On Language and Modern Art: A Reflection

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-79
Author(s):  
Anneka Lenssen ◽  
Nada Shabout ◽  
Sarah Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
Global Art ◽  
Academic Study

AbstractThis essay, written collectively by the co-editors of the publication Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents (2018), provides an account of the book's conception, institutional backing, and multi-year process of research and editing. The authors reflect in particular on the translational politics that obtain in the global art world and the museum sector as well as the academic study of the modern Middle East.

Locating Modern Arab Art: Between the Global Art Market and Area Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Haytham Bahoora
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Islamic Art ◽  
Institutional Barriers ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
Global Art ◽  
Visual Cultures

AbstractThis essay situates the publication of Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents in the context of an expanding global interest in modern Arab art as well as the study of modern Arab art as an academic discipline. The essay first examines the implications of the cultivation of a new museum and gallery infrastructure for modern Arab art in the Arab Gulf. It then considers how the academic study of modern Arab art has faced institutional barriers, due largely to the overwhelming academic focus on Ancient Studies and Islamic art. Finally, it suggests that Modern Arab Art in the Arab World provides scholars with a comprehensive textual archive that calls for a historicized approach to theorizing the emergence of modernist aesthetics in Arab visual cultures.

Locating Primary Documents: Global Modernism and the Archival Turn

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-24
Author(s):  
Hala Auji
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Global Art

AbstractThis essay considers the contribution of Anneka Lenssen, Sarah Rogers, and Nada Shabout's Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents to global art history. In particular, the essay addresses the archival turn, the challenges of language and translations in the publication of primary sources, and the continued need to challenge Eurocentric views of and approaches to global modernism. This includes considering how Modern Art and the Arab World's contributions aim to upend Western preconceptions about modern art from the “Arab world,” and demonstrating how such publications can serve as sources for critical evaluations and reconsiderations of the history of global modernism in general.

scholarly journals Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 110-112
Author(s):  
Golnar Yarmohammad Touski
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
Duke University

Book Review: Anneka Lenssen, Sarah A. Rogers, and Nada M. Shabout. Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, in association with Duke University Press, 2018. 464 pp.; 49 ills.; 51 b/w ills. Paperback, $40 (1633450384, 9781633450387)

Reading Modern Art in the Arab World from Morocco and Qatar

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-13
Author(s):  
Holiday Powers
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Primary Documents

AbstractModern Art in the Arab World is a collection of approximately 125 primary documents dealing with the debates around modernism in the Arab world dating between 1882 to 1987. This essay responds to the book from two perspectives: first, as an academic researching modernism in Morocco, and second, as a Qatar-based professor that teaches undergraduate courses about modern and contemporary Arab art. The book highlights a broadly defined and heterogeneous Arab world that extends from Morocco to the Gulf, and the selected texts create new conversations between these varied movements. It is evidence of the changing nature of this field of study. As a tool for teaching, the book offers signposts about what the editors consider to be the most significant debates and events in a given place while also creating the possibility for reading these movements transnationally.

Modern Art in the Arab World, Primary Documents: A Review Essay

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-351
Author(s):  
Hamid Keshmirshekan
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Art ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arab World ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scholarly Output ◽  
Primary Documents ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Critical Writings

The study of modern and contemporary art from Islamic lands, and particularly the Arab world, is a developing field. Over the past few decades, a variety of publications on modern and contemporary art from the Arab world and its diasporas has appeared in art magazines, journals, and exhibition and auction catalogues. There is, however, still a lack of scholarly literature and reliable resources on the subject. Many such existing sources have focused on productions that are largely in line with certain interests or agendas pursued by the particular magazine/journal, exhibition, or art market in question. Therefore, although recent scholarly output has played a crucial role in introducing modern art in the Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa, these publications have not sufficiently filled the gap of discussion regarding certain aspects of the subject. Modern Art in the Arab World, a collection of critical writings by Arab intellectuals and artists, offers an unparalleled source for the study of modernism in the Arab world. Mapping the primary documents with additional entries written by the editors and other scholars, this book addresses the major historical, conceptual, theoretical, and aesthetic issues that inform the modern art paradigm in the Arab world. Arranged largely in a chronological order, it explores the art of the Arab world by tracing the main discourses that have shaped artistic practices and transformations in the region from the mid-nineteenth century until the late 1980s.

