ESSENCE OF ART AND ABSTRACT ART IN TWO DIFFERENT CAMPS AND LIFE

ESSENCE OF ART AND ABSTRACT ART IN TWO DIFFERENT CAMPS AND LIFE’S GALLERIES:

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

This cover story article reveals truth, reality, unaltered dimensions, feelings, talents and major work of leading Arab and Israeli artists living in the Near East, Middle East and spread around the world. There are a lot of pros and cons opinions expressed herewith. They are NOT ours. Those opinions were deemed indispensable to be included in our article, because they constitute the very fabric of similarities and differences in way of life, politics, social structure and substructure, artistic ideologies and accomplishments, social and artistic struggles, genius, visions of today and tomorrow.

This article should prove extremely informative and educational. We have included and encompassed several articles and statements issued by all parties. In addition, we have carefully selected the work of featured Arab and Israeli artists for obvious reasons. We are NOT in the politics business. We are artists like you. Sometime we teach and almost all the time we learn. You will read about several communiqués, statements, reviews, news and articles that appeared in numerous publications and issued in very contradictory and parallel situations.

Art is like music. It is an international language. A universal human way of expression, feelings, fear, joy, sorrow, anxiety, hope, success, failure. Above all, art is the ultimate human truth.

Our great teacher Maximillien de La Croix once said :” I have never met a man or a woman who I did not like. In my crazy life, I came to know one thing and that what I know is NOTHING! Only art brings me close to God. And only in God or that Supreme Cosmic Intelligence and Goodness my heart rejoices and my tears are warm, because GOD IS THE PERFECT ARTIST! Real to many of us, Abstract to many others.”

A few years ago, de La Croix was lecturing in Washington, DC, USA on the global effect and influence of art in all its forms on people of the earth. I still vividly remember this very particular sentence which goes like this: “ Upon visiting a country for the first time and to enable myself to understand its people, I look up three things:

So true! In this article, you are going to view the Israeli, the Jewish, the Arab, the Muslim, the Christian, the Near Eastern, the Middle Eastern art. There are a lot of paintings we posted on our pages. Many of them were personally selected by de La Croix himself, because he perfectly understand the message and philosophy of each painting. He lived for a while in the Middle and Near Eastern countries. He speaks their languages (he is fluent in 10 languages). He visited and honored their churches, temples, synagogues, Masjads, mosques, Jawa’meh, centers of prayers and worship. He lived and worked with artists from both sides of the fence. He ate with them, he shared their bread, laughed with them and whipped with them.

Obviously, you are going to find AN ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE in the artistic talent and expressions of Jewish and Arab artists. Yet, there is this very thin line of beauty and artistic divinity that tie them and bind them together. This very thin stroke of the artist.

Publisher’s Note: Please excuse us for not listing all the references and resource materials we have consulted and used in our research and in preparing this document because, it would take at least 5 long pages to list them all. In addition to an endless list of references, interviews conducted, news covered, including our visits to over 12,000 websites of Israeli, Jewish, Palestinian, Arab, Middle Eastern and Near Eastern artists living in the area and around the globe. We appreciate your understanding.

ISRAEL’S LEADING ARTISTS/PAINTERS

1. Arie Aroch (b. Russia 1908 - 1974) was a seminal figure in bringing Israel from the modern to the contemporary art scene. He was an intellectual and Israel's ambassador to Brazil and Sweden. Aroch was a founder of the New Horizons group, but went on to create art works influenced by Rauschenberg and Twombly. He created a small but incredibly influential body of works which raised the level of art in Israel significantly - taking it from a provincial maker of semi-abstract works to a world class creator of contemporary art. His are among the rarest and most sought after Israeli art works.

2. Asaf Ben-Zvi, b. 1953. One of the most important postmodern Israeli artists. His works are concerned with nature and the environment but also with intimate events, private scapes and personal objects. Ben-Zvi's world is poetic and magical. He is concerned with cycles of life. He makes observations of Israeli landscapes from the gliders he flies.

3. Ido Bar-El, b. 1959. One of Israel's greatest contemporary artists. He is a Tel Aviv artist in his typical use of "poor materials." Ido will paint on pieces of wood, plastic, automobile hood, chunks of metal and boxes. He redeems these objects with imagery ranging from Biblical to Star wars. Recently he used aluminum street signs to create a famous series of paintings. In it he was commenting subtly on the loss of public authority and the movement from public to artistic authority. One of the most thoughtful and intellectual of Israeli artists, Ido is much respected by his peers.

