Aarnout Helb, Greenbox Museum

Do not trust only the calcium. It is in the milk we drink for the sanity of our bones, but we need stories to have sanity in our lives, and elegant ways of digesting their meaning.

Ahmed Mater understands this simple literacy which is often forgotten by science and the visual arts. His understanding is on my desk in Amsterdam, in the form of a container of Arabian yoghurt.  On it he has specified the daily calcium needs for every age group, but also a “special probiotic culture which contributes positively to overall health and helps to maintain a healthy digestive system.”

This reminds us that all the stories which enter our minds come out again, eventually. Probably more so in a country such as Saudi Arabia, where a single book is so central to everyday life.

Ahmed Mater has made a rich work of art; a non-commercial dairy shop full of real ideas that may help sustain humanity for a century as much as yoghurt, milk, butter and cheese do for a day. Yellow Cow products (2007) came to my attention in the Netherlands while I was reading the Qur’an in search of something that might relate to the visual arts. The story that first caught my attention was about this odd-coloured cow which God instructed Moses’ people to sacrifice. The story acknowledges this simple fact: humans, whether they live in the vicinity of Mecca or in Amsterdam, have eyes as well as ears and may take pleasure in what they see—even attach themselves to a pleasantly-coloured cow or a handsome car—but in the end, they will have an overriding wish to dwell in the company of truth.

Ahmed believes the people in this story were a bit slow finding the truth. It took them a while to decide on sacrifice, and they asked too many questions about the cow, increasing their demands on God as we increase our demands on the material world in consumer societies. But I wonder, were the people demanding to know more so different from a doctor in search of evidence for a true diagnosis?

Not all art is about truth. Yellow Cow products is. Ahmed Mater is. His relationship with truth will be attributed by some to his profession as a medical doctor practicing ‘evidence-based medicine’ and to his heritage as a Muslim. But he might have just been one of those boys who flip stories around to see if their mirror image reflects the truth as well. And smiles.

So, I understand Ahmed took a childhood story from his mosque and renewed it, gave it attention anew by wondering what would have happened if the cow had not been sacrificed. From the artwork we can assume the cow would have lived on to become a range of consumer products. By choosing to be a change-manager in a dairy shop, Ahmed turns the ‘arrogant’ consumer products industry to his advantage by reminding us of the original story. For this he returned to the farm with a bucket of paint, bringing a real yellow cow to life and to the imagination. This is a magnificent act of love allowed only to artists: painting your own evidence in support of the truth.

And it’s very funny. Ahmed appreciates the excellent relationship between humour and truth. Truth is like a rock, very different from any castle chiseled from rock by man. If you make fun of a castle it may open its gates; if you make fun of a rock, it will remain unmoved. Muslims will understand. Ahmed understands.

I pride myself now on having told visitors to the Greenbox Museum in Amsterdam—many of whom would never have thought of reading the Qur’an—the story of the yellow cow. I was able to do so because the artist loaned the museum several of his Yellow Cow products. In this shipment were yoghurts or “fresh laban” containers, several plastic milk bottles, silver-wrapped salted butter and many circular boxes of spreadable cheese. 

Among the cheese I discovered a final artistic touch. It was a modest brochure about a whole new concept of art. Crossing over from his profession in medicine, Ahmed Mater named this new vision “evidence-based ART.” He defined it only broadly as a concept for the East, but it should interest the museum industry in the West as well. It replaces the authority of art history and its teachers with a new paradigm that says every enlightened individual may be an artist, capable of capturing truth within the framework of his own human experience. As a collector you may get lost in this new paradigm. As a man of truth you may grow fat.

Aarnout Helb

Greenbox Museum

Amsterdam

December 2009