Fluent Essays

article review: What is the topic and why is it relevant to the class? • What are the main issues related to class and raised in the article/news piece? • Was a particular point of view taken? How was it legitimated or justified? • State something critical but constructive about the reading. Do you think that the issue being covered is important, controversial, worthy of attention? Do you agree with the author? If so, how? If not, why not? Did anything bother you about it? Was there, in your opinion, something missing? What would have made it “better”? What is a possible “next step”? • 2-3 questions that you think would be good for generating class discussionDownload Document Title: SHIRAZEH HOUSHIARY Author(s): Donald Kuspit Source: Artforum International. 38.3 (Nov. 1999): p142. Document Type: Article Full Text: On entering Shirazeh Houshiarys show, one saw what appeared to be a group of monochromes--some black, some white, and all square--installed in contrasting groups of large and small works. As one drew nearer to several of the paintings, however, one began to discern the presence of Arabic texts (actually Sufist chants), meticulously transcribed onto the canvas in graphite or pigment, where they proliferate like coral. These inscriptions are clearly legible when examined up close (the fact that they are incomprehensible to most Western readers only adds to their exoticism), and evoke Muslim iconography. From any distance, the work seems to illustrate perfectly Robert Motherwells observation that abstract painting is a form of mysticism. But just as important, Houshiary has produced convincing monochrome field paintings that refine and intensify post-painterly abstraction to uncanny new perceptual effect. Kenneth Noland seems a particular, if oblique, influence on Houshiary, as suggested by the circular imagery in a number of works--in Luminous darkness, 1998, the center is marked by a yellowish bulls-eye--and by the highly nuanced surface. Even more crucially, at least from my point of view, Houshiarys paintings are unabashedly aesthetic, indeed beautiful. Under the auspices of religious idealism, these works become formally ideal. Like abstraction, beauty has also been thought to have mystical import, that is, regarded as a mode of transcendence and self-recovery. Houshiarys works restore spiritual feeling to abstract painting, which, under Greenbergs ministrations, had become mindlessly materialistic. As titles such as Brittle Moment, Presence, and Veil indicate, Houshiarys canvases seem to picture a perceptual epiphany--the moment that spirit becomes manifest and one realizes that there is a center to existence and to ones being. Houshiarys titles make clear as well that she is in pursuit of what has traditionally been called the sublime; for her, beauty is its surface. The physical experience of approaching her paintings, then, is in effect a spiritual experience, that is, a process of initiation and revelation. From a distance they look like blank slates; as one gets closer one sees the more or less clear mandala-like, peculiarly dense form embedded in their seemingly amorphous surface; and up close one discovers the intricate, excited, minute detail. The emerging center comes to represent the ritualized concentration necessary for inner illumination. Equally important, from a purely painting point of view, Houshiarys works show a patient perfectionism that seems increasingly rare today, and thus all the more admirable. file:///Users/shokigoodarzi/Downloads/Download\%20Document.html (1 of 2) [1/17/12 2:18:50 PM] Download DocumePerspectives Contemporary Art in the Middle East s t e p h a n i e c o t e l a t a n n e r T he United Arab Emirates are now a centre of cultural activity as coun- tries invest billions of dollars to compete in the race to become the cultural hub of the Middle East. Abu Dhabi’s plan is to construct branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums on Saadiyat Island, and the city is responsible for promoting Art Paris Abu Dhabi Fair. Dubai boasts 50 galleries, hosted its inaugural art fair, Art Dubai, and has welcomed auction houses Christie’s and Bonhams. Sharjah is host- ing its ninth Biennial in March 2009, once again offering a space large enough to encompass blockbuster-sized exhibitions. Qatar’s largest city, Doha, opened an Islamic art museum, designed by I M Pei (Louvre Pyramid, Paris 1989; Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong 1989) in late 2008 and is home to Sotheby’s first international sales series in the Middle East. In January 2009, the recently opened Beirut Art Centre, designed by Lebanese-based archi- tect Raed Abillama, held its first show, Closer, which consisted of internationally recognised artists who are from the region. Tehran is increasingly becoming the hot- spot for galleries and Iran is the one country that is generating a lot of interest in collecting terms. Its broad buyer demo- graphic includes international buyers as well as Iranians, and works by Iranian artists are dominating auction sales. Challenged by the global financial crisis, which is triggering a decline in the price of oil, and the close proximity to nations of military and political instability, transforming themselves into cultural and artistic meccas is an enormous under- taking for Middle East countries; if they can pull it off, it will be an accomplish- ment of unprecedented proportions. Short of travelling to the Middle East to find out what has the art world stirring, the recent exhibition Unveiled: New Art From the Middle East at London’s Saatchi Gallery was the next best thing. Saatchi got it right by combining a diverse selection of artists, regions and cultures. Themes ranged from the effects of the 2006 Israeli attacks in Beirut, as depicted by artist Marwan Rechmaoui’s replicated abandoned apart- ment building, to a typical Iranian wed- ding painted by Rokni Haerizadeh. Saatchi has a knack for throwing it all together and letting the art speak for itself. The works on display fell into three categories, addressing violence, gender, faith or tradition. Tehran-based photogra- pher Shadi Gahdirian investigates the position of women in Iran by replacing their faces with ordinary domestic objects such as cheese graters, irons and sieves, while Ramin Haerizadah appears semi- naked, dressed in women’s clothing in a series of photographs, ‘Men of Allah’, in which he mocks anti-feminist attitudes and female oppression. Lending an extra- ordinary political punch to these works is the fact that both artists are creating these contentious works at home