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~ This site brings together news stories, articles, photo essays, reviews, publications, conference proceedings, gallery events and exhibitions relating to the fields of Islamic art, architecture and archaeology.

ArtsIslamica

Category Archives: Exhibitions – North America – Reviews

Under the Spell of Yoga

17 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Exhibitions - North America - Reviews

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Under the spell of Yoga

Around 1600, a dramatic shift took place in Mughal art. The Mughal emperors of India were the most powerful monarchs of their day — at the beginning of the seventeenth century, they ruled over a hundred million subjects, five times the number administered by their only rivals, the Ottomans. Much of the painting that took place in the ateliers of the first Mughal emperors was effectively dynastic propaganda, and gloried in the Mughals’ pomp and prestige. Illustrated copies were produced of the diaries of Babur, the conqueror who first brought the Muslim dynasty of the Mughal emperors to India in 1526, as well as exquisite paintings illustrating every significant episode in the biography of his grandson, Akbar.

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Islamic World Through Women’s Eyes

28 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Exhibitions - North America - Reviews, Photography - Iran, Photography - Middle East

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Women Photographers

Middle Eastern women, supposedly powerless and oppressed behind walls and veils, are in fact a force in both society and the arts. They played a major role in the Arab Spring and continue to do so in the flourishing regional art scene — specifically in photography — which is alive and very well indeed. Some Middle Eastern photographers have taken their cameras to the barricades, physical ones and those less obvious, like the barriers erected by stereotypes, which they remain determined to defy. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, takes note in She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers From Iran and the Arab World, an ambitious and revealing exhibition of work by 12 women, some internationally known.

Read More: Islamic World Through Women’s Eyes

See also: Behind the Veil and The Middle East Through Women’s Cameras

Iran Modern, Asia Society, New York

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Exhibitions - North America - Reviews

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Iran modern 2

In the west, “modern” almost always means “good”. Who would reject the healthy, youthful optimism that the word implies? In other parts of the world, it’s a more volatile term, pitting liberalism against custom, commerce against religion, globalisation against local pride. Iran Modern at the Asia Society in New York presses a finger to this tender spot of ambivalence. In the 1960s and 70s, during the reign of a west-besotted Shah, Iran tasted modernity and then violently spat it out. A sense of discovery and doom gives the exhibition its poignant energy: Persian Pop, late-blooming cubism and various exalted and kitschy hybrids had their glorious moments. The period’s artistic richness stokes an appetite for an epilogue, but the show breaks off in 1979, when the country changed and artists scattered.

Read More: Iran Modern, Asia Society, New York

See also: A Dawn Interrupted

‘We Will Not Fail’ Meticulously Upends Mass Media Imagery

25 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Exhibitions - North America - Individual Artists, Exhibitions - North America - Reviews

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Samira YaminFive new works by Samira Yamin, currently on display at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, merge traditional Islamic art with modern mass media, resulting in poetic, contemplative objects both visually beautiful and conceptually disorienting.

Read More: Samira Yamin Exhibit at the Santa Monica Museum of Art

Under Saudi Sand: The Great Arabian Road Show

22 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Exhibitions - North America - Reviews

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Roads of ArabiaExcavation of archaeological sites only began in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s, yet these digs have already brought an astonishing wealth of treasures to light. They are astonishing because these digs are uncovering a virtually unknown ancient past. “Some of it has just come out of the ground only two years ago,” says Massumeh Farhad, curator of a revelatory exhibition displaying recently discovered archaeological material. Farhad is also Curator of Islamic Art at the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery, where Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is exploding myths about the Arabian Peninsula. Roads of Arabia is open until February 24th, 2013 at the Sackler Gallery, after which it will travel to Houston, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Read More: Roads of Arabia

Love in the Sackler

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Exhibitions - North America - Reviews

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SacklerIn Harmony, the Sackler Museum’s exhibition of Norma Jean Calderwood’s personal collection of Islamic art (January 31st, 2013 to June 1st, 2013) hands its viewer a bouquet of art exuding the aroma of love. It features ceramics, Islamic lacquered objects, single-page paintings, and many manuscript folios from Islamic epic poetry. Thematically, the content of the works varies greatly, from regicide to blessings; stylistically, the objects are stunningly beautiful. The exhibition is so rich it begs the viewer to explore it for hours.

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On the Magic Carpet of the Met

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by StudiesIslamica in Exhibitions - North America - Reviews

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Islamic collection at MetropolitanOn November 1st, 2011, the the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened. Eight years in the making and arranged across fifteen rooms, these galleries showcase some 1,200 artworks, including exceptional examples of manuscripts, textiles, glass, ceramics, jewellery, armour, painting, scientific instruments, wood stone and ivory, from one of the most important collections of Islamic art outside the Middle East. In this insightful essay, published in December 2011, Peter Brown reviews the galleries and the accompanying catalogue.

Read More: On the Magic Carpet of the Met

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