Bulk of Timbuktu Manuscripts Safe

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Manuscripts - Africa - Mali

≈ Leave a comment

Timbuktu manuscriptsThe vast majority of Timbuktu’s ancient manuscripts in state and private collections appear to be unharmed after the Malian Saharan city’s 10-month occupation by Islamist rebel fighters, who burnt some of the scripts. The news, based on information from persons directly involved with the conservation of the historic texts, came as a relief to the world’s cultural community which had been dismayed by varying media reports of widespread destruction of the priceless manuscripts.

Read More: Timbuktu Manuscripts Safe

The Techniques of Persian Henna

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Islamic Art - Essays

≈ 1 Comment

ArtsIslamicaacademic-sIn this paper, Catherine Cartwright-Jones proposes to demonstrate that women’s hand and foot markings in pictorial and literary Persian art between the late 15th century and the mid 19th are representations of henna body art, and that this interpretation of the markings is corroborated by Persian literature and traveler’s descriptions. The author proposes that the representations are idealized but plausible representations of henna, and they demonstrate the technical processes and social uses of henna art in Persia.

Read More: Techniques of Persian Henna, by Catherine Cartwright-Jones

In Revolutionary Syria, Galleries Become Refuges and Artists Turn Dissident

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Artists - Middle East

≈ Leave a comment

Galleries in SyriaNot so long ago it looked like Damascus was in line to once again become a global center for art, with a burgeoning gallery scene and a growing international interest in works by Syrian artists. But glossy images from openings just a few years ago stand in stark contrast to the bloody bodies and bombed-out buildings in the headlines of 2013. World heritage sites throughout Syria are being destroyed as refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey are swelling with Syrians escaping the violence. Yet, Syrian artists are continuing to make work, building new homes abroad, and bringing their art with them.

Read More: In Syria, Galleries Become Refuges

Photo Essay: Timbuktu’s Manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Institute

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Manuscripts - Africa - Mali

≈ Leave a comment

Timbuktu manuscriptsThe ancient Malian city of Timbuktu has housed for centuries thousands of manuscripts which are invaluable to the history of Africa and Islam. Several thousand of them seem to have been lost or taken away by retreating Islamist militants as French and Malian troops were advancing towards Timbuktu.

View Images: Timbuktu’s Manuscripts

Women of the Middle East Tell Their Story

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Photography - Middle East

≈ Leave a comment

RawiyaA Palestinian all-female auto racing team, transsexuals in Jerusalem, cluster bomb survivors trying to rebuild their lives, Iranian mother’s of martyrs who visit their son’s grave twice a week and parents in Lebanon who continue to wait for the 17,000 missing to come home. These are among the stories from Realism in Rawiya – a presentation of the first all-female photographic collective to emerge from the Middle East, taking place at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham from January 25th to April 20th, 2013.

Read More: Realism in Rawiya

Reviving Art & Culture in the Middle East: Global Art Forum

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Arts - Middle East

≈ Leave a comment

Global Art ForumIt would be prudent to say that there has been a resurgence in interest and the promotion of Art in the Middle East in the past decade. Multitude of Art Museums and Galleries have come up in countries like Dubai and Qatar, who have invested heavily in works of art as well as setting up of new Art Galleries and Exhibitions. Dubai Art Museum, “Rain of Light” Louvre Museum, Abu Dhabi Gugghanheim Museum are some of the mega projects that are in the pipe line. Qatar’s Royal family has plans to make Doha, into an International Art Capital.

Read More: Global Art Forum

Destruction of Timbuktu Manuscripts is an Offence Against the Whole of Africa

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Manuscripts - Destruction

≈ Leave a comment

Mali - Travel - Tradition - Manuscripts of the DesertThe reported destruction of two important manuscript collections by Islamist rebels as they fled Timbuktu is an offence to the whole of Africa and its universally important cultural heritage. Like their systematic destruction of 300 Sufi saints’ shrines while they held Timbuktu at their mercy, it is an assault on world heritage comparable with the demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001.

Read More: Destruction of Timbuktu Manuscripts

Related Story: Timbuktu Library

Mali Rebels Torch Library of Historic Manuscripts

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Manuscripts - Destruction

≈ Leave a comment

French army in MaliIslamist insurgents retreating from Timbuktu set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts, according to the Saharan town’s mayor, in an incident he described as a “devastating blow” to world heritage. Hallé Ousmani Cissé told the Guardian that al-Qaida-allied fighters on Saturday torched two buildings that held the manuscripts, some of which dated back to the 13th century.

Read More: Mali Rebels

Related Story: Destruction of Timbuktu Manuscripts

Cairo Celebrates the Art of Calligraphy

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Calligraphy - Festivals

≈ Leave a comment

International Festival for Arabic CalligraphyCairo may be best known for its ancient Egyptian ruins, but it is also home to a vast amount of Islamic history. In the busy Cairo streets that history is there for all to see with its ancient mosques, often decorated with intricate Koranic script. It is that detailed artwork that is being celebrated in Cairo during January, with the city welcoming calligraphers from around the world to take part in the International Festival for Arabic Calligraphy.

Read More: International Festival for Arabic Calligraphy

Dark Stories: Looting Books from Palestinian Libraries

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Cinematography - Palestine

≈ Leave a comment

Looting BooksIn the dark rooftop viewing space of the Khalil Al Sakakini Cultural Centre in Ramallah, the air was heavy with sighs. Occasionally the faint sound of a whimper could be heard. The screen flickered with images of Palestinians forced out of their homes in the 1948 war. On camera, refugees recounted their ordeals and lamented the loss of something precious: their books.

