Explore how artists experimented withscriptin North Africa, West Asia and South Asia in the wake of independence 51ݶs
This symposium will bring together scholars and researchers to explore an artistic current that transformed Arabic (including Persian and Urdu) letters and script into abstract visual forms across North Africa, West Asia and South Asia in the wake of independence 51ݶs and the rise of avant-garde groups and schools.
The discussions will take a comparative transnational approach to explore the ways in which artists engaged with the abstract and expressive possibilities of script either independently or through the formation of “schools” (Khartoum school, CasablancaArtSchool) and 51ݶs(Lettrism, Hurufiyya,Saqqakhana) at critical moments of transformation throughout the 20th century, particularly against the socio-political context of decolonization. This frameworkwillopen up questions around the development of transnational aesthetics of decolonization, as well as how these practices gesture at broadernetworks and spheresof affiliation, beyond national frameworks.
Professor Iftikhar DadiisAssociateProfessor andChair of the Department of History of Art andDirector of the South Asia Program at Cornell University.He researches modern and contemporary art from a global and transnational perspective, with emphasis on questions of methodology and intellectual history. His writings have focused on modernism and contemporary practice of Asia, the Middle East and their diasporas. Another research interest examines the film, media, and popular cultures of South Asia, seeking to understand how emergent publics forge new avenues for civic participation. Publications includeModernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia(2010), the edited monographAnwar JalalShemza(2015), the co-edited catalogLines of Control(2012), and the co-edited readerUnpackingEurope(2001).Dadiserves on the editorial and advisory boards ofArchives of Asian ArtandBio-Scope: South Asian ScreenStudies, and was member of the editorial board ofArt Journal(2007-11). He is an advisor to Asia Art Archive. As an artist, IftikharDadiworks collaboratively with ElizabethDadi. Their practice investigates memory, borders, and identity in contemporaryglobalization, the productive capacities of urban informalities in the Global South, and the mass culture of postindustrial societies. They have exhibited widely internationally.
Curator and scholar Dr. FereshtehDaftarireceived her Ph.D. in Art History from Columbia University (1988). Her dissertation,The Influence of Persian Art on Gauguin, Matisse and Kandinsky, was published in 1991. During her tenure at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1988 – 2009), she curated a number of international exhibitions includingWithout Boundary:Seventeen Ways of Looking(2006). Her curatorial work in the field of Iranian modernism includesBetween Word and Imageat New York University51ݶ Grey Art Gallery in 2002, andIran Modernat the Asia Society Museum in New York in 2013. She has also focused on contemporary art.Action Now, the first exhibition of contemporary Iranian performance art, was held in Paris (2012);Safar/Voyage: Contemporary Works by Arab, Iranian, and Turkish Artistsat the University of British Columbia51ݶ Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver (2013); andRebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet: Contemporary Persiansat the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto (2017). It then traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and in 2021 it will go to the Asia Society Museum in New York.Daftarihas published widely and her most recent book is titledPersia Reframed: Iranian Visions of Modern and Contemporary Art(London: I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2019).
Nabila Abdel Nabiis currently Curator, International Art at Tate Modern, working closely with the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational. Previously she worked as Associate Curator at The Power Plant, Toronto, and prior to this as Gallery Manager at The Third Line, Dubai. Nabila has worked on solo exhibitions and facilitated new commissions by artists including Abbas Akhavan, Kader Attia, Omar Ba,YtoBarrada, Karla Black,KapwaniKiwanga, Amalia Pica and Vivian Suter among others. She recently curated the exhibitionHold Everything Dearwith Hajra Waheed at The Power Plant, Toronto and was previously Art Editor at literary magazineThe Point. Nabila holds degrees from 51ݶ and University of Chicago.
Professor Sussan Babaieteachesat TheCourtauld.Herresearch has been supported by The Getty, The Fulbright and the National Endowment for the Humanities.Shebeganherresearch (PhD 1994, Institute of Fine Arts, NYU), on the early modern period especially the Persianate-Islamicateworld and hasexpanded its range to include a variety of topics including: on architecture, urbanism and urbanity (Isfahan and its Palaces, 2008, paperback 2018; andPersian Kingship and Architecture, 2015); on transcultural conditions of artistic production (The Mercantile Effect: On Art and Exchange in ٳIslamicateWorld,2017; and ‘The Delhi Loot and the Exotics of Empire’, 2018); and most recently on the transmission of sensory experiences between the visual and the gustatory (‘Cookery and urbanity in early modern Isfahan’, 2018).Shecomesfrom a graphic design background (BA 1979, University of Tehran) andisinterested in exploring the interdependence between deep history of art and contemporary artistic practices of Iran and the Middle East. This research includes ‘Voices of Authority: Locating the ‘modern’ in ‘Islamic’ Arts’,Getty Research Journal(2011);Shirin Neshat(2013);Honar: TheAfkhamiCollection of Modern and Contemporary Iranian Art(2017); and inSlavs and Tatars(2017).
This Event is organised by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational in collaboration with The Courtauld.
