Adonis, born Ali Ahmad SaidEsberin al-Qassabin(Syria) in 1930, is a poet, writer and visual artist. Adoniswas exiled to Beirut in 1956 and moved to Paris in 1985, where he isstill based. In addition to his poetry, for which he was awarded the Goethe Prize in 2011amongst others, Adonis has written aboutliterature and artand continues to be a critical voice in magazines and newspapers on political and social affairs. Since the 1990s, Adonis has been creating visual works of art with found materials which he has exhibited worldwide.In conversation withImmediationseditors AmbraD’Antoneand Erica Payet, Adonis discusses the different dimensions of his visual practice.
Adonis, you have an impressivereputation as a poet, more so than as a visual artist. In previous interviews, any mention of yourvisualworks is alwaysattached to largerdiscussionsabout yourpoetry.Nevertheless, when reading your poetry and looking at your works we can see immediately that youtry to break the ideological boundaries between the two, so that artist and poet are no longerdistinct identities.Inkeeping our focuson your visual works in our discussion today, we wish to bring outthis aspect of your work and to have a larger understanding of your artistic practice. Let us startby directly addressing the objects.
I have to say from the beginning that I don’t have a background in painting, properly speaking, or in sculpture. I don’t come from that tradition. It is true that I have met many artists and sculptors, and that I have written extensively about them,especially but not exclusively Arab artists. But I come at it from a different angle, from the angle of poetic vision. I believe that to be a poet means to experience the world wholly, as a totality. Everything is poetry. Even the peasant is a poet: he works in hisgarden,he works in the fields andchangesthem. There is change and there is reconstruction—within this cycle, everything is poetry. Everything, even love…all of it. I wantedto widen the frontiers and the space of the written poem. For that reason, I have tried to create poems with ink, lines and stains…just like this. They are extensions of my poetry and they themselves are poems, written in a different manner. Every poem, every work has its own personality, its way of being.
When did you start making them?
I started a little over twenty years ago, by accident. I said to myself, you know quite a few painters and sculptors and you’ve written about them—sometimes one gets fed up of writing and reading—so I told myself why not try making something, giving your handsawayto the ink and finally liberating them? And I did try. I made visual works for around a year, but when I looked at them, I did not like them, and I destroyed them. Then I started again, but this time it seems I did something different. One day my friend Michel Camus, the French poet, came to my studio and saw what I had done, these little things, and asked me who the artist was. I told him “It’s a friend of mine” (he laughs), I did not have the guts to tell him it was me! He said that he’d love to meet that friend, so I told him that I would arrange a meeting for the following week, in my studio. Michel showed up a week later; we sat down and chatted about various things for a while. About twenty minutes later, he finally asked: “So, where is your friend?”Only then did Imuster the courage to tell him that I was the artist! He was very happy, he said he loved the works and suggested I exhibit them. Here, that’s how I gained some confidence in my practice and decided to carry on with it. Ever since that, many people have liked what I do and I have held some big exhibitions, for me they are immense! I have a big show planned in Hangzhou, in China, opening November 1st; I have already exhibited in China three times, but I have also shown the works in Paris and London…so you see, I am in demand! That’s how I carry on with it.
What type of subjectsdo you wish to represent?
Just like in my poetry, I want to represent simultaneously the small, mundane things of everyday life, as well as the farthest, most obscure metaphysical truths, the totality of the cosmos. These are my subjects, becauseI am not an ideological manand I feel like I have been thrown intothis universe.I don’t concern myself withhard-core politics, with regimesand ideology,my works arenot aboutthat.I questionbeauty, love, the meaning of life,ٳfuture,ٳpoverty thatis so widespread in the world.Why is there poverty, in a world so rich and varied?
You prefer to call your worksī(رقيمة), rather than collages. Why?
That’s it,ī.We constantly have to create.Icome fromanArabculture, and in Arabic the wordcollagehas a bit of a negative connotation. But there is a word,raqamaorraqana,which designatesboththe ink and the form, the line. So, I thought, I ought to inventa new word,ī, instead of saying collage.
Can you say a bit more about the importance of materiality and of technique for ٳī?Where do you find the materials for the works?
It is just like the words in a poem. There are specific words that signify material things, and a poem ismade up ofdifferent words, from God to a pebble. So, you see,my material can be everything.Anything I see, no matter what,plays a part in the symphony of the work. Everything, without exception. That’s why I find my materials in the streets. Once somebody saw me, while I was picking up something from a curb to use in my works, and the way he looked at me, I am sure he must have thought “This guy is crazy”!(he laughs).You see, it is like giving meaning tothe insignificant.
