Chances are, if you played a game of word association with “Iran,” you’d get back responses like hostage, theocracy, ayatollah, Persia, terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Come September 6th, in the galleries of the Asia Society in New York, a different image of the country will be unveiled in Iran Modern, the first major international loan exhibition of art made there from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Read More: A Society Evolves

Asheer Akram has used the word “nightmare” more than once the past few minutes. He shakes his head. This project, he tells me, is “the worst idea I ever had.” It’s late August, and I’ve met up with Akram and some of his many collaborators in a garage at 18th Street and Forest. Belger Cartage has provided this indoor space for the finishing work, which has been under way constantly for many days. (Akram has been a resident at Belger Crane Yard Studios on Tracy Avenue for a little more than two years.) For the past four months, Akram says, completing this idea has been a full-time job for seven or eight people, working 16 hours a day. As recently as an August 11 Facebook post, a photo showed what looked almost like a blank canvas. An August 21 Facebook update put out an emergency call for a flower painter.

Read More: Asheer Akram Collaborates to Put His Heritage on Moving Display

Dr. Joseph B. Touma, a successful physician in Huntington, W.V., first became interested in Near Eastern art as a boy in Damascus, Syria. “As I was growing up, I encountered historic monuments on a daily basis,” he said. “After years of attending medical school and training in the United States, I rediscovered the beauty and uniqueness of this art and began collecting, at first slowly. Later, it became my mission to cover all aspects of this diverse art.” Over the years, he and his wife, Dr. Omayma Touma, collected art from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, North Africa, Moorish Spain and Ottoman Turkey. The Touma Collection, housed at the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia, is considered to be one of the nation’s finest collections of Near Eastern art.

Read More: Eastern Treasures Travel to the Jepson

Green lamps dangle from a ceiling framed by ornate carvings. The tirelessly detailed patterns, eclectic and timeless, continue along the walls, arched windows and crevices. The colors, some rustic and some pastel, rise in contrast to the floor with its shiny off-whiteness and large geometric designs. Oil lamps, water pipes and perfume bottles tastefully adorn tables and shelves. Golden Arabic calligraphy panels the walls above, and the photograph is taken in such a way that you feel as if, with a single step, you could enter into the “Syrian Room.” Tim Street-Porter’s large and backlit photograph welcomes viewers into the Nasher’s newest exhibition opening Thursday, August 29th 2013: Doris Duke’s Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art.

Read More: New Doris Duke Exhibition Brings Islamic Art to Nasher Museum

See also: An Earthly Retreat, A Shrine to Art

Shangri La is the earthly paradise James Hilton described in his 1933 novel “Lost Horizon.” It was published, coincidentally, a few years before tobacco heiress Doris Duke and husband James Cromwell began their 1935 honeymoon and world tour that led to the building of a retreat in Hawaii that took the name Shangri La. This five-acre Honolulu estate, which overlooks the Pacific, was built as more than just an earthly retreat. During their honeymoon, the couple’s travels took them to Egypt, India, Indonesia and other countries. Duke began collecting Islamic art during that tour and continued until her death in 1993. The honeymoon ended in Honolulu, where the couple decided to build their estate, incorporating Islamic art and style in the architecture.

Read More: An Earthly Retreat, A Shrine to Art

How did a groundbreaking group show on contemporary Islam happen in rural New England? It all started with a simple conversation. Megan Whilden, Director of Cultural Development for the City of Pittsfield, was interviewing me for a summer position in her Office through the Berkshire Hills Internship Program. The Boston Marathon bombing was a recent memory, and the need for a more expansive, nuanced understanding of modern Islam culture(s) was at an all time high.

Read More: How a Groundbreaking Art Show about Contemporary Islam came to Rural New England

When you encounter the word “Islamic” in this hemisphere, art is not what springs to mind in an era inflamed by religious terrorism. But London’s Victoria and Albert Museum recognizes the potent interaction between traditional Islamic arts and contemporary trends with the Jameel Prize under the patronage of avant-garde architect Zaha Hadid. More than 200 of the world’s leading curators, designers and artists were invited to nominate artists for the 2011 competition and the 10 finalists are featured in “The Jameel Prize: Art Inspired by the Islamic Tradition” at the San Antonio Museum of Art.