4. Marc Chagall, 1887 - 1985. The greatest Jewish master of the Twentieth Century. Born in Russia he created modern masterworks in Russia and France. In addition to being one of the century's greatest painters, he was the greatest stained glass artist of his time, and a master printmaker. His graphics treat the whole range of subjects from village life to lovers and flowers, Paris, Jewish and Biblical themes, the joys and sufferings of the Jewish people.

5. Pinchas Cohen-Gan, b. 1942. Israel's great contemporary master. Cohen-Gan is internationally renowned with many museum shows including New York, Sweden, France, Israel and San Francisco. He was a major voice in bringing back the figure and subject matter to modern art that was either Pop or minimal. His art reflects deep political and social concerns. His art directly confronts man's condition while challenging and commenting on his fellow artists

6. Moshe Gershuni, b. 1936. Once a conceptual artist who sang prayers at museums and galleries, Gershuni is now an expressionist painter many feel is Israel's most powerful artist. His works have dealt with war and Israel's politics and morality. His newest works explore the heights and depths of religion and the nature of belief.

7. Moshe Kupferman, b. 1926. Kupferman had a one-man show at the Pompidou Center in 1987. This Paris show will travel to the U.S. He is a powerful abstract expressionist painter who is regarded by many critics as not only Israel's best painter but one of the world's best painters. He was included in the prestigious drawing show at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. in 1984.

8. Michal Na'aman, b. 1951. Israel's most important woman artist. Subject of a major exhibition and retrospective at the Tel Aviv Museum in 1999. Her works are complicated, mysterious, symbolic, provocative and shocking. She uses Biblical imagery, Freudian symbolism, historical material, mythology and many other sources to explore gender roles, religion, politics, Jewishness, Israel, and family relations. A giant of contemporary Israeli art.

9. Anna Ticho, 1894 - 1981. Israel's most famous woman artist. Her magnificent Arab-style home was recently turned in to a part of the Israel Museum and is open to visitors in Jerusalem. Educated in Austrian and German methods of draughtsmanship, she sketched the hills of Jerusalem for 65 years. She became one of the great masters of drawing. Her works are like those of a Chinese landscape master. Her late etchings are also magnificent works.

10. Yaacov Agam, b. 1928. The most famous living Israeli artist. He works in Paris but is an international figure. Agam has done kinetic (moving) art works (figuratively and literally) all over the world. He works in every medium - even painting the entire Le Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles. He has designed rooms for the President of France and is currently building a computer-controlled fountain for the center of Tel Aviv.

The Blessings, Yaacov Agam, Israel’s Leading Abstract Artist and world wide famous art pioneer

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First, make yourself comfortable and in peace with your thoughts by reading the herewith selected press clippings.

PALESTINIAN LEADING ARTISTS

Halaby’s art is abstract and she usually uses oil paints for her work, she also executes a lot of work on paper using acrylics, encaustic and print media. Her art includes works as large as six by twenty four feet. Halaby’s drawings and paintings are influenced by nature; many feature trees of Palestine. In 1985 she began using digital media, she programs kinetic computer paintings and performs them live with musicians. The paintings are printed out from a computer software she invented and designed herself. Works and lives in New York. She wrote:”An examination of my habits as an abstract painter along with discussion with other painters and 19 years of teaching have led me to think that the creative process is like a spiral of learning. We seem to cycle through a delight in looking, intuitive response, recognition, criticism, study and back again to an enriched repetition of each. Paintings and drawings are the product of this intellectual growth which takes place within the decisive context of our social environment.”

2. Ismail Shammout. In 1953, he set up his first exhibition in the town of Gaza, (29^th July 1953) the first exhibition ever to be held by a Palestinian artist in Palestine (his brother, Jamil, took part in this exhibition). In 1954, he opened his major exhibition in Cairo with the participation of the Palestinian artist Tamam Aref Al-Akhal, a colleague then, and currently his wife. The exhibition was sponsored and inaugurated by Egyptian President Jamal Abdul-Nasser, on the 21^st July 1954.Moved to Italy and joined the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. In 1965, he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), as Director of Arts and National Culture. In 1971, was elected as first Secretary General, Union of Arab Artists.

4. Rula Shukairy: She started painting in her early youth. She joined the Fakhrelnissa Zeid Royal Institute of Fine Arts, Amman in 1984. Her selected solo exhibitions in Jordan include: Royal Culture Centre, Amman, 1989 and 1986; and the French Cultural Centre, Amman, 1995 and 1992. Shukairy's selected group exhibitions in Jordan between 1985 and 1996 include: Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, Amman; Jerash Festival, Abstract Artists Exhibition, Amman; Royal Cultural Centre, Amman; Spanish Cultural Centre, Amman; Petra Bank Gallery, Amman; Aba'ad Gallery, Amman; Baladna Gallery, International Women's Day, Amman; and a permanent exhibition at Darat Al Funun, Amman.