You have said before thatyou have “a problem with painting, with colour”, and that you prefer using ink.1In the Fifties and Sixties, some artists rejected artificial paint,inspired by prehistory or pursuing a political statement. Do you establish a dialogue with these practices?
This is really personal.Using ink gives me more freedom than traditional colours, but I know this is relative.Maybe one day, if I ever havea bigstudio, I could mastercolour, create my own. Maybe then I could change. You see, everything is open for me, everything is possible—even the impossible.Ink is easier, I have control over it. I always like being at the core of my materials:I like to change them, break them, turn them around, make new forms from what is in front of me. Ink allows me to do that easily. Yet, I do hope one day to be able to do that with paint. I did try, infourworks. A friend of mine,apainter, came to me and I told him how much I’d loveexperimenting with paint.2He encouragedme,and I produced four canvases.He liked them and he plans to exhibit them in Venice! Those canvases are my first works not on paper.There have been many interesting experiences with paint in the past, there were many artists that used a variety of materials even without paint.Whether I am in dialogue with them depends—in the last analysis,the work of art for me is form, not an idea. The essentialmoment is the creation of new form, and the idea will follow. This is not easy.But this means that the artwork is open to every possibility, to every materiality. I can say this for sure: there are no limitations,and if there were there would be no art at all. The creation of artnecessarilyexceeds the boundariesplaced on form.
The medium ofīalso seems to allow for a reflection between existence and non-existence. You reflect a lot on the idea of the fragment, for instance. Is this conscious?
You see,a work of art is important only insofar as itopens itself up to a myriad of interpretations.Its wealth resides in that.Whenthe meaning of an artwork is hard to pin down, that work islike an apertureonto infinity.That’s why the Old Mastersare still talking to us. Michelangelo is here rightnow;heis drinkingPerrier with us!(he laughs)
In the past, you have talked about the hand asbeing a privileged tool that israrelysubjected to mental censorship. Can youelaborate?
When I say this, I have a particular focus on Arab civilisation and the history of the Arab world, but I think it equally applies to other peoplesandother histories. There is a perennial preoccupation with and interest in ٳmind and what it does: the creation of language, culture,imaginationetc. But we always forget about the hands. Think about it: hands are a thing of genius!That’s because they have no reins. The head is constricted byrational rules and limitations. While the head thinks, the handsplay,and they arethe absolute players. Art is ٳgreat game, in the positive sense, and God, who has created this world that is so varied and infinitely complex(but you can believe whatever you want), is the greatest player of all.So, I think, we need to free our hands.The artist, especially, plays with the hands:the coincidences and chance encounters between form and colour cannot happenbut withthe hands, because the head is alwaysbusythinking,being rational!Hands are not enmeshed in calculations, and that’s why they matter.Though,thishas been neglected by the public and by historians: have you read a single book about the history of hands in England?In Islam, hands have accomplished wondrous and beautiful things—not the head.There are hand-woven carpets that are worththousands of books! That’s why I believe we have to care for the hands and set their genius free.Unfortunately, in order to do that Ihave had to do things that I did not have control over. Because yes, we want freedom, but that comes at a cost. We cannot be free in a cage, in a prison,ora restrictive tradition.There are conditions.
In yourīthe written languageplays a crucial visual function,almost like an outpouring of poetry into the visual domain, or a translation of one medium into the other. How do you understand this relationship?
Writing, in the sense of a sentence written on a visual workand its semantics, for me has nothing to do with form. Writing, just like a background, like a line, plays an integral and essential role in the artwork.It absolutely cannot be reduced to an illustration, an accompaniment.Form and writing are not separate, no. They are a whole.That’s why I occasionally use a pseudo-script, an imitation of language:I do not wish to create a writing and a work, but a work made of words, of lines and of ink.It is not a process of addition, but a totality.
Can you talk a bit about the poetry fragments that you choose foryour works?
In principle, I like to celebrate the great Arab poets of the past.Poetry is very marginalised in Arab society, although Arabs have created nothing but poetry! It is their single greatest creation.Despite that, it is not wellknown,andit isdisregarded.That is why I like tocelebratethose poets—everything I write is meant to pay homage to themandto poetry.
Your work speaks inand ofdifferentlanguages:Arabic, your native language and the language you write in;French;the language of poetry; ٳvisual language; ٳlanguage of political criticism. What is the language you feelbestconveys what you want to say?
