Required Reading
Middle Eastern Art

Undergraduates:

Go to the Middle Eastern section of the course web page.  Visit the International Network for Contemporary Iraqi Artists website.  Link to "Artist Statements".  Scroll down and read the artist statements of Shoresh Amin, Jananne al-Ani, Hamid al-Attar, Said Farhan, and Naman Hadi.  Study their work.  Now visit the Nafas Art Magazine website whicht features the work of Palestinian Jawas Al Malhi.  

What has been the impact of war and exile on these artists?  How have they expressed some of this in their work?

Graduates: 

Read "Visibility:  Art, History, and Patronage," in Fran Lloyd's Contmeporary Arab Women's Art:  Dialogues of the Present (London:  Women's Art Library, 1999), pp. 51-57, on reserve. 

According to Keelan, what are some of the ways in which the effects of Colonialism and Western Imperialism continue to impact non-Western artists, including Arabic artists?  How does she feel that the "education industry" contributes to Euro-centricism in art (both in terms of the educational system in western countries as well as in non-Western)?  What factors does Keelan cite as historically contributing to Western "arts supremacy"?