Contesting Labels: Revisiting old Questionnaires

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-70
Author(s):  
Şebnem Yücel ◽  
Serhan Ada
Keyword(s):  
Arab World ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Artistic Production ◽  
Primary Documents

AbstractAs a response to several questionnaires, manifestos, interviews, and letters that were included in the book Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents, this article carries out a new questionnaire with seven artists form various backgrounds and geographies, in an attempt to update and re-question some of the issues that were highlighted in the collected essays. The questionnaire includes three questions, each focusing on a different issue. The first issue considers the validity of the term “Arab Art,” the second tries to identify the main dynamics of contemporary artistic production, and the last one questions the relation of contemporary production of arts to geography and history. The following interviews have been edited for consistency and clarity.

The Museum of Modern Art and the History of Modernism

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (46) ◽  
pp. 100-114
Author(s):  
Hans Belting
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Art Market ◽  
European History ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Art World ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
History Of ◽  
International Profile ◽  
Global Art

Right from its opening in 1929, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) recreated modern art as a new myth that was rescued from European history and thus became accessible as an independent value for an American audience. Paradoxically, the myth stemmed from the opinion that modern art’s history seemed to have expired in pre-war Europe. Upon MoMA’s completion of a major expansion project in 2004, there was considerable anticipation about how the museum would represent its own history and raise its profile in a new century. As it turned out, the museum opted for a surprisingly retrospective look, since its curators were tempted to exhibit its own collection, so unique up until the sixties, in the new exhibition halls. This launched a dilemma for MoMA, as it became a place for past art with little space for new art. In an in-depth analysis of what constitutes “modern” art in the context of the preeminent questions circulating in the art world during this time—When was modern art? and Where was modern art?—the author presents a focused chronology of the administration of MoMA under the museum’s first director, Alfred Hamilton Barr Jr. (1929–43), and, later, William Rubin, director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture (1968–88), with regard to their influence on the museum’s mission, exhibitions, and international profile. The author concludes with commentary on contemporary changes in art geography and contemplation on the effect on artists of the emergence of a global art market.

The Place of Traditional Artists in the Preservation of Nigerian Art

2018 ◽  
pp. 75-88
Author(s):  
Victoria N Osuagwu
Keyword(s):  
Belief Systems ◽  
Sacred Grove ◽  
Art World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Economic Resource ◽  
The People ◽  
Traditional Artists ◽  
Global Art ◽  
Source Of Information

Human beings have always left signs of their activities behind them. These signs take both tangible and intangible forms, including buildings, sites, sculptural works, antiquities, rock art paintings, belief systems, and traditions. The people of this millennium have recognized the remains of our fore-bears namely archaeological, architectural monuments, sites, and cultural works as an integral part of the cultural heritage of all humanity. They also recognized the fact that heritage is an invaluable source of information about the lives and activities of human beings and their artistic and technical capabilities over the centuries. The Nigerian Ancient Art Tradition which spans eight thousand years is a product of diverse artists from Dufuna, Nok, Igbo-Ukwu, Ife, Owo, Benin, Tada, etc. Also remarkable are the sculptural works created by late Susanne Wenger (an Austrian) and her New Sacred Art Movement in Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, which gave meaning to open spaces within the grove. This paper examines the role played by these artworks to project Nigeria to the global art world. The benefits to Nigeria and the global art traditions and recommendations on how to revive this dwindling economic resource will also be examined. The approach used was to study the artworks produced by some of these artists. Some of the findings were that the works were carefully done with suitable materials that have withstood climate change.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document