Tag: art
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Exclusive interview with artist Hani Alqam
February 2, 2012Hani Alqam was born in Amman Jordan in 1977. He received his Diploma in fine Arts from the Centre of Fine Arts Training in conjunction with the Ministry of Culture and has his first solo exhibition at the Zara Gallery in Amman Jordan in 2002. Alqam has been part of many international selected group exhibition projects in England, Holland, Ireland, New York to name a few. Alqam says that his favourite medium and the medium in which he can best express himself is oil, although his prints (cardboard etchings and Lino prints) are very popular among those who buy his work. His work is present in public collections at the National Art Gallery in his home town as well as in many private collections.
Toufic Beyhum: What did you have for breakfast this morning?Hani Alqam: Turkish coffee with a cigarette on my balcony overlooking Amman.TB: Where are you from & where do you live?HA: I am from Jordan and I live in Amman.TB: What gets you out of bed in the mornings?HA: My studio which is the room right next to my bedroom. How convenient. I dont like to be far from my studio because there are times when I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea!TB:Describe your style?
HA: You could say voyeurism, I love watching people from far, watching their behavior. I soak it all in and then put it into my art. I sit in local coffee shops (not Starbucks!) and my balcony watching the world go by, this is also my inspiration.TB: What do you think of modern Middle Eastern art?HA: For me it has become too abstract, there is no strong identity as Toufic correctly described it in his interview. I don’t think some of these artists have roots in the Middle East, they see it from a Western point of view, they dont seem to be amongst the people living the Middle Eastern life.TB: What makes your art different from Wetsern art?HA: My culture.TB: What are you working on now?HA: I am working on a photography project called Inside the brain. Watch this space.TB: Whos your favourite Middle Eastern artists?HA: Marwan Kassab Bachi, a Syrian artist who lives in Germany.TB: Whats the future on Middle Eastern art?HA: Our art is going to lose its identity and its up to us artists to find it again. If you are an artist in the Middle East all you need to do is look around you and not always look to the West for inspiration.
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Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès and the Khatt Foundation, Center for Arabic Typography
January 12, 2012
Typographer, graphic designer, researcher, and writer Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès is the founder of the Khatt Foundation, Center for Arabic Typography, which is dedicated to advancing design research and typography in the Middle East, North Africa, and their diaspora. We met the Amsterdam-based expert for bilingual typographic research and design—whose project Typographic Matchmaking in the City is featured in Gestalten’s Arabesque 2: Graphic Design from the Arab World and Persia—to talk about the relationships between Arab and Latin typography, typography and architecture, as well as the visual musicality of calligraphy.Video here
http://www.gestalten.com/motion/huda-smitshuijzen-abifar%C3%A8s
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‘The Secret Love Lives Of American Muslim Women’
January 6, 2012[Huffington Post] By Madeleine Crum
The American perception of Muslim women is sadly narrow: We imagine heavily cloistered beauties, submissive to their male counterparts who, we assume, they married because of an agreement between parents rather than love. To expose readers to the true spectrum of Muslim American dating experiences, Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi compiled “Love, InshAlla: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women,” [$15.95, Soft Skull Press] an anthology of romantic relationships, gay and straight, arranged and spontaneous, monogamous and not.
In this telling excerpt, “The Birds, the Bees, and My Hole,” Zahra Noorbakhsh rehashes her mother’s brusque sex talk and how it changed the way she perceived her male friends:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/05/muslim-women-dating_n_1184355.html
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Let’s show Lowe’s that we do not tolerate hate
December 13, 2011
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Toufic Beyhum on Bidoun art auction at Christies in London
November 30, 2011The Understanding Campaign’s arts columnist reflects on a recent art auction in the UK.
As an art collector I usually buy artwork that appeals to me, whether it is a painting or a photograph I only take the plunge if it has been instant interest or love at first sight.
The first question that comes to my mind when looking at a work of art is who the artist is. I like to imagine the context in which the artist was when creating and where he/she is from. Naturally after dwelling in the splendor of the art come the practical next question: how much does it cost?
Having run a gallery that specialized in Middle Eastern modern art, at times I felt limited and was eager to expand my collection into other cultures, so I started collecting African art and by the time the gallery was into its second year I had German artists, I couldn’t and still can’t really stick to just collecting Middle Eastern art because I just love art all together. It is true that I started collecting German art due to the demand for it, being in Berlin at the time, my customers who were mostly German had not previously been exposed to work from the Middle East and I found that being open to their desires was a good way to open the door to the Middle Eastern work I had on display. Being Middle Eastern I feel naturally drawn to artwork from this region and I think it will always be my main focus; I however always stay open to work from all over.
