"Artistic expression in the Middle East is experiencing something of a renaissance. This book provides an overview of modern and contemporary art of the Middle East and Arab world from 1945 to the present, with an emphasis on artists active today"-OCLC

This is the first in the cutting-edge ARTWORLD series which opens up the most challenging and underexposed art scenes in the world, which contains a collection of essays and art works, showcasing artists from the Middle East, in a collection that defies fixed categories, shifting instead through different artistic registers according to more subtle themes.

Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa brings together an extraordinary collection of work from the British Museum for the first time. The contemporary art of the Middle East and North Africa is rich and vibrant. Whether living in their countries of birth or in diaspora, the featured artists are part of the globalised world of art. Here we see artists responding to and making work about their present, histories, traditions and cultures, reflecting on a part of the world that has experienced extraordinary change in living memory.The British Museum has been acquiring the work of Middle Eastern and North African artists since the 1980s, and the collection - principally works on paper - is one of the most extensive in the public sphere. Collected within the context of a museum of history, the works offer insights into the nature of civil societies, the complex politics of the region, and cultural traditions in their broadest sense, from the relationship with Islamic art, to the deep engagement with literature.The introduction to the book by curator Venetia Porter explores the history of the collection and the works included. The essential framework for understanding the politics and context within which the artists are working is provided by Charles Tripp's essay. The works are grouped into seven chapters, each beginning with a short introduction. The authors explore the selection within themes such as faith, abstraction and the female gaze.

A comprehensive survey on Islamic geometry in modern and contemporary art. In a groundbreaking volume about the use of Islamic geometry in modern and contemporary art from the region, Middle East art expert and Sothebys Deputy Chairman Roxane Zand, and Dr Sussan Babaie professor of Islamic arts at the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London, explore ways in which traditional geometric legacies are applied and interpreted in new contexts. Dr Babaie's scholarly essay traces the significance of geometry in the history of Islamic arts, looking at the emergence of modernisms of the Middle East through the prism of selected works by twenty artists and their multidisciplinary practices. Their works underscore the distinctive ways geometry, a universal heritage, has inspired the art of the region. Lavishly illustrated and bound, the book is aimed at both the general user and those with academic interest.

Future Imperfect critically examines the role played by cultural institutions in producing present-day and future contexts for the production, dissemination, and reception of contemporary art in the Middle East and North Africa. It offers historical contexts for discussions that have become increasingly urgent in recent years--the role of culture in a time of conflict and globalization--and an in-depth critique of the state of cultural institutions in an age of political upheaval, social unrest, exuberant cultural activity, ascendant neoliberal forms of privatization, social activism, and regional uncertainty. Based on collective input from numerous contributors and interlocutors, this volume brings together internationally renowned academics, critics, activists, filmmakers, artists, and other independent cultural practitioners to consider how new infrastructures and institutions can effectively emerge within such fraught and dynamic contexts. What is needed in terms of infrastructure for cultural production today, and how, crucially, can we speculatively propose new infrastructures and institutions in the context of present realities? Visual Culture in the Middle East Vol. 3 Supported by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation Contributors Leila Al-Shami*, Monira Al Qadiri, Hoor Al-Qasimi, Anahi Alviso-Marino, AMBS Architects, Stephanie Bailey, Eray Çayli, Rachel Dedman, Elizabeth Derderian, Anthony Downey, Karen Exell, Reema Salha Fadda, Wafa Gabsi, Hadia Gana, Adalet R. Garmiany, Baha Jubeh, Suhair Jubeh, Amal Khalaf, Kamel Lazaar, Jens Maier-Rothe, Guy Mannes-Abbott, Doreen Mende, Lea Morin, Jack Persekian, Wided Rihana Khadraoui*, Rijin Sahakian, Gregory Sholette, Tom Snow, Lois Stonock*, Nile Sunset Annex*, Ania Szremski, Christine Tohme, Toleen Touq, Williams Wells, Ala Younis, Yasmine Zidane (*online projects)

Winner of the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise emerges at a time when science is discovering more and more about the mystical particles that make up our universe and our bodies. From tidal forces and prairie burns to ruminations on racial identity while standing at the foot of Mount Rushmore, these poems chart a travelogue through mental and physical landscapes and suggest that place, time, love, and bodies are all shifts in the “undulate cosmos.” Straddling the lyrical and experimental, these poems conjure and connect the cosmological, the carnal, and the personal in a country--and a universe--that is gobbling itself into oblivion. But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise is in love with the universe of language--its forms, its sounds, and even its static.

Ethnographic study of cultural politics in the contemporary Egyptian art world, examining how art-making is a crucial aspect of the transformation from socialism to neoliberalism in postcolonial countries.

This book examines the ways in which artists and arts organizations today forge collaborative, socially engaged situations that involve non-professionals in the process of making art, often over a period of time, through creating opportunities to examine collective concerns and needs. Collaborative art praxis is gaining prominence in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA) region. This is a discursive method that is experimental, with results that often expand the notions of what art is—and how it can be produced. After an introduction to global approaches to such a practice, Ali examines the foundation of contemporary art in the MENASA that is linked to a longer history of colonialism. The book analyzes artist-led initiatives and community-based organizations through themes including relational aesthetics, war and violence, blight in marginalized places around the world, in addition to questions associated with art and its value in the fields of global contemporary art and society.

The 'archive' is often viewed as a collection of historical documents that records and orders information about people, places and events. This view nevertheless obscures a crucial point: the archive, whilst subject to the vagaries of time and history, can also determine the future. This point has gained urgency in modern-day North Africa and the Middle East where the archive has come to the fore as a site of social, historical, theoretical, and political contestation. Dissonant Archives is the first book to consider the ways in which contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa - including Emily Jacir, Walid Raad, Jananne Al Ani, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Mariam Ghani, Zineb Sedira, and Akram Zaatari - are utilizing and disrupting the function of the archive and, in so doing, highlighting a systemic, perhaps irrevocable, crisis in institutional and state-ordained archiving across the region. In exploring and producing archives, be they alternative, interrogative or fictional, these artists are not simply questioning the authenticity, authority or authorship of the archive; rather, they are unlocking its regenerative, radical potential.The result provides essential insights into the nexus between art and politics in the contemporary Middle East.

How is home-grown contemporary art viewed within the Middle East? And is it understood differently outside the region? What is liable to be lost when contemporary art from the Middle East is 'transferred' to international contexts - and how can it be reclaimed? This timely book tackles ongoing questions about how 'local' perspectives on contemporary art from the Middle East are defined and how these perspectives intersect with global art discourses. Inside, leading figures from the Middle Eastern art world, western art historians, art theorists and museum curators discuss the historical and cultural circumstances which have shaped contemporary art from the Middle East, reflecting on recent exhibitions and curatorial projects and revealing how artists have struggled with the label of 'Middle Eastern Artist'. Chapters reflect on the fundamental methodologies of art history and cultural studies - considering how relevant they are when studying contemporary art from the Middle East - and investigate the ways in which contemporary, so-called 'global', theories impact on the making of art in the region. Drawing on their unique expertise, the book's contributors offer completely new perspectives on the most recent cultural, intellectual and socio-political developments of contemporary art from the Middle East.