MER Article Can Art Cross Borders? “We are not just talking culture and art for the sake of having a vision (lil-tanzir), holding exhibitions irrespective of who comes or doesn’t. To the contrary, we have a mission!” At the press conference in Ramallah on October 21, 2014 for the second edition of the Qalandiya International Biennale Kirsten Scheid • 13 min read
MER Article A Makeover Two clouds kissed silently in the Baghdad sky. I watched them flee westward, perhaps out of shyness, leaving me alone on the bench beneath the French palm tree (so called because it stood in the courtyard in front of the French department) to wait for Areej. I looked for something worth reading in t Nada Shabout • 13 min read
Current Analysis The Walls of Tahrir In recent years, walls have proliferated in Egypt. Some, as Samuli Schielke and I write [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer265/writing-walls-egypt] in the new issue [http://www.merip.org/mer/latest] of Middle East Report, are liberally decorated [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer265/writing-walls-egypt] with p Jessica Winegar • 4 min read
MER Article In Between, Fragmented and Disoriented It is argued that the celebrated Arab protest movements have changed the path of visual arts in the region. Headlines predict that art inspired by the uprisings will be freer and more critical. Artists have partaken in the displays of mass dissent, demonstrating in the streets and protesting further Nada Shabout • 15 min read
MER Article Culture, State and Revolution The Arab uprisings have brought major challenges, as well as unprecedented opportunities, to the culture industries. According to a flurry of celebratory news articles from the spring of 2011 onward, protest art is proliferating in the region, from graffiti in Egypt to hip-hop in Morocco to massive Sonali Pahwa, Jessica Winegar • 15 min read
Current Analysis Art in Egypt's Revolutionary Square On January 7, under a clear chill sky, the monthly culture festival al-Fann Midan (Art Is a Square) took place in Cairo’s ‘Abdin plaza. In the sunny esplanade facing the shuttered former royal palace, spectators cheered a succession of musical acts, took in a display of cartoons and caricatures, and Ursula Lindsey • 12 min read
MER Article Bending History A watchword of the Baathist regime during Iraq’s eight-year war with Iran was the “spirit of victory.” Preserving this “spirit” (ruh al-nasr) was a major task of the regime’s efficient propaganda machine throughout the fighting. As soon as war broke out in September 1980, the cultural sphere was Sinan Antoon • 8 min read
MER Article Maasri, Off the Wall Zeina Maasri, Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009). Sarah A. Rogers • 3 min read
Current Analysis An Artist as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Something’s happening here. In one of the largest street demonstrations in Tehran since the 1979 revolution, thousands filled Vali Asr Street (formerly known as Pahlavi Street) on Monday, forming a human chain nearly 12 miles long and stopping traffic for nearly five hours. They wore strips of green Shiva Balaghi • 7 min read
MER Article Change of Power The poet Esmail Khoi once remarked to Ardeshir Mohassess that many of his drawings focused on oppression, depicting both the oppressor and the oppressed as ugly and animal-like. “You seem to suggest,” Khoi observed, “that those who suffer from oppression are no less cruel that their oppressors.” Ard Shiva Balaghi • 3 min read
MER Article The Post-September 11 Arab Wave in World Music Music from the Arab world has traditionally been a minor player within world music, the marketing category encompassing a wide variety of international music that emerged in the late 1980s. Aimed at an NPR listening “adult” audience, world music has a small market share of roughly 2-3 percent (compa Ted Swedenburg • 12 min read
MER Article Art Review: "It's Possible" It’s Possible, A Joint Exhibition of Palestinian and Israeli Art “It’s Possible” is the theme of an exhibition by Palestinian and Israeli artists currently touring the United States. Twenty-four artists -- 12 Palestinians and 12 Israelis -- are displaying their works together in the first such effo Zeina Azzam Seikaly • 2 min read
