Issue nº 19 of Awraq: The Times of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art

Casa Árabe is presenting the latest issue of this Journal for analysis and thought on the Arab and Islamic world, monographically devoted to art in the Arab world for the first time ever, with a special emphasis on the construction of Modernism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

This issue of Awraq, corresponding to the first half of 2019, is monographically devoted to art in the Arab world for the first time ever, with a special emphasis on the construction of Modernism in the twentieth century and current art in the twenty-first century. Through this publication, Casa Árabe hopes to contribute to filling a void in the production of texts about this topic in our country, though with honorable exceptions. The monographic section of the journal includes twelve texts in all by Spanish and international authors.

After introductions by the General Director of Casa Árabe, Pedro Martínez-Avial, and by Nuria Medina, the coordinator of this issue and Casa Árabe’s Culture Coordinator, with the article Art from the Other Side, we will then move on to two different sections of the presentation. First of all, there are articles which provide us with a global introduction to Arab culture and modern art, with contributions by Nada Shabout in Rethinking contemporary Arab art; Silvia Naef, in Representation of Arab legacy and culture in modern art (from the 1940s to 1991); José Miguel Puerta Vílchez on Language and Classical Arabic thought in today’s Arab art. From Madiha Omar and the Baghdad Group to the aesthetics of Kamal Bullata; and an article by María Gómez López titled Art and Mapmaking: Narrating the world through art’s places.

In addition to this, there will be six articles which are geographically focused, like the one titled Modern Iraqi art and global Modernism (Tiffany Floyd); Egyptian Modernism and Cairo as a cultural platform (Nadia Radwan); The beginnings of modern art in Tunisia (Rachida Triki); The modern and contemporary visual arts in Morocco (Moulim El Aroussi); Transmodernism in an era of excess: the example of Beirut (Sam Bardaouil); Making visible histories: art institutions and histories in Yemen (Anahi Alviso-Marino); and the article Palestinian art: resistance and geopolitics (Tina Sherwell).

In the miscellaneous topics section, we round off this issue on art with a contribution by Ana Crespo, titled Able to welcome all shapes my heart has become: reflections on Sufism in contemporary art in Spain. Last of all comes the contribution by Fernando Rodríguez Mediano at the round table discussion “Arab and Islamic civilization’s contribution to Europe, past and present,” which formed part of the seminar A Mixed and Plural Europe (Madrid, Casa Árabe, May 9, 2019).

Issue Nº 19 of the journal Awraq: The Times of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art  

All issues of the journal Awraq