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 Salah M. Hassanis theDirector ofThe Africa Instituteandthe Goldwin Smith Professorof African and African Diaspora Art History and Visual Culture inthe Department ofAfricana Studies and Research Center,as well as in theDepartment of History of Art and Visual Studies, and also serves asDirector of the Institute for ComparativeModernities. Hassanis an editor andco-founder of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art (Duke University Press). He currently serves asamember of the editorial advisory board of Atlantica,Journal of Curatorial Studies, and international Journal of Middle Eastern Studies,and served as consulting editor for African Arts.Hassanhas contributednumerousessays to journals, anthologies,and exhibition catalogues of contemporary art, and hasguest edited a special issueof SAQ: South Atlantic Quarterly, entitled African Modernism (2010).Hehasauthored, edited,and co-edited several books,includingIbrahim El Salahi: A Visionary Modernist(2013);Darfur and the Crisis of Governance: A Critical Reader (2009);Diaspora, Memory, Place (2008); andUnpacking Europe (2001); Authentic/Ex-Centric (2001) among others. Most recently,Hassan edited and introducedIbrahim El-Salahi: Prison Notebook(MoMA andSharjah Art FoundationPublications, 2018), and the forthcomingAhmed Morsi: A Dialogic Imagination(Sharjah Art Foundation, 2020).
Hassanhas curated international exhibitionsand Biennials including Authentic/Ex-Centric (49th Venice Biennale, 2001), Unpacking Europe (Rotterdam, 2001-02),and 3×3: Three Artists/Three: David Hammons, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Pamela Z (ٲ’A, 2004), among others. He curatedIbrahim El Salahi: A Visionary Modernist was published in 2012 heldat The Tate Modern in London (2013) after premiering at the Sharjah Art Museum in Sharjah, UAE(2013). In addition, he also co-curatedThe Khartoum School: The Making of the Modern Art Movement in Sudan, 1945-2016(2016-2017) andWhen Art Becomes Liberty: The Egyptian Surrealists (1938–1965)(2016)funded by the Sharjah Art Foundation.
He is the recipientoffellowshipsincludingthe J. Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship as well as major grants from Sharjah Art Foundation, FordFoundation, RockefellerFoundation,AfriqueenCreations,Andy WarholFoundationfor the Visual Arts,andthePrince Claus Fund.
Professor Nada Shaboutis a Professor of Art History and the Coordinator of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Initiative (CAMCSI) at the University of North Texas. She is the founding president of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World, Iran and Turkey (AMCA). She is the author of Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics, University of Florida Press, 2007; co-editor of New Vision: Arab Art in the 21st CԳٳܰ, Thames & Hudson, 2009; and co-editor of Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018. She is also foundingDirector of Modern Art Iraq Archive. Notable among exhibitions she has curated: Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art, 2010; traveling exhibition, Dafatir: Contemporary Iraqi Book Art, 2005-2009; and co-curator, Modernism and Iraq, 2009. Major awards of her researchinclude:Getty Foundation 2019; Writers Grant, Andy Warhol Foundation 2018; The American Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TAARII) fellow 2006, 2007, Fulbright Senior Scholar Program, 2008. She is currently working on a new book project, Demarcating Modernism in Iraqi Art: The Dialectics of the Decorative, 1951-1979, under contract with the American University in Cairo Press.
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
