A picture is worth . . .

by Cliopatria

Slate has a slide show critique of the Museum of Modern Art’s new exhibit on Islamic art. Some of the art is fascinating on its own terms. The critique is worthwhile, too. The failures alleged by the author underscore the challenge of building cultural bridges in a politically polarized time.

If the past really is another country, then looking backward is also a look across cultures. The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts is having what looks like a lovely (and erotic) exhibit on French Neoclassical Images of Cupid and Psyche. One can learn or simply indulge in the joy of the visions—which is another kind of learning.

I’ll end with this link to a photograph by Gordon Parks of Harlem in 1952. (Just click on the picture's icon.) I will admit that I know little of photography as art, and I had mostly known Parks as a name. This is a glimpse of how much I have missed.

comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Irfan Khawaja - 8/4/2006

Thanks, Oscar--a very interesting and enjoyable post and links.

Irfan Khawaja - 8/4/2006

I think I agree with the spirit but not the letter of your post. I found Siegel's commentary a bit carping and tendentious: he writes as though only emigres could have produced the art in question, but I don't see why that's true; and he suggests that the Islamic world is well-nigh behind an Iron Curtain, but that's an exaggeration.

As for defining "Islamic art," I doubt either Daftari or Siegel can define it. I don't think anyone can. Does it even make sense as a concept? There is art made by Muslims, whether for devotional ends or secular ones. But Islam is a religion, not a cultural identity or geographic location, and as a religion, it that says very little about art one way or the other.

So it is unclear what "Islamic art" could conceivably mean, and with one exception, no book or article on the subject that I've read clarifies the matter, regardless of the stature or authority of the author. The one exception is Ismail Faruqi, who has an interesting and plausible theory of what makes Islamic art Islamic. But by his standards, almost no so-called "Islamic art" really qualifies as Islamic.

Oscar Chamberlain - 3/17/2006

Your welcome. I'm pleased that you enjoyed it.

Jonathan Dresner - 3/16/2006

There are pretty well-defined fields of Jewish and Christian Art (also Buddhist and Hindu art), though (as with Islamic art, apparently) "Jewish art" often includes artists of Jewish ancestry/culture even when their art (or at least some of their art) isn't specifically on Jewish themes. Personally, I'd differentiate between "Jewish Art" and "art by Jewish artists" but that's just me.

Manan Ahmed - 3/16/2006

So, Fereshteh Daftari doesn't know how to define Islamic art but Lee Siegel does?
Only 'Muslims' living in 'Muslim countries' can make 'Islamic' Art - which should NEVER have any "Hindu aesthetics". Ram Maula!