Read More: Looting Books

How To Save the Arts in Times of War

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Heritage Sites - War

≈ Leave a comment

How to Save the ArtsAfter serving in the Army Reserve for 21 years, and working at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts as a curator, Corine Wegener now travels the country training soldiers in cultural heritage preservation. As the founder of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, Wegener covers everything from material science to museum organization to international law and often calls on Smithsonian curators and collections to help impress upon the soldiers the importance of the shared cultural items she calls touchstones. A unit preparing to deploy to the Horn of Africa, for example, received a special tour at the African Art Museum. Now at the Smithsonian as a cultural heritage preservation specialist, Wegener’s played a critical role in the recovery of the National Museum of Iraq after devastating looting took place there during the war in 2003.

Read More: How to Save the Arts

Calligrapher with a Different Stroke

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Exhibitions - Middle East - Individual Artists

≈ Leave a comment

Tahir bin QullanderUnlike most calligraphy artists, Tahir bin Qullander steers away from the conventional form of Islamic calligraphy. Based in Lahore, Pakistan, Bin Qullander experiments portraying Islamic calligraphy with bold strokes and presents his art to look like landscapes and portraits as compared to the usual parchment type presentation of calligraphy. Qullander, who opened his first international art show recently, is displaying his work at the Al Hamail Art Gallery in Al Qouz for a month.

Read More: Tahir bin Qullander

Re-branding Islamic Architecture?

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by in Islamic Architecture - Presentations

≈ Leave a comment

Nasser RabbatIn the last 50 years, architecture in the Islamic World has become both a branding instrument and a visual marker of the cultural shift in Islamic identity. In this presentation made at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in November 2012, Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examines the re-emergence of Islamic architecture and the controversy surrounding its definition.

View at: Re-branding Islamic Architecture?

In Şule Gürbüz’s Lost Time

26 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Art

≈ Leave a comment

Sule GurbuzShe’s not a hermit, though in other times she could have been. Her job is not in keeping with the times: she repairs the clocks in the Ottoman palaces. Şule Gürbüz is the only woman in the world to be an expert in mechanical clocks and author of two collections of stories which are small jewels of contemporary Turkish literature: Zamanin Farkinda (Aware of Time, 2011) and Coskuyla Olmek (Die Enthusiastically, 2012).

Read More: Sule Gurbuz

Lebanese Artist Saloua Raouda Choucair to Exhibit at Tate Modern

26 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Exhibitions - United Kingdom - Individual Artists

≈ Leave a comment

Saloua RaoudaThe world’s first major museum exhibition of Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair (b. 1916) has been announced for Tate Modern opening in April 2013. Comprising over 120 works, many of which have never been seen before and are being exhibited for the first time, this exhibition will bring together paintings, sculptures and other objects made by the artist over six decades, reflecting her interests in science, mathematics and Islamic art and poetry.

Read More: Saloua Raouda at Tate Modern

The Daraazi Fakirs of Sachal Sarmast: Keepers of the Faith

26 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Music - Pakistan

≈ Leave a comment

Daraazi FakirsIn the rural areas and towns of Sindh, the Sufi music tradition is a common cultural and social feature associated with the shrines of folk poets and saints. At every dargah or shrine, the Sufi fakirs (singers) are likely to be seen performing the rhythmic and enthralling mystical poetry of poets such as Sachal Sarmast, Mehdi Saen, Gamdil Fakir, Bedil Fakir, Rakhiyal Shah, Budhal Fakir, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Bulleh Shah, Janan Fakir Chann, etc. Significantly, many shrines of the popular Sufi poets have a formal and institutionalised tradition of raagis (singers) who are associated with and perform only for the given shrine. Well-known examples are the Bhitai ja Fakirs of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai and the Daraazi Fakirs of Sachal Sarmast.

Read More: Daraazi Fakirs of Sachal Sarmast

Living Shrines of Uyghur China: Photographs by Lisa Ross

26 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Photography - Xinjiang

≈ Leave a comment

Lisa RossThe Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is China’s largest province. It came under Chinese rule in 1949. With few exceptions, artists and foreign researchers have been denied meaningful access to the rural areas in Xinjiang. Ross’s close working relationships with a Uyghur anthropologist and a French historian focusing on Central Asian Islam have guided her more than eight-year exploration in the region. The extensive body of work which Living Shrines of Uyghur China – commencing on February 8th, 2013 at the Rubin Museum of Art, New York – draws upon is rare in that it captures a time and place that is rapidly modernizing and transforming.

Read More: Living Shrines of Uyghur China

South Asia Through Modernist Binoculars: ‘Radical Terrain’ at the Rubin Museum of Art

26 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by in Exhibitions - North America

≈ Leave a comment

Radical TerrainRadical Terrain, which continues to the end of April 2013 at the Rubin Museum of Art, is the last of three small, carefully judged, back-to-back exhibitions in the series Modernist Art From India. How lucky New York is to have a museum willing and able to do such shows, unfamiliar in content but large with history. If we relied on our big institutions, which so often spoon-feed us what we already know, we would be unaware that India even had a modern art, never mind one of variety and complexity.

Read More: South Asia Through Modernist Binoculars

Thirty-Four Mausoleums in Tunisia Vandalized Since the Revolution

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by in Heritage Sites - Tunisia - Destruction

≈ Leave a comment

Mausoleums in TunisiaThirty-four shrines of Tunisian saints have been either burnt or partially destroyed since the revolution, according to the Ministry of Culture. Tunisia’s historical and cultural patrimony finds itself threatened by these incidents, which have caught the attention of the many Tunisians who value the cultural worth of such mausoleums. While the perpetrators are largely believed to be religious hardliners, they are in fact ignorant of the social and religious importance of the shrines they destroy, say historians.

Read More: Mausoleums in Tunisia Vandalized

Related Stories: Sufi Shrines Torched [and] Mausoleum in Sidi Bou Said