Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents
Saturday 28 April 2018, 17:00 to 21:00
In English
Free admission
Join us for the launch of the publication Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents (2018), edited by Anneka Lenssen, Sarah Rogers, and Nada Shabout.
The launch of the publication will be preceded by a panel discussion with the editors moderated by Zeina Arida, with an introduction by Glenn D. Lowry.
Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents offers an unprecedented resource for the study of modernism: a compendium of critical art writings by twentieth-century Arab intellectuals and artists. The selection of texts—many of which appear here for the first time in English—includes manifestos, essays, transcripts of roundtable discussions, diary entries, exhibition guest-book comments, letters, and more. Traversing empires and nation-states, diasporas and speculative cultural and political federations, these documents bring light to the formation of a global modernism, through debates on originality, public space, spiritualism and art, postcolonial exhibition politics, and Arab nationalism, among many other topics. The collection is framed chronologically, and includes contextualizing commentaries to assist readers in navigating its broad geographic and historical scope. Interspersed throughout the volume are sixteen contemporary essays: writings by scholars on key terms and events as well as personal reflections by modern artists who were themselves active in the histories under consideration. A newly commissioned essay by historian and Arab-studies scholar Ussama Makdisi provides a historical overview of the region’s intertwined political and cultural developments during the twentieth century.
Leadership support for this publication was provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
Major support was provided by Misk Art Institute and by Zaza Jabre.
Generous funding was provided by an anonymous donor, The Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, Rana Sadik and Samer Younis, Darat al Funun - The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Abdelmonem Bin Eisa Alserkal, The Kamel Lazaar Foundation, Geneva/Tunis, Barjeel Art Foundation, Marieluise Hessel Artzt, and other donors.