Tag Archives: Middle East

Hospitality and Hosting Relationships in Michael Rakowitz’s Art

by Danielle Brock | Dec 29, 2017

Hospitality and Hosting Relationships in Michael Rakowitz’s Art

by Danielle Brock | Dec 29, 2017

Through his work, Michael Rakowitz consistently asks how we can care for what we’ve discarded, and opens new possibilities to reimagine previously hostile relationships.

Confronting Crisis: An Interview with Syrian Artists Tammam Azzam, Sara Shamma & Kevork Mourad

by Lindsey Davis | Jan 21, 2016

Confronting Crisis: An Interview with Syrian Artists Tammam Azzam, Sara Shamma & Kevork Mourad

by Lindsey Davis | Jan 21, 2016

These three Syrian artists left their homes behind, and their bodies of work have been forever changed by the war that’s tearing their nation apart. In this extended interview we find answers to the question: What is life like as a refugee and artist?

Movement and Stillness in Nira Pereg’s “Ishmael”

by Talia Heiman | Jan 4, 2016

Movement and Stillness in Nira Pereg’s “Ishmael”

by Talia Heiman | Jan 4, 2016

Nira Pereg’s four-channel video installation Ishmael (2015), was filmed in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city. Holy for both Muslims and Jews, the Cave …

War: Here, There, and Elsewhere

by Bansie Vasvani | Nov 10, 2014

War: Here, There, and Elsewhere

by Bansie Vasvani | Nov 10, 2014

Guest contributor Bansie Vasvani covers war and revolution in recent exhibitions of contemporary art from the Middle East.

Access 100 Artists: Get Involved!

by Rosanna Flouty | Jan 25, 2013

Access 100 Artists: Get Involved!

by Rosanna Flouty | Jan 25, 2013

Art21’s Director of Education, Rosanna Flouty, sends out a call to action. Get involved with our latest initiative, Access 100 Artists, and host a screening!

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | The Year of Accountability: 2012 in 10 Music Videos

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Jan 17, 2013

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | The Year of Accountability: 2012 in 10 Music Videos

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Jan 17, 2013

Columnist Safa Samiezade’-Yazd looks back on music videos of 2012 that spoke to the spirit of Arab uprisings.

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | Talkin’ ‘Bout My Revolution

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Oct 18, 2012

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | Talkin’ ‘Bout My Revolution

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Oct 18, 2012

Safa Samiezade’-Yazd on the power of protest signs and the concise, author-less slogans they bear.

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | The Dictator Will Be Tagged: Power, Revolution Graffiti and the Deconstructed Superhero

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Aug 16, 2012

Revolution 2.1

Revolution 2.1 | The Dictator Will Be Tagged: Power, Revolution Graffiti and the Deconstructed Superhero

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Aug 16, 2012

TheArt21 Blog’s newest column debuts today!

Revolution 2.12: The Revolution Will Not Be Veiled

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Apr 30, 2012

Revolution 2.12: The Revolution Will Not Be Veiled

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Apr 30, 2012

Safa Samiezade’-Yazd looks at female identity in Middle Eastern art through “the one object that encapsulates and defines the average Muslim woman” to Western eyes: the veil.

Revolution 2.12, Part II: Gender in the Middle East Cause

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Apr 26, 2012

Revolution 2.12, Part II: Gender in the Middle East Cause

by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd | Apr 26, 2012

Samiezade’-Yazd responds to Egyptian-American writer Mona El Tahawy’s controversial article “Why Do They Hate Us?” published in Foreign Policy magazine this week.

Cairo in Context: Art and Change in the Middle East

Cairo in Context | Female Problems

by Ania Szremski | Mar 15, 2012

Cairo in Context: Art and Change in the Middle East

Cairo in Context | Female Problems

by Ania Szremski | Mar 15, 2012

How have the ways of representing, questioning or challenging gender in the visual arts changed in Egypt over the past year?

Cairo in Context: Art and Change in the Middle East

Cairo in Context | Alluring Archives: On Memory, Omission, and Research in an Unstable Region

by Ania Szremski | Feb 23, 2012

Cairo in Context: Art and Change in the Middle East

Cairo in Context | Alluring Archives: On Memory, Omission, and Research in an Unstable Region

by Ania Szremski | Feb 23, 2012

Researchers working in the Middle East/North Africa region are challenged by a confusing bureaucracy, making access to archives and primary sources difficult.

Cairo in Context: Art and Change in the Middle East

Cairo in Context | One Year Later: The Myth of Art in the Arab Spring

by Ania Szremski | Jan 27, 2012

Cairo in Context: Art and Change in the Middle East

Cairo in Context | One Year Later: The Myth of Art in the Arab Spring

by Ania Szremski | Jan 27, 2012

How does art function in times of conflict? This new column looks at art’s importance, and its political potential, in post-revolutionary Egypt.

Interesting Times

by Lindsay Lawson | Feb 28, 2011

Interesting Times

by Lindsay Lawson | Feb 28, 2011

May you live in interesting times… This ambiguously Chinese curse implies that interesting (i.e. historically significant) times are usually not peaceful ones. They are times of change and therefore, times …

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights | An Interview with Vasıf Kortun (Part II)

by Elizabeth Wolfson | Feb 11, 2011

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights | An Interview with Vasıf Kortun (Part II)

by Elizabeth Wolfson | Feb 11, 2011

Following is the second half an interview Elizabeth Wolfson conducted with Vasif Kortun. Read part one here. — Ed. Perhaps more than any other individual, Vasıf Kortun has redirected the …

Egypt Rising

by Alex Freedman | Feb 10, 2011

Egypt Rising

by Alex Freedman | Feb 10, 2011

On January 31, BA177 hummed with mixed messages. Tourists who’d been vacationing in Cairo’s International Airport sighed with relief. Evacuated expats who left their homes doubled up on tiny vodkas. …

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights | An Interview with Vasıf Kortun (Part I)

by Elizabeth Wolfson | Feb 10, 2011

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights | An Interview with Vasıf Kortun (Part I)

by Elizabeth Wolfson | Feb 10, 2011

Perhaps more than any other individual, Vasıf Kortun has redirected the trajectory of recent Turkish art history. As Chief Curator and Director of the 3rd Istanbul Biennial in 1992, Kortun …

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights: An Introduction

by Elizabeth Wolfson | Jan 11, 2011

Turkish and Other Delights

Turkish and Other Delights: An Introduction

by Elizabeth Wolfson | Jan 11, 2011

Art21 is pleased to announce our newest column on the blog — the first of several new endeavors for 2011. Turkish and Other Delights is a column devoted to exploring …

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio: Loul Samater

by Georgia Kotretsos | May 28, 2010

Inside the Artist's Studio

Inside the Artist’s Studio: Loul Samater

by Georgia Kotretsos | May 28, 2010

Loul Samater is a Somali artist born and raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but currently based in Beaufort, South Carolina.  She came to the U.S. in 1994 to complete the …
AFP/Getty Image.

Looking at Los Angeles

I Am Not Neda

by Catherine Wagley | Feb 18, 2010

Looking at Los Angeles

I Am Not Neda

by Catherine Wagley | Feb 18, 2010

I drove into a Westwood parking garage late on Monday and saw that the attendant had been crying. After an uneasy moment–I wasn’t sure where compassion and polite distance met …