Read More: Jameel Prize Brings Inspired Islamic-influenced Art to San Antonio Museum of Art

Asia Society Museum presents Iran Modern, the first major international loan exhibition of Iranian modern art created from the 1950s to 1970s. It will be on view in New York from September 6, 2013 to January 5, 2014. Showcasing more than 100 works by 26 artists, the exhibition illuminates Iran’s little known pre-Islamic Revolution era when Tehran was a cosmopolitan art center, artists were engaged with the world through their participation in the Venice Biennale and other international art festivals, and their work was collected by institutions inside and outside of Iran.

Read More: Asia Society Museum Announces First Major Exhibition of Iranian Modern Art

See also: Asia Society to Present Modern Iranian Art

A new exhibition of modern Iranian art will showcase the work of 26 artists from the 1950s to the 1970s, when Iranian artists were connected to the rest of the world and influenced by global art movements, the Asia Society Museum in New York plans to announce on Monday [29 July, 2013].

Read More: Asia Society to Present Modern Iranian Art

Back in the 20th century, everyone was talking about how New York had wrested the status of modern-art capital from Paris. Nowadays, curators in the U.S. and Europe are vying to share the spotlight.

Read More: The Other Modernism

Past and present come together seamlessly in Soody Sharifi’s collages. Still, something seems off. In “Fashion Week,” contemporary women who have been digitally dropped into an ancient Persian court scene strut a catwalk that leads to an empty throne. Modestly dressed in street clothes, the ersatz models’ heads are covered by hijabs of varying lengths. Meanwhile, their precursors enjoy the show free of head scarves.

Read More: Inspired by Islam

Censorship, restrictive visa requirements and warlike conditions are no match for an artist who has something to say. That’s one of the underlying messages of Museum of Anthropology’s Safar/Voyage: Contemporary Works by Arab, Iranian and Turkish Artists brings together work from 16 artists from the Middle East and opens Saturday, April 20th, 2013. Indeed, those very same conditions can be inspiring. “Art is flourishing in Tehran,” sculptor Parviz Tanavoli said. Tanavoli, who divides his time between Vancouver, Dubai and his native Tehran, is one of the artists in the show.

Read More: Museum of Anthropology’s Safar/Voyage Showcases 16 Artists from the Middle East

See also: Local Artist Parviz Tanavoli’s Bronze Gleams in Safar/Voyage

and: Exhibition in Vancouver Highlights Diversity of the Middle East

Few of Parviz Tanavoli’s West Vancouver neighbours know that he is one of Iran’s most acclaimed modern artists. When he is not creating monumental bronze sculptures in his Tehran studio or attending exhibition openings in London, Zurich, and Dubai, Tanavoli lives very quietly on a cul-de-sac overlooking Howe Sound. Here, he paints, writes, reads, and works on small-scale sculptures. Perhaps his understated local status will change, however, when Safar/Voyage opens at the UBC Museum of Anthropology this Saturday (April 20th, 2013).

Read More: Local Artist Parviz Tanavoli’s Bronze Gleams in Safar/Voyage

See also: Exhibition in Vancouver Highlights Diversity of the Middle East

A beat-up 1970s Toyota Corona sits among bundles of household goods, waiting for the tarried family who will pile their life atop its roof racks and drive to new beginnings. The sky-blue car is part of a new exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology that showcases the works of contemporary artists from the Middle East, in the hopes they can debunk a western-world myth that the area is all about burkas, bloodshed and bombings. The life-size visual display entitled “Destination X” by Lebanese artist, Ayman Baalbaki, chronicles his family’s flight from their homeland during a 1970 civil war.

Read More: Exhibition in Vancouver Highlights Diversity of the Middle East

At the crossroads between realism and fantasy, fanciful decoration and meaningful symbolism, and admiration and condescension lies Orientalism. In painting, the movement is known for depicting aspects of Middle Eastern and East Asian culture. Much has been debated on the issue of whether the movement’s artists did justice to the cultures they chose to depict. What helps in determining this point is to view at least some of the works in person. The chance is provided by the current exhibition, Encountering the Orient: Masterworks From the Dahesh Museum of Art, which is being hosted by Christie’s New York at the Rockefeller Plaza.

