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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2020
The anthology of primary sources presented in Modern Art in the Arab World reveals a wealth of ideas, attitudes, hopes, fears, and concerns surrounding the many facets of modernism and art. The essays therein provide first-hand accounts of developing art scenes from across the Arab world and their relationships to their audiences on local, national, transnational, and global scales. These documents, many of which have been translated from Arabic or French into English for the first time, offer individual, in situ insights into a broad range of issues pertaining to art in the twentieth century while furnishing readers with numerous threads that connect these geographies with changes through time. Four matters in particular – the centrality of translation, print media, art, and image management to modernization – permeate this anthology's content and will be explored further in the following essay.
1 Lenssen, Anneka, Rogers, Sarah, and Shabout, Nadia, eds., et al., “Introduction: About This Book,” in Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents, ed. Lenssen, Anneka et al. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2018), 23Google Scholar.
2 Ahmed Fahmi in his essay “The Fine Arts” and Amin Rihani in his essay “Renewal” both prescribe exposure to novelty as a means of gaining flexibility and adaptability in the modern world, which will affect how people view and experience their ever-changing surroundings. See: Ahmed Fahmi, “The Fine Arts,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 40; and Amin Rihani, “Renewal,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 54.
3 Inji Efflatoun, “Recollections of Imprisonment,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 193-96.
4 Mahmoud Hammad, “Letter to Farouq al-Buqayli,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 248-52.
5 Lenssen, et al., “Introduction: About This Book,” 21.
6 What is remarkable is that such tumultuous events never stopped the production of art but were instead seen as opportunities for documenting and displaying the artistic expression related to such pivotal moments, sometimes to a fault. For instance, the volume includes a report about an exhibit on the Iraqi revolution of 14 July, 1958 that was organized the same year as the revolution, with little preparation or critical distance from recent events. The author calls it a rushed job but also “a necessary point of departure” for the new regime and the new artistic standards to come. See: Jaleel Kamal al-Din, “At the Exhibition of the Revolution,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 181-86. Similarly, the following text from the volume highlights the fleeting nature of some political alignments and the art production and exhibition that happen simultaneously alongside it. See: Salah Kamel, “Text for the United Arab Republic Pavilion, Venice Biennale,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 189-90.
7 See: Mannheim, Karl, Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Harvest Book, 1936), 250Google Scholar; Greenhalgh, The Modern Ideal, 40-41.
8 Matossian, Mary, “Ideologies of Delayed Development,” in Nationalism, eds. John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 225Google Scholar.
9 Greenhalgh, Paul, The Modern Ideal: The Rise and Collapse of Idealism in the Visual Arts from the Enlightenment to Postmodernism (London: V&A Publications, 2005), 67-68Google Scholar.
10 In “Something About Art,” May Ziadeh expresses jaded disappointment with the realities of high modernity, which had already, by 1912, replaced its idealistic origins of hard scientific discovery and creativity as indicators of civilization and enlightenment with commerce- and profit-based pursuits. See: May Ziadeh, “Something about Art,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 46-47.
11 Greenhalgh identifies (European) high modernity as a period following the speculative and material phases and places its beginnings at around 1890 (to present) in the developed world. See: Greenhalgh, The Modern Ideal, 25.
12 Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993)Google Scholar.
13 Butrus al-Bustani, “Taswir, Peinture, Painting,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 37.
14 Muhammad Abduh, “Images and Statues, Their Benefits and Legality,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 42-45.
15 Mohamed Naghi, “The Popular Arts in Egypt,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 70-71.
16 Gamboni, Dario, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism since the French Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 120Google Scholar.
17 Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 127.
18 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 2006)Google Scholar.
19 Azouaou Mammeri, “Letter to Jean Alazard, the Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Algiers,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 73-74.
20 Ibid., 74.
21 Examples of these sentiments and other attempts to participate abound in Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents. There are especially telling anecdotes of exclusion or extra hurdles encountered by Arab artists on national and international platforms. Two especially poignant examples can be found in the following: Omar Racim, “Letter to the Director of the Exhibition of Indigenous Art from the French Colonies,” 57; and Yahia Bahmed, “Letter to the Department of Interior and Fine Arts,” 155.
22 Some examples of essays in Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents from or about these exchanges include Dina Ramadan, “Cairo's School of Fine Arts and the Pedagogical Imperative,” 72-73; Saloua Raouda Choucair, “How the Arab Understood Visual Art,” 145-49; Amir Nour, “Three Years of Teaching Art in Khartoum, 1962–65,” 211-12; Mahmoud Hammad, “Arab Art… and Its Position in Relation to the World's Art,” 338-40; and May Muzaffar, “Graphic Art in the Arab World,” 372-73.
23 Flood, Finbarr Barry, “From the Prophet to Postmodernism? New World Orders and the End of Islamic Art,” in Making Art History: A Changing Discipline and its Institutions, ed. C., Elizabeth Mansfield (New York and London: Rutledge, 2007), 36-38Google Scholar.
24 The artists’ responses to a journal's questionnaire on the subject illustrate the centrality of this matter to art circa 1956. See: Moustafa Farroukh et al., “Artists’ Questionnaire: ‘Art and Arab Life,’” in Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents, 167-75. Also see Hamed Said, “The Freedom of Art,” in Modern Art in the Arab World, 186-89.
25 To borrow the language from Ussama Makdisi's opening essay, “The Making and Unmaking of the Arab World,” in Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents, ed. Anneka Lenssen et al. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2018), 28-34.
