This paper focuses on abstract artists from the Middle East, who have lived and worked in Europe and the United States between the 1950s and 1970s. As they belonged to the diaspora, these artists engaged with Western pictorial traditions of abstraction, while referring to elements of belonging, Islamic art and architecture and the concept of the ornament. While these elements are linked to decolonisation and the disputed heritages of Orientalism, they are however not immediately visible from a formal point of view. They are nevertheless discreetly present and convey significant counter-narratives to Western discourses on Islamic art and the ornament, as well as resistance to dominating canons of abstraction. From that perspective, this paper aims to address the following questions: How can abstract art reveal forms of resilience? How can the politics of ornament inform us about modern and contemporary art production? What is the contribution of Middle Eastern artists to discourses of Western modern abstraction?
Nadia Radwan, Ph.D., is an art historian, senior lecturer at the University of Bern. She was previously assistant professor in World Art History at the same institution and has been a researcher and taught at the American University in Cairo, the American University of Dubai, the University of Zurich, and the University of Neuchâtel. Her research focuses on transnational and global histories of the avant-garde, Middle Eastern modern and contemporary art, orientalism, and decolonisation in the museum. Her book, Les modernes d’Égypte was published in 2017 (Peter Lang) and she is currently working on the publication of her second book Concealed Visibilities. Sensing the Aesthetics of Resilience in Global Modernism. She has collaborated to exhibition catalogues for the Kunsthaus Zurich, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Sharjah Art Museum, and the Sainsbury Art Centre for Visual Arts. Radwan is the co-founder of the Swiss Platform for the Study of Visual Arts, Architecture and Heritage in the Middle East and the editor-in-chief of Manazir Journal: www.manazir.art. She is a member of Teaching, E-learning, Agency, Mentoring for AWARE. awarewomenartists.com.
Organised by Dr Lucy Bradnock (The Courtauld) as part of the Modern and Contemporary Lecture and Seminar Series.
