Middle East (Spring 2010)

Arab Studies Journal Spring 2010

Themed issue: Visual Arts and Art Practices in the Middle East

http://www.arabstudiesjournal.org/

From The Editors

The last decade has comprised tremendous transformations for the
artscapes of the Middle East, transformations simultaneously
occurring on a number of levels. Regionally, there has been a
mushrooming of 'independent' art spaces, artist-run projects,
and large-scale bi/annual events and festivals. Conveniently neat
portrayals of bifurcated art scene(s) - pitting more recent
initiatives against the historic prominence of the state as
the primary patron of the arts - quickly gained currency and
framed the majority of discussions of artistic production.
The post-9/11 addition of the Middle East as a crucial stopover
on curatorial itineraries has meant that artists from
the region have been steadily gaining access to Western art
capitals (albeit under the guise of large, all-encompassing
regional platforms) and are making regular appearances on the
biennale circuit, and to a lesser degree, in museum collections.
Most recently, the region has witnessed the burgeoning of a
Gulf-based art market, supported by an impressive infrastructure
of commercial galleries, individual and institutional collectors,
and world-class museums. The existent Sharjah Biennial and Art
Dubai (an annual art fair accompanied by an extensive program of
events), as well as the forthcoming Museum of Modern Arab Art in
Doha and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, are all critical nodes in the
articulation of a different set of conditions and possibilities
for the production, consumption and understanding of art.

http://www.arabstudiesjournal.org/pages/from_the_editors/464/spring-2010

Theme Articles

Authenticity and Its Modernist Discontents:
The Colonial Encounter and African and Middle Eastern Art History
by PRITA MEIER

Daoud Corm, Cosmopolitan Nationalism, and the Origins of
Lebanese Modern Art
by SARAH ROGERS

Egyptian Surrealism and 'Degenerate Art' in 1939
by DON LACOSS

On Being 'the Other' in Post-Civil War Lebanon: Aid and the
Politics of Art in Processes of Contemporary Cultural Production
by HANAN TOUKAN

Articles

Hashemitism, Jordanian National Identity, and the
Abu Odeh Episode
by STEFANIE NANES

Ottoman Reform, Islam, and Palestine?s Peasantry
by ERIK ELIAV FREAS

Conversations

A Constant State of Urgency

Street Talk: On Infrastructure and Pleasures

Six-Shooters and Nationalist Stamps: A Conversation
Between Naeem
Mohaiemen and Haig Aivazian

When Global Art Meanders on a Magic Carpet: A Conversation
on Tehran's Roaming Biennial

To Participate or Follow? (Views on the Current Situation
of the Istanbul Art Scene)

Interview

Interview with Wafaa Bilal

Theme Reviews

Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present by Kamal Boullata
reviewed by Rhonda A. Saad

Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War
by Zeina Maasri
reviewed by Sune Haugbolle

Tarjama/Translation. ArteEast Exhibition at the Queens
Museum of Art, New York. 10 May - 27 September 2009
reviewed by Clare Davies

Iran Inside Out. Group Show, Chelsea Art Museum, New York
City. 26 June - 5 September 2009
reviewed by Kamran Rastegar

What Keeps Mankind Alive?. 11th International Art Exhibition,
Istanbul Biennial. 12 September - 8 November 2009
reviewed by Nermin Saybasili

Making Worlds // Hacer Mundos // Fare Mundi. 53rd
International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale.
7 June - 22 November 2009
reviewed by Nada Shabout

Book Reviews

The Other Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq
by Orit Bashkin
reviewed by Haytham Bahoora

Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian
Modernity by Elliott Colla
reviewed by Yasmine Ramadan

Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success by Christopher
M. Davidson
reviewed by Arang Keshavarzian

The Power of Representation: Publics, Peasants, and Islam
in Egypt by Michael Ezekiel Gasper
reviewed by Aaron Jakes

A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire by M.
Sükrü Hanio'lu
reviewed by Cenk Palaz

My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's
Life in the Palestinian Century by Adina Hoffman
reviewed by Hala Khamis Nassar

Poets for Palestine by Remi Kanazi, ed.
reviewed by Ahmad Diab

Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War
on Terror by Mahmood Mamdani
reviewed by Caitlyn Bolton

The Politics of Chaos in the Middle East by Oliver Roy
reviewed by Matthew Berkman

Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation
by Eyal Weizman
reviewed by On Barak

Power and Water in the Middle East: The Hidden Politics
of the Palestinian-Israeli Water Conflict by Mark Zeitoun
reviewed by Nicholas Rowe

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