magic Squares: The Patterned Imagination of Muslim Africa in Contemporary Culture, currently on display at the Textile Museum, is just such a dissociation-prompting event. As curated by Patricia Bentley, Magic Squares contains at least five of my top art triggers: magic and mysticism, numerology, Middle Eastern/West African culture, fabrics (wearable and decorative), plus contemporary responses to archival art. And then there's the sheer loveliness of the many works on display.
In brief, a magic square is a square containing a series of smaller squares, each housing a number. The numbers correspond to the goals and/or mystical aspirations of the wearer. The magic is enacted by the fact that all numbers within the square add up to the same sum when read diagonally, horizontally or vertically. In the case of this exhibition, many of the number sequences reference specific texts found in the Koran, and thus act, as the didactics on hand explain, as "supercharged prayers."
Woven, printed onto, or embedded in the design of garments, the magic squares are talismans, liturgical statements, indicators of kinship, or all of these elements, and more, combined. The concept of the magic square is so common in so many Sub-Saharan and North African cultures that it turns up in even the most mundane articles of clothing, from shawls to hats, and in patterning that, to the uninformed, appears to be merely sequential. But underneath the order, the mathematical precision, a world view based on ethereal manifestation, material ritual, and incantatory spell-casting pulses away – silent but hardly invisible.
The closest Western comparison to a magic square, and the decorative prevalence of the practice, is perhaps the Celtic knot. Think how often this early European infinity symbol is reproduced, or even unconsciously re-worked, in everything from actual copies (always popular with the brooch and hairclip set) to interlocking floral patterns. That is the depth of the magic square's resonance.
Magic Squares, the exhibition, is divided into two parts: textiles carrying magic squares, most of them from Africa's colonial era, and contemporary responses by artists to the prevalence of the magic square. It is a notable that Bentley's seamless curating allows the viewer to flow back and forth between the historical and the contemporary sections without noticing any marked divisions or interruptions, while the gallery space invites circular, forward and reverse reading.
My favourite works from the archival section include a stunning, huge "wrapper" (a sort of shawl-cloak) from Niger – a symphony in cloth that jumps off the wall with alternating, horizontally striped squares decorated with dizzying diamond-and-bar patterns in orange, green, blue, and black and white thread. Close to the wrapper stands an "initiation shirt" from Burkina Faso, a leathery tunic covered in Arabic script and a triangulated magic square that strongly resembles a classic, crisscrossing 10-point Tarot card spread.
Three long cloaks weighted with exquisitely hand crafted amulets and protective charms give off a cautionary vibe, while a pair of elaborately embroidered, multicoloured cuffs, fronted with magic squares and numerology-based, mathematically precise alternating arrow patterns, speak of celebratory times. (An interesting side note: Many of the works in the archival half of the exhibition carry no text, and thus speak of another kind of literacy, a familial and cultural literacy that is symbol, not script, fuelled.)
The historical portion of the show concludes with an enticing, tiny but powerful "healing scroll" – a long strip of sheep hide, measured to replicate the length of the patient, marked with client-specific magic squares and liturgical text. Healing scrolls, still widely made, are meant to be worn as medicinal tools.
In the contemporary response section of Magic Squares, I especially admired Jamelie Hassan's cheeky multimedia works that feature neon script (in English and Arabic), photographed book pages, and found objects; all combining to both pay homage to traditional Arabic decorative practice and revivify said practice. Similarly, Alia Toor, with her installation 99 Names of Aman, infuses the common, iconic (for, too often, unhappy reasons) white dust mask with a meditative power by embroidering each mask with simply stitched Arabic scripts, each carrying one of Allah's 99 names.
An exhibition like Magic Squares can't help but make one consider the state of Islamic culture and life in Canada – especially the contemporary portion of the show, which attempts to bridge the ancient and the recent.
On the day I saw Magic Squares, a teenage girl in Quebec was dismissed from refereeing a kid's soccer game simply because she was wearing a hijab. Is this what Islamophobia, and plain old ignorance, have done to inter-faith relations in Canada? Reduced our differences, which ought to be a source of celebration, or at least engagement, to addle headed, fear-driven squabbles over dress codes?
Given this idiotic (and, to me, shameful) culture-panic context, Magic Squares can be read as more than a well-draped, luscious and informative exhibition – it is also a vital reminder that Islamic culture in Canada (and the world) is, first off, internationally and diversely informed, not monolithic. As such, it offers us a world view as historically rich and packed with dazzling, even splashy, decorative flair as the dominant Judeo-Christian heritage that surrounds it.
The cure for the fear of the unknown is learning, and beauty.
IN OTHER VENUES
Teri Donovan at Red Head Gallery
Until July 16, 401 Richmond St. W., Suite 115, Toronto
Donovan does it again with her latest suite of masterful layerings – found and re-painted wallpapers, eerie images of fifties families painted on Mylar, and smarty-pants reworkings of Ward Cleaver kitchen-sink dramas. This is Mad Men without the boring parts.
Lauren Hall at YYZ Artists Outlet
Until July 23, 401 Richmond St. W., Suite 140, Toronto
Solarized surfaces and dizzying diagonals combine to recreate the sun-drunk world of the summer vacation. What's that smell? Beach pebbles made from daiquiri-scented guest soaps.
Marie-Jeanne Musiol at Prefix
Until July 23, 401 Richmond St. W., Suite 124, Toronto
Innocuous enough at first glance, Musiol's images of potty holes cut into boards might make you think of your own summer camp outhouse – until you learn they are images of toilets from Nazi death camps. Talk about the "banality of evil."