I recently went to a Bidoun auction at Christies in London that had International artists, as well as Middle Eastern and to be honest I couldn’t tell the difference.
These days I don’t see a distinct style from the Middle East that separates it from the rest, the only way you can usually tell if the work originates from the Middle East is when the subject revolves around Middle Eastern or Islamic topics. Some people might see this in a positive light, I however think this has happened as there are a lot of artists who look up to the West and replicate what is being done or what has been done. I do not think that replicating a style is ever a good thing, and I feel it’s a shame that globalization has reached so far that its effects can even be felt in the art world; a world where everything looks the same let alone for a middle eastern twist.
Twentieth Century artists like Fateh Moudares, Louai Kayali, Elias Zayat, Hamed Nada etc… are Middle Eastern artists who can not be mistaken for anything else.Their use of Middle Eastern subjects didn’t feel as forced as some of the modern art that you see now, more importantly what set them apart was their style. I believe Modern Chinese art is a good example of how artists can cultivate a fresh and modern approach and incorporate a unique style that can only be their own.
I think the young artists whose work was on display at the Bidoun auction need to be inspired but not over taken by the West and establish their own style.I think an excellent place to see young modern art that really inspires and is without doubt Middle Eastern, I would suggest you go to the Modern art museum in Cairo, there is zero pretentiousness and lots of ground breaking art. Hopefully more of these works of art will get the exposure they deserve. In my next blog, I will be focusing on different artists and hope to highlight the ones I think have an interesting and modern approach, keeping an authentic style in their work.
Toufic
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’99′ Muslim Superhero Comics Gain Followers — And Controversy
October 12, 2011By Omar Sacirbey
Religion News Service(RNS) After a drunk driver killed his parents and left him paralyzed, the fictional character John Weller was a bitter 22-year-old in St. Louis who sat in his wheelchair and watched television.
Read the whole Huffington Post story here.
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Eric Parnes’s 9-11 piece
September 9, 2011
Eric Parnes, who contributed his artwork to the Understanding Campaign last year, created this stunning new piece about the attacks of September 11.
The New York Times will be exhibiting “World Trade Center” from September 8th through the 12th. This exhibit is open to the public and will also be featured in the paper’s weekend supplement on September 11, 2011, in a special tribute for the tenth-year anniversary.
One of the most lauded works from Parnes’ oeuvre, World Trade Center utilizes actual debris from arguably the most important event of the early 21st century. “On September 11th,” the artist recalls, “I watched from my roof in real time the display that unfolded in New York City. After the second Tower collapsed, something inside compelled me to immediately descend to the unfolding chaos downtown. I snuck into the off-limit zones, knowing the labyrinth of streets in the area and experienced the drama first hand. Equipped with a dust mask and camera, I found only a few fellow New Yorkers roaming the area in a seemingly mesmerized daze. It was this particular contrast of the intensity of hours earlier, with so many survivors seeking refuge from the wreckage that I found so disturbing. Silence accompanied the morning breeze, sprinkling bits of someone’s morning paper and various fragments.”http://www.ericrobertparnes.com/
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Students at Goucher College in Baltimore Understand
April 25, 2011
Students at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland made a human Fhm! As well as spreading the word with their human forms, they have been passing out stickers and buttons and plan on making posters to teach cultural understanding on campus. You guys are great.
Thank you to Emily Balbier, Jacob Webbert, Sharon Leonor, Zvi Shoval, Julianna Kronick, Qingyao Li, Marie Claire Bryant, Holly Williams, Taylor Wilson, Maisy Clayton, Anna Genestreti, Brenda Kissane, Addie Lanzarotta, Pat McMichael, and Patrick McNeel.
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John Dermot Woods Understands
January 20, 2011
John Dermot Woods is the author of the novel The Complete Collection of people, places & things. He writes stories and draws comics in Brooklyn, NY. He edits the arts quarterly Action,Yes and organizes the online reading series Apostrophe Cast. He is a professor in the English Department at Nassau Community College on Long Island.
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Ryan W. Bradley’s Understanding
December 10, 2010
Our good friend Ryan W. Bradley levitates Fhm for us. Find out more about Ryan’s writing and design at: http://ryanwbradley.blogspot.com/
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