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, we only have one mother.Maybe we have more than one father, though…you never know! (he laughs). But one mother only.The language of creation isٳmothertongue. My mother tongue is Arabic, so I write and create in Arabic. Additionally, there arelanguages of culture, that I like to call the father-tongues. My father-tongue is French.
You were one of the founders of the journalShi’rtogether with Yusuf al-Khal,amongst others. The journal was a fierce advocate of translation. What are your opinions on translation? Not just as a literary act, but also as cultural and possibly artistic transmission.
Theissuearoundtranslation is really complicated, and on top of that we can never reacha consensus.Translators and writers are always criticising each other’s translations! Once a friend of mine who is Russian told me “I beg you, Adonis. Do not readPushkin in French, because rather than translations those are deformations!”I asked other friends of mine who are French, andthey liked the French translations! Mybeloved friend YvesBonnefoy, who hasunfortunately passed away, translated Shakespeare. I could never find any English speaker who could criticise his translations! But, instead of admitting that YvesBonnefoyhas given Shakespeare a new dimension in French, we always criticise his way of translating and of rendering the original words. Translation isa space of conflict. Although, despite that, I firmly believe that our futureculture will be founded on translation, or it will not exist at all.For me, the importance of translation is beyond discussion.We live in a multi-cultural and -linguistically pluralenvironment; without translation there will be no future, because the futureistranslation. New generations will have to speak different languages,because only one language isabsolute poverty—it cannot work!At the same time, translatinga philosophy book and a poetry collection are different things, and when we get to the nitty gritty details my opinion is based on my personal experience.First,I believe thatin order totranslate poetryit is necessary tobe deeply aware of what poetry is, it is necessary to know the poet and his language, more thanone’s ownmother-tongue.The mother-tongue receivesthe other, and so must be intimately acquainted with it. Secondly, we cannot translate literally.There can never be any word-to-wordcorrespondence from one language to another, never. Because words in a poem don’t come from a dictionary, but from their context, from their relationship withthe words before and after, as well as from its role within the imagination.Translating a poem means translating its imagery, not its words. So, you see, translation is a very complicated matter and we are never in agreement. Thankfully!
And speaking of translation—can you tell us about your experiences exhibiting your visual work to the public in Paris,Londonand China? Were those experiences different from each other?
The Chinese are more open, more understanding anddisinterested in the art market that dominates Europe. I have sold many works inChina, but only to intellectuals and such people. I think I am better understood in China than in Europe, although there are individuals in Europe—but it is a handful of people—who understand my works and my poetry.
In terms of being understood and communicating with an audience, iswriting poetry for you different than making visual works?
Firstly, a poet never writes for others. The other always comes after. Look at this audience here: how can a poet write for them? It is ideological, it kills poetry. Everything that is common is anti-poetic. You see, when these people enter a gallery and look at artworks, they all formulate different opinions. Writing for the people is nonsense. And we must also ask: who are the people? The peasant? The workers, or the bourgeois? The soldiers? The regime? The absurdity of these questions demonstrates that these are nonsensical words, they are ideological and political. The poet wants nothing to do with that. Firstly, I write to understandmyselfbetter. Who am I? Secondly, I write to understand ٳotherbetter. And thirdly, to understand the world better. To gain a better understanding of all three, in my writing I establish a meeting point with what we call the reader. The work of art is a space of confluence; there is no single message because there are many messages. The way Michelangelo speaks to us today is necessarily different from how he spoke to his contemporaries. So, we write to make the world more beautiful and more open,beyond all ideology. Ideology is a veil covering not just the face but covering truth and, ultimately, the world.
Does this apply to your visual works as well?
Yes, absolutely. They are also poems.
Let’s talk about your life awayfrom Syria. You once said thatexileis an internal condition rather than a geographical one.3Can you elaborate on this?
The way I see it, we are all thrown into exile. It is true that we are born free, but that has nothing to do with real freedom. I was born, I came to this world free, but at the same time I was placed in exile. The human being entersat birth a state ofexile. This essential and existential exileis a product of the ambiguities of the world we live in. Why live? Why die?Why live, if only to die?If we only live to die, why be born at all? So, you see, the problem goes deeper than ideology andfaith. Religious faith is appealing to people, because they nolonger have to think or to search or to struggle. They follow a ritual, and that calms them down.But for those who constantly question the human nature and the world, who question the beginning and the future, the finite and the infinite, there is no answer.For them the world is a constant search,sothey are always exiled. Even when I am writing,I can never fully express myself—I amexiled within language.Today I am not who I was yesterday, I have changed. There is no place whereman stays the same throughout his life. The condition of exile has nothing to do with geography; it isan internal, a human condition.