Read More: Encountering the Exotic and Mysterious Orient

The special exhibition, Doris Duke’s Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art, showcases dozens of objects from Shangri La, the spectacular Honolulu home Doris Duke built in the mid 1930s and filled with Islamic art until her death in 1993. Featuring artwork from the first through the 20th centuries, Shangri La unfolds organically, much like Duke’s many travels through Muslim countries. The exhibition, which also includes contemporary work by former Shangri La artists-in-residence, is on view from March 21st through July 14th, 2013.

Read More: Exhibition at the Norton Museum

See also: Doris Duke’s Shangri La Museum

The eye in the picture is distracting, alarming, demanding all at once. It’s presumably female – the lashes mascaraed, the eyelids lined, the brows sculpted – and it’s open very wide, as if startled. Her face is no help in reading that emotion: it’s hidden in a dark shadow, the eye spotlighted in a bright circle of light. And then your own eye drifts around the rest of Ahmad Nateghi’s untitled black-and-white photograph and encounters new disorientations. A sliver of a woman’s face smiles in the lower-right corner of a frame, as if she’s peeking through a barely opened door. In the lower-left quadrant, a woman stands with her back to the camera; in front of her, a sign reads “THE PROFESSIONAL CHOICE.”

Read More: Persian Visions: Contemporary Photography from Iran

The renovation, expansion, and reinstallation between 2003 and 2011 of the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia at The Metropolitan Museum of Art provided conservators and conservation scientists with an extraordinary opportunity to examine and conserve many works of Islamic art in the Permanent Collection. Discoveries that were made during this period have enhanced many aspects of the re-installation of the galleries. The exhibition Making the Invisible Visible: Conservation and Islamic Art, on view beginning April 2nd, 2013, will demonstrate how our understanding and appreciation of the works of art we see in visible light can be augmented by information gleaned using other wavelengths of light, from infrared to x-rays.

Read More: Making the Invisible Visible

The International Museum of Women (IMOW) announces the debut of Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices (muslima.imow.org) a groundbreaking international collection of artwork, stories and ideas from contemporary Muslim women. The free online exhibition features exclusive interviews with leading women’s rights advocates from countries including Iran, Afghanistan, and Bosnia and showcases the barrier-breaking creativity of female artists from every region of the world.

Read More: Muslima Online Exhibition

See also: Muslim Women’s Art and Voices

As the curator for the International Museum of Women’s new global exhibition, Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices, the one question I’m repeatedly asked is, “What common trait do Muslim women artists and leaders around the world share that strikes you?” My answer: their courage.

Read More: Muslim Women’s Art and Voices

The Tufts University Art Gallery at the Shirley and Alex Aidekman Arts Center proudly presents Illuminated Geographies: Pakistani Miniaturist Practice in the Wake of the Global Turn, featuring new works by Ambreen Butt, Faiza Butt, Murad Khan Mumtaz, and Saira Wasim, on view through March 31th, 2013.

Read More: Illuminated Geographies

Challenging the norms yet honoring the traditions of their Islamic heritage through their work, six contemporary artists will have pieces on display through March 30th, 2013 at the University of North Texas Art Gallery. Cross Currents: Tradition and Innovation in Contem­porary Art of the Islamic World is a traveling exhibition curated and organized by Jessica Hunter-Larsen of the InterDisciplinary Experi­men­tal Art Program at Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

Read More: Exhibit at University of North Texas Art Gallery Highlights Modern Islamic Art

Fighting in the Muslim country of Mali in western Africa has delayed the American tour of a unique exhibit featuring centuries-old texts and artifacts from Timbuktu, an ancient center of Islamic learning. The Legacy of Timbuktu was scheduled to open April 20th 2013 at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in Texas, but curators from the International Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson, Miss., which is organizing the exhibit, could not travel to the Saharan city to retrieve several manuscripts and artifacts it planned to display.

Read More: The Legacy of Timbuktu