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Locating Primary Documents: Global Modernism and the Archival Turn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2020

Hala Auji
Hala Auji*
Affiliation:
American University of Beirut
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Abstract

This essay considers the contribution of Anneka Lenssen, Sarah Rogers, and Nada Shabout's Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents to global art history. In particular, the essay addresses the archival turn, the challenges of language and translations in the publication of primary sources, and the continued need to challenge Eurocentric views of and approaches to global modernism. This includes considering how Modern Art and the Arab World's contributions aim to upend Western preconceptions about modern art from the “Arab world,” and demonstrating how such publications can serve as sources for critical evaluations and reconsiderations of the history of global modernism in general.

Keywords

global artarchivesmodernismtranslationArab artbeyond Eurocentrism
Type
Special Focus: Is There a Canon? Artistic Modernisms Across Geographies
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , June 2020 , pp. 14 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2020

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References

1 Hayot, Eric and Walkovitz, Rebecca L., eds., A New Vocabulary for Global Modernism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 1–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 These are just a few examples. Another important work on archives and modern/contemporary art in the Middle East is Mejcher-Atassi, Sonja and Schwartz, Pedro, eds., Archives, Museums and Collecting Practices in the Modern Arab World (London: Ashgate, 2012)Google Scholar. On the challenges of writing about modern or contemporary Arab art, see Naef, Silvia, “Writing the History of Modern Art in the Arab World: Documents, Theories and Realities,” in “Global Art History”: Transkulturelle Verortungen von Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft, eds Allerstorfer, J. and Leisch-Kiesl, M. (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2017), 109–26Google Scholar.

3 Lenssen, Rogers, and Shabout, Modern Art, 145–49.

4 Scheid, Kirsten, “Toward a Material Modernism: Introduction to S.R. Choucair's ‘How the Arab Understood Visual Art,’” ARTMargins 4.1 (2015): 102–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Scheid, “Towards a Material Modernism,” 103.

6 Hayot and Walkovitz, A New Vocabulary, 2.

7 Lenssen, Rogers, and Shabout, Modern Art, 18.

8 Ibid., 18. Although the editors point out in their introduction that material came from at least four language sources, the majority of the selected texts were translated from French and/or Arabic sources.

9 Dia al-Azzawi, Ismail Fattah, Saleh al-Jumaie, Muhammad Muhraddin, Rafa al-Nasiri, and Hashem Samarji.

10 Lenssen, Rogers, and Shabout, Modern Art, 306.

11 In Lebanon, for instance, several cultural institutions released statements announcing the cancellation of events or temporary closure of venues, see Taylor Dafoe, “Arts Organizations in Beirut Are Closing in Solidarity with the Millions of Lebanese Protesting the Government,” artnetnews, October 22, 2019, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/beirut-arts-organizations-closing-protests-1685554.

12 Lenssen, Rogers, and Shabout, Modern Art, 181–86.

13 Ibid., 229–31.

14 Ibid., 232–34.

15 Ibid., 19.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., 20.

18 For a take on non-Western modernity as “alternative,” see Alev Çinar, Modernity, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey: Bodies, Places, and Time (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). Other scholars explain global modernism as attempts that were delayed or “failed to bear out” the promises of westernization and can thus be best understood as multiple modernities with their own contexts and timelines. See Eisenstadt, S. N., “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus 129:1 (Winter, 2000): 1–2Google Scholar.

19 Lenssen, Rogers, and Shabout, Modern Art, 20.

20 Ibid., 21.

21 Ibid., 21. The editors cite Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi, who explained the use of calligraphy in Arab art as method aimed at “fulfilling the wishes of the artist who is less concerned with the quality of the work than with being accepted.”

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., 55.

24 Ibid., 118. The artwork is held at the Telfair Museum in Savannah, GA.

25 Ibid., 151.

26 Ibid., 22.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid., 25.

29 Mejcher-Atassi, Sonja, “Unpacking Saʿdallāh Wannūs’ Private Library: On the (After)Lives of Books,” Journal of Arabic Literature 50 (2019): 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Butrus al-Bustani, “Taswir, Peinture, Painting (c. 1882),” in Anneka Lenssen, Sarah Rogers, and Nada Shabout, eds., Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2018), 36–37.

31 An exhibition curated by Octavian Esanu at the American University of Beirut in 2015, “Musawirrun: Artists before Art” is an example of a recent event that addressed this group of artists.

32 Lenssen, Rogers, and Shabout, Modern Art, 18–19.

33 This view of Ottoman rule is not new, nor is it limited to art history. An important commentary on the problems with the Arab historiography is Abou-El-Haj, Rifaʿat, “The Social Uses of the Past: Recent Arab Historiography of Ottoman Rule,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 14 (1982): 185–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Some of the earliest sources to tackle this issue include: Elkins, James, ed., Is Art History Global? (New York: Routledge, 2007)Google Scholar; Elkins, James, Valiavicharska, Zhivka, and Kim, Alice, eds., Art and Globalization (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2010)Google Scholar; D'Souza, Aruna, “In the Wake of the Global Turn,” ARTMargins 1:2–3 (2012): 176–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jones, Caroline A. and Nelson, Steven, “Global Turns in US Art History,” Perspective 2 (2015): 1–17Google Scholar.

35 Shalem, Avinom, “Dangerous Claims: On ‘Othering’ Islamic Art History and How it Operates within Global Art History,” Kritische Berichte: Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften 40:2 (2012): 69–86Google Scholar.

36 For example: Gilbert, Zanna, “‘Something Unnameable in Common’: Translocal Collaboration at the Beau Geste Press,” ARTMargins 1:2–3 (2012): 45–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Juneja, Monica, “Global Art History and the ‘Burden of Representation,’” in Global Studies: Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture, eds Belting, H., Birken, J., and Buddensieg, A. (Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz, 2011), 274–97Google Scholar.

37 However, although it is not mentioned in the book itself, the editors explained at the book's launch in Beirut's Sursock Museum in 2018 (and likely at other public discussions about the book) that those interested in reading some of the texts in their original language can find them in the book's “Repository of original source documents” hosted on the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran and Turkey's (AMCA) website. “Repository of original source documents for Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents,” AMCA, accessed Dec 3, 2019, http://amcainternational.org/moma_primary_documents/.