So, do you feel Syrian, or French? Or neither?
That is not a concern for me. What engages me and preoccupies me constantly is the earth, the soil where I first set foot. I love to see it, but I would never live there. Maybe it is psychological—I like to see who I was and, by contrast, who I have become. It is very personal. Mycountryis these two or three meters where my feet touched the earth for the first time.
Let’s talk about regionalism: for example, Turkey and Syria are neighbouring countries, and havea shared Ottoman past. Modern artists had similar concerns and strategies in Turkey and Syria. Yet nowadays they are considered separate regions, ethnicities, cultures. What do you think about this? Are identities so separate, or was there some hybridity and cross-cultural transmission, historically?
This is complicated. Turkey for me represented hope, a hope founded on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his reforms. A country based onsecularity. It is hard for me to think about Turkey in other terms. Let us give the people who believe in God the freedom to pray as they wish. But the state, the law, the institutions, education…everything must be secular. I think this must apply for Syria and the Arab world as well. Without a clear separation of state and religion, there cannot be anything but decadence. And not just decadence—decay and the ultimate end! I do not envision a real human future for the Islamic world—Turkey, Syria, Egypt,etc.—without a radical separation of religious and secular powers.Otherwise it is a catastrophe!
The modernist SyrianartistFateh al-Moudarres(1922-1999)once said, that “the artist is a witness of their time.” What are your opinions on this?
That makes sense. I would addthatthere are artists, poets and creative individuals who are part of history, but there are others who create history. History plays a part in their creative act. Everything that is institutional, political or social is bound to fade. The great kings and leaders of the world, the great political figures, they are all gone. But never Michelangelo or the great painters, who are always there. Never ٳgreatpoets, whoarealways there. They weave history in their production—not just as witnesses, but as active creators. That is why it is in art that peoples and nations find their identity.
So, what role doyour works play in history?
I do not know! This is not for me to say, only the future will determine it! (he laughs).
In the 90s you wrote a book linking Sufism to Surrealism. For some, this might be a contentious pairing—especially given the anti-religious attitude of Parisian Surrealists. Can you explain how you understand the relationship between the two?
Sufism, or mysticism, is crucially misunderstood. Sufism and the Sufis, whom we call Islamic mystics, have nothing to do with official Islam. In fact, they have completely changed the conception of God in Islam. In Islam, God is a force ruling the world but outside of it, detached, much like in the Bible. For the mystic, God manifests himself immanently in the universe, and the universe is part of him—destroying the notion of God in Islam. Howthencan we call them “Muslims”? Secondly, the mystics have also changed the concept of identity, from one of heritage to one of creation: being born a Muslim does not mean that you will remain a Muslim. We do not inherit our identity in the same manner we may inherit aplot of land, or a house. The human beingcreateshis identity, in creating his oeuvre. Thirdly, they have changed our understanding of the other: in Islam the other is always a renegade, either a Muslim or a social reject. The mystics have reinforced equality amongst men. TheIdoes not exist without the other, and in order to find myself I have to go through the other. The other is a constitutive element of the self. So, it must be clear that the mystics have subverted Islam completely, which is why Islam has forsaken them. The people here, the orientalists and their students, do not understand this. Think of the condition of being a woman in Islam: for the mystics, the feminine constitutes the origin of the world, against the official tenets of Islam. Moreover, the mystics have invented the practice of writing by dictation—a dictation which comes from beyond, like automatic writing. I have told poets,especially Arabpoetsto read the mystics before reading Surrealist texts and being influenced by them. But they do not want to understand that it is a mysticismwithoutreligion! Sufism is a Surrealismavantlalettre, as well as essentially ananti-Islammysticism.
You have said thatArabpoetsof the pastlike AbuNūwas(756-814 AD), Al-Niffari(10th century)and Al-Maʿarri(972-1057 AD)inventedal-imlaʾ, the technique of writing by dictation, a sort of automatic writing like that which the Parisian surrealists used in the 1920s. Do you see the Arab poets as precursors of Surrealism?
I do not say that, but after reading the mystics and the Surrealists I do make note of the fact that there is a Surrealismavantlalettre. I have signalled this connection in my bookSufism and Surrealism. Though, people still do not understand that I am talking about a mysticism without religion and they criticise me, even if it is written on the first page!
In yourbookLe Diwan de laPoésieArabeClassique (2008), you talk about reading the poetry of AbuNuwasand al-Niffariand truly understanding it as revolutionary after having connected with Surrealism. What do you mean by this?
