satin worship

Here's me and Ayman, the Palestinian living in Jeddah who prints film posters onto tissue boxes - the first guy I described as an eccentric Saudi artist. We're in his studio, with the air conditioning monster towards the top right of the shot.

The day before leaving Saudi Arabia Stephen - brilliant exhibition curator and all round good guy - and I went to see Ayman's new exhibition. It was about touch. Some of the canvases squeaked when you pushed them. Others felt scummy, or adipose in the way they were a little damp. Over towards the far corner of the gallery was a series of hellish, black paintings covered by a shiny vinyl texture that he'd arranged in swirling patterns. Each looked like an inferno of crude oil. In between two of them was a sheet of white paper with one word in large printed letters:

s a t a n

Hands on chins, Stephen and I agreed with each other that this was pretty bold for Saudi Arabian contemporary art. In fact, it was about the most shocking thing we'd seen since getting here. By some distance. Hamza, who was with us, was stunned as well. After another minute of staring at it and telling each other in a spiral of admiration, fear and by the end of it, bewilderment, that Ayman had gone too far, Hamza gave him a call. Stephen and I watched as an inaudible Ayman explained the piece to Hamza's right ear. It registered little. He hung up.

'It's a typo,' said Hamza, putting his phone away. 'It's meant to say 'satin'.'

The gallery phone rang. About twenty seconds later the guy looking after the exhibition went up to the offending piece of paper, pulled it down, folded it, and took it over to the main desk where he hid it amongst some old files.