Art Kuwait

  • Galleries & Museums
  • News Kuwait
  • Call for Enries / Artists
  • Contact

Films From the Arab World at MoMA: The Past Is Always Present, Even Uninvited

November 14, 2012

Share

“Pipe Dreams,” by Ali Cherry

……

The programmers say they’re trying to show that there’s a conversation going on across geography and generations that may or may not have taken place in reality, Ms. Salti said by phone from Beirut. As an example, she cited the echoes between a 1968 Algerian film and the current work of the Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman, even though “I know for sure that a) he’s never seen the Algerian film and b) never met the director.” She added, “And yet they have a shared history and sensibility and kinship across time and space.”

To that end Mapping Subjectivity includes older films like the landmark Egyptian work “My Wife and the Dog” (1971) from the director Said Marzouk, who defied Arabic movie convention on depictions of sex with a tale of a jealous lighthouse keeper tortured by the memories of his own philandering youth, and “Sun of the Hyenas” (1977), a scathing critique of international tourism made at a time when the director Ridha Behi’s native Tunisia was highly dependent on tourist dollars. Female filmmakers — including Assia Djebar (“La Nouba,” a 1977 Algerian film) and the visual artist Simone Fattal (“Autoportrait,” a Lebanese-French film completed this year) — are represented as well.

As Ms. Jensen pointed out, it’s not as if Middle Eastern cinema isn’t renowned. Commercial Egyptian and Syrian pictures traveled widely in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, and many of the region’s filmmakers were trained at such film schools as VGIK in Moscow. During the same period even off-the-grid directors were able to get their movies made, although their films were often censored or banned.

……

Read full article NYTimes: The Past Is Always Present, Even Uninvited

Related entries:

Sharjah March Meeting 2014: Come Together
Ayyam Gallery Dubai : “We’ll Build This City on Art an...
Beirut: Home Works 6 – “A Forum on Cultural Prac...

Filed Under: Art Middle East, Museum

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

INTERVIEWS

ARTICLES

Art News Archive in Kuwait:

450 + Invitations

130 + Featured Exhibitions

> > BROWSE < <

  • Sultan Gallery: ‘بالإنجليزي industry كلمة ‘ By Abdullah Al-Mutairi
  • Sultan Gallery: Culture Fair: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow by Aseel AlYaqoub
  • The Hub Gallery: Women in War

About

Art Kuwait, launched in January 2011, is a website dedicated to promotion of art events in Kuwait, publishing invitations, featuring openings, artists and artworks - Archive

Kuwait: Art Museums and Galleries Guide

Artists Database (under construction)

Contact to submit your event or to receive more information about the project.

Sign up for our newsletter

 
Follow @ArtKuwait

Links

ABOLISH ARTICLE 153

KHALEEJESQUE

  • Galleries & Museums
  • News Kuwait
  • Call for Enries / Artists
  • Contact

ARTKUWAIT.ORG | Copyright 2016. | All rights reserved© 2023 Developed by One Plus White