The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art, and Society
This catalogue for an exhibition held at multiple venues at Rutgers and Princeton Universities makes a substantial contribution to an understudied topic bridging the disciplines of art, art history, and gender studies: the transnational discourse of women artists of the Middle East. Four short but well- illustrated essays provide important context for the work. Brodsky and Olin, exhibition curators and cofounders of the Rutgers University Institute of Women and Art, explain the irony of the title in their essay " The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art and Society: Unavailable Intersections." Badram contributes " The Art of Revolution in Egypt: Brushes with Women", which contains lucid interpretations of works by Huda Lutfi, Nadine Hammam, and Souad Abdel Rasoul. "Art, Precarity, Biopolitics" is penned by Baum, and Tawadros offers " Slipping away (or Uncompliant Cartographies)." The catalogue portion includes statements and biographical essays for the artists; among the many included are Shiva Ahmadi, Ghada Amer, Zeina Barakeh, Parastou Forouhar, Mona Hatoum, Ariane Littman, Shirin Neshat, Laila Shawa, Shahzia Sikander, and Nil Yalter. The excellent color illustrations, including many video stills, serve as an important additional scholarly resource. (E. K. MixCHOICE2013-08-01)