Mideast Art

“Art is Politics”: A Conversation with Iraqi Artist Wafaa Bilal, Part I

Comfort zones are equally as damaging as they are protective. Harmful because they isolate, desensitize, and in the case of many Americans living a snug distance away from major conflict zones, they dehumanize, simplifying entire populations into images on a TV screen where the choice to flip a switch off is all we need to disconnect ourselves from ongoing violence that much of the world cannot escape.

Where engagement stalls, artists have long stepped in subvert stereotypes and instigate dialogue. Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal is no exception. Working from a childhood of violence and oppression during Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime and an adult immigration that opened him up to the vulnerabilities of ignorance and discrimination, Bilal is an artist who doesn’t condemn, but rather holds up the mirror, reflecting the flaws of both Iraqi and American society, taking us out of those comfort zones and into those where understanding can begin.

Where London and Mecca Meet: The British Museum’s Hajj Exhibition

In his letter from Hajj, a spiritual journey for Muslims and the largest gathering of people in the world, Malcom X, once wrote: "Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land.”

As one of the five pillars of Islam, Hajj is expected of all Muslims at least once in their lives if they are able. Despite the massive number of Muslims that travel to Mecca each year, the event is still one of the least understood for those outside the Muslim faith.

In an effort to better educate the public on the significance of Hajj and its evolution throughout history, The British Museum of London, in partnership with The King Abdulaziz Public Library Riyadh, put together Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, the third installment of the museum’s curated series that showcases the spiritual journey. Tickets sold out the first week it opened. 

The Future, Now on View: A Review of Ala Ebtekar’s Elsewhen

The concept of “the future” has often been the subject of art, literature, and cinema with the question, “what will tomorrow look like?” pressing on the minds of many over the centuries. Between the turmoil currently afflicting the greater Middle East from the aftermath of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Libya, the plague of unrest that still pummels opposition in Syria, and the heightened tensions between Iran and Israel, the threat of continuing conflict into the future between disparate groups seems inevitable.

So is that it? Should humanity resign itself to thinking of the future in such a pessimistic light?

Dance the Gap: An Interview with Choreographer Parijat Desai

Dance, in its very essence of live movement, can never keep still. As performers on stage shift their bodies, using them to fill visual and musical spaces that most never even realized were empty, we audience members evolve along with them.

The opposite of dance is stasis, atrophy, the crippling that comes when one cannot or will not move, because it's safer to keep still rather than risk breaking free or connecting with another. But in that safety also creeps loneliness, because dialogue thrives on conversational motion.

It's with this conversational motion, in the body's various twists, turns, leaps, stretches, that Brooklyn-based choreographer Parijat Desai uses "an organic and kinetic blend of Indian classical and Western contemporary dance" to bridge the cliched gaps of two seemingly opposite old and new worlds that are really more alike than they are different.

Meet Me In the Damascus Room: Islamic Art at The Met

Sometimes the best way to learn about a civilization is through its artifacts. In November of 2011, just over ten years after the 9/11 attacks, and six miles north of where two hijacked airliners took down the World Trade Center, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its new wing of Islamic art as part of a cultural diplomatic effort to better educate Americans about Islamic culture.

The wing, located on one of the upper floors of the Met and comprised of 15 galleries totaling an approximate 19,000 square feet of exhibition space, includes “nearly twelve thousand objects [that] reflect the great diversity and range of the cultural traditions of Islam, with works from as far westward as Spain and Morocco and as far eastward as Central Asia and India.”

Considered to be one of the world’s most extensive collections of Islamic art, the exhibit “signals a revised perspective on this important collection, recognizing that the monumental influence of Islam did not create a single, monolithic artistic expression, but instead connected a vast geographic expanse through centuries of change and cultural influence,” stated Met Director Thomas P. Campbell.