Yes, I do think that. In order to become acquainted with Surrealism and to be inspired by it, I think that an Arab poet should read what is available in his or her language, rather than a (contested) translation ofParisianSurrealist texts. Read what you have in your tradition! But they do not read it, they are completely mesmerised by the other. Andby the way: Surrealism has been a great source of conceptual and visual inspiration, but it has never created a great poet. All the great poets that had encounters with Surrealism, eventually left it: René Char, YvesBonnefoy, PaulÉluard, Louis Aragon…André Breton was an extraordinary theorist, a great character whom I admire as a prose writer—I am thinking ofNadja, for example. But he was not a great poet! (he laughs).Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to meet him, but I did meet Aragon in his last days, and TristanTzaratoo…Surrealism has caused an incredible and necessary shock to society, creating painters and theorists, but there is no great poet we can call Surrealist. Al-Niffariwas the greatest Surrealist that ever existed!4But this a contestable statement, because there are always imperialist considerations, and moreover everything that emerges from the Islamic world is immediately labelled as religious. Yet, wecannot identify everything as religious. There are and have been many who were born Muslim but are not Muslim, neither in practice nor faith. AbuNuwaswas a Muslim, for instance!5Unfortunately, people tend to generalise. Never, in writing poetry or otherwise in creating art, must we accept things for what they only seem to be. This is complicated.
Were Surrealist texts available to you in Syria in your youth?
My French was poor, I could not haveunderstoodthem. But I did read some when I came to Paris. The majority of my friends were Surrealists. The last great Surrealist that existed was a good friend of mine and wrote a lot about me and my works—AlainJouffroy. He wrote a very good article about me in a catalogue for ٳInstitutdu Monde Arabe. And so,I was on the side of the Surrealists: I was their friend, but only to better understand the relationship between East and West, only as a Muslim. But the term “Muslim” has infinite variations. We tend to mask or even erase this variety, because it is difficult to find.Simplificationkillsit and renders everything banal.
Would you say that what people likethe Syrian poetOrkhanMīassar(1911-1965),Syrian painterʿAdnānMīassar(1921-1979)andFātehal-Moudarreswere doing in the 40s and 50sinart and poetry—would you call that a Syrian, or Aleppine, Surrealism?
Yes. They were influenced both by Surrealism and by Sigmund Freud. Freud was particularly important forOrkhan, who was a great friend of mine. Unfortunately, this was a unique case. In Egypt Surrealism enjoyed more popularity. You know, to master the body the Surrealists resorted to mescaline and drugs, like Henri Michaux—to the artificial. They resorted to the artificial to arrive at the natural. This is contradictory. The Sufi, the mystic mastered his body naturally to arrive at ٳsupra-natural. That is Surrealism. The Sufi never resorted to drugs and reached a complete mastery over his body, becoming awandering lightin the universe. We also have to discuss the importance of femininity both for mysticism and Surrealism. The feminine is the source of existence, in it resides the essential core of this world. To quote the Sufi mystic Ibn ‘Arabi,Kullumakānanlāiuʾannathu,lāiu’awwalu‘aleihu,“consider worthless anything that does not feminise.”6
What does it mean to you to be making art today, as a Syrian? Do you think art, and your art, has a role to play in the context of war and violence?
We would have to talk about this extensively, about what it means to create in Syria right now. But let me ask, what is the difference between creating now and before? It is a matter of degree, rather than ontological. You cannot create in a society founded on religious beliefs—there cannot be any creation, only repetition. We must understand that, so that instead of supporting fundamentalism, the Muslim Brotherhood, the terrorists, we can support life and people. It is shocking to see the France of the Revolution supportingErdoğanorsupporting Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen. I believe that the problem is no longer in the Arab world, it is inEurope. Unfortunately, Europe has become a satellite of the United States, thanks to the influence of Trump, when it should be the opposite. Everything is subverted!
In your interviews this is generally the first question you are asked, so I will finish with it. In Ugaritic mythology, the figure of Adonis signalsٳcycle of death andrebirth, and was an important symbol forShi’r.You are still using this name as an artist.Is its symbolic content still important to you?
At the beginning, I never thought about that. I took the name Adonis bychance.But in time, I came to understand that the name freed me, it completely transformedme.I was part of a culture, butthanks to that name I started to break away from it, to be part of another culture.The west was athresholdfor me,a completely new horizon.But that happened with time,not at the beginning. It was an absolute metamorphosis.Instead of being a member of a limited civilisation,founded on a religion vision, Ibecame enmeshed in the universe. The universe is my nation.