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Alternative Iran offers a unique contribution to the field of contemporary art, investigating how Iranian artists engage with space and site amid the pressures of the art market and the state's regulatory regimes. Since the 1980s, political, economic, and intellectual forces have driven Iran's creative class toward increasingly original forms of artmaking not meant for official venues. Instead, these art forms appear in private homes with "trusted" audiences, derelict buildings, leftover urban z...

The works of art carefully selected for this catalogue, which accompanies an exhibition at the prestigious Sam Fogg gallery in London, follow the impact of the introduction of paper into the Islamic world and its effect on both the quality and the scope of the calligraphic art form. Paper – rather than parchment – allowed for inscriptions to be penned on a massive scale, and one of the highlights here is a monumental half line from the so-called ‘Baysunghur’ Qur’an, which was probably the larges...

The historical development of Islamic art and the variations of different geographical regions are surveyed.

This is a book about the public display of death in contemporary culture. It consists of a series of essays on specific cases in which death is displayed in museums and in photography. The essays focus mainly on representations of violence and death in events in recent Israeli history, including the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Intifada, and on the visual presence of traumatic events in Israeli culture throughout the twentieth century. They show how images of these events b...

Illuminator, painter, scribe, clerk, teacher, doctor of theology, restorer and binder, Mesrop was one of the greatest Armenian artists of his and following generations. He was prolific, working for at least forty-two years in Sos (New Julfa) from 1608 to 1651. This book will be the first serious study of the 46 of his manuscripts that have survived. The focus of the book, however, is The Four Gospels, one of the few manuscripts painted entirely by Mesrop’s hand and one of the most extensively il...

In Shirin Neshat's photographs, Arabic calligraphic script is transcribed over black-and-white depictions of the exposed faces, hands, and feet of Iranian women. In her video works, swarms of women in black hijabs ululate; a man in a white dress shirt and black pants sings to an all-male audience; and a lone, nearly invisible woman chants to herself in a darkened house. Though focused on the particulars of the oppression of women in contemporary Iran, Neshat underscores the relevance of her poet...

For courses in Medieval Art. Extensively illustrated in full color throughout, this text explores the extraordinary world of Byzantium in all its grandeur and complexity—surveying Byzantine art within a broad cultural and historical context. Part of the Prentice Hall Perspectives Series co-published by Prentice Hall and Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

As per the Orthodox Jewish tradition the Messiah (the Prophet) will arrive riding on a white donkey. A few years ago, as Yaakov Israel was photographing near the Dead Sea a Palestinian man rode past him on his white donkey and he took a picture of him. It was after having developed this plate that he realized he had encountered his own Messiah; it was this chance encounter that brought him to initiate the body of work that in the end became this book. As he found himself passing through the same...

This is the first book ever written about Jewish carpets. The history of these rugs goes back nearly 4,000 years and offers a unique and novel insight into Jewish culture through the centuries as well as into cross-cultural history. Background documentation ranges widely through descriptions taken from the Bible, Roman and Talmudic writings, the riches of the Genizah, the reports of medieval travellers, as well as archaeology and folklore. One hundred individual carpets woven in Israel, Iran, Tu...

This illustrated volume highlights the rich personality of the Armenian painter Rafael Megall (born 1983), his connection with the artistic tradition of his country, and the peculiar language inspired by the story of his people. The book offers a panorama of his production, among others: the famous icons, paintings on wood first showcased at the 57th Venice Biennale; the installation The Artist and His Mother, showcased at the National Gallery of Armenia, one of the most powerful artworks dedi...

'Edge of Arabia' is the first book to explore the extraordinary contemporary arts culture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This book centres around the Edge of Arabia project, which has shed new light on a group of pioneering and relatively unknown artists practicing at the center of the Islamic world. Through the voices of curators, collectors, patrons and the artists themselves, this book illustrates the birth of a contemporary art scene in one of the world's most misunderstood countries.

Between Exits is the fist monograph to trace the evolution of Palestinian artist Hani Zurob, from his initial paintings produced in Palestine, through to his most recent works, developed during the artist’s exile in France. The volume is organized chronologically to offer the reader a comprehensive insight into Zurob’s key paintings and series of the past two decades. Writer and curator Kamal Boullata takes the reader through Zurob’s artistic development and carefully reveals how each body of...

Mahmoud Obaidi's work encompasses sculpture, conceptual objects, film and painting; a series of politically-charged fragments which are brought together within this publication. Born in Iraq in 1966, Mahmoud Obaidi's artistic career is marked by transition, conflict, fragmentation and exile. Encompassing sculpture, conceptual objects, film and painting, his work is a series of politically-charged fragments which are herewith brought together within this publication and exhibition. This book ca...

The nine essays in this volume were first presented at the Historians of Islamic Art Association’s (HIAA) seventh biennial symposium entitled ‘Regime Change’ and they highlight some of the regimes of thought and changing trends that structure the field of Islamic art history. The authors present new research exploring the intentions of patrons, the agency of craftsmen and their responses to previous artistic production, thereby allowing artefacts and monuments to be set within their historical,...

In this companion volume to "Images of Enchantment", the editor has gathered authoritative papers from note-worthy scholars from around the globe that explore the visual and performing arts in the Middle East. The book has an emphasis on Arab theatre from the early modern period to the present. Topics include race and national identity in Egyptian theatre; early writing in the Arab theatre in North America; Persian-language theatre and the Islamic Revolution in Iran; Palestinian nationalist thea...

In her introduction, the author provides contextual information to bring the pieces to life. She looks at who the embroiderers are, describes their tribal backgrounds and considers the way in which their embroidery fits into their lives. The protective and talismanic roles of embroidery and the tribal variations in stitch, pattern and colour are also discussed. The author looks, too, at the dyes and materials used and the principal stitching techniques. Where appropriate, brief commentaries high...