Born in Halhul in 1943. Works and lives in Jerusalem. Nabil's work illustrates the profound relationship between art and nature. Making use of wood, animal skin, natural dyes the artist is experimenting in this style with new ideas, pieces with smooth curves harmoniously fit together as if in refined large - scale jigsaw puzzle creating subtle compositions. Ica Wahbeh, Jordan Times.

Jasmin Bush in Jerusalem, Samia Halaby Palestinian Heritage, Tamam Aref Al Akhal

VLADIMIR TAMARI SULEIMAN MANSOUR

Born in Jerusalem in 1942. Works and Lives in Tokyo. As an Arab and Artist, as well as inventor and scientist Tamari makes his life as he says "on the edges of the Japanese society, dreaming of Jerusalem, while living in Tokyo". The separation from his homeland is compounded by living in an industrialized, westernized city within an ancient Eastern culture, dichotomy which makes him feel like "an exile within exile."

Born in Jerusalem in 1942. Works and lives in Washington, Morocco and Paris. Boullata recalls sitting for hours on end as a small boy in front of the Dome of the Rock, engrossed in sketching its innumerable and unfathomable geometric patterns and calligraphic engravings. Those patterns he saw as a child still echo endlessly throughout his adult work. “I keep reminding my self that Jerusalem is not behind me, it is constantly ahead of me.”

Nabila Hilmi

Born in Jerusalem 1940. Works and lives in Philadelphia United States. The Figure and its interaction with the space around it is the focus of Ms. Hilmi's interest. Color plays a major role in reinforcing the mood evoked by the relationship of form and line. Soft, muted tones put side by side with dynamic colored rhythms make opposites flow and connect, creating a harmonious, integrated world.

Born in Gaza in 1940. Works and lives in London. I recorded a method of communication and punishments which have been sanctified by the (civilized world).... I have to criticize what is around me through my painting. I don't believe in painting butterflies and flowers and pretty things.

Born in Jerusalem in 1945. Works and lives in Ramallah. The clay reconstructions of members of my family are supposed to capture the essence of what might have been, had the mid century dispersal not taken place. With this particular series of works, I feel I am finally in touch with my true essence as a person and as an artist.

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From a series of photographs taken of animals in cities such as Vienna, Paris and Jerusalem, many of which present patterns and motifs similar to those she has explored sculpturally. Some of these images were included in her recent traveling survey exhibition organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. In 1999 Mona Hatoum will be a resident at Art Pace in San Antonio, Texas and will exhibit at Castello di Rivara, Italy and at Alexander and Bonin.

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Born: 1952, Beirut, Lebanon
Education: Slade School of Art, London
Currently: Living and working in London

Mona Hatoum is a Palestinian woman from Lebanon. In 1975 at the young age of 23, Hatoum went to visit London, England. During her stay sudden civil war in broke out in Lebanon, and she was stranded in London as a result. The restricted and limited contact with her home instilled within her fear for her family's safety. Hatoum chose to stay and live in London where she has remained for most of her life. It was here that she decided to study art.
After her graduation in 1981, Hatoum first explored the realm of performance art in the early 1980s.

Beginning in the mid 1980s, she has experimented with other art spheres

including installations, videos, sculpture and photography. Her cumulative body of work encompasses a diverse medley of mediums. Much of her work utilizes materials and objects that normally generate associations with comfort, intimacy and familiarity. Yet she twists and distorts these into pieces which present the idea of bodily harm or danger to an individual. Her use of industrial materials, along with her style, resemble the Minimalist and Conceptual work first introduced in the 1960s. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago was the site of Mona Hatoum's first major museum exhibition in the US in 1997. Her work is said to be drawn from both her Lebanese exile as well as her awareness of racial and gender issues. They possess a personal and a political side. She insists that her viewers follow their own instinctual reactions, while still enabling them to see her perspective. Hatoum's recent exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art from March 2001-February 2002 dealt intimately with her ideas concerning the domestic and possibly female sphere. Many art critics believe her dark depictions of domesticity relate directly to her Palestinian and Lebanese identities and her condition in exile. Hatoum's strong and vivid work is successful not only in its juxtaposition of her very different cultures and ideologies, but also in its ability to evoke an emotional reaction from her audience.

Above: still from Measures of Distance, 1988, video
Left: Pull, 1995, performance

Below: Mouli Julienne (x21), 2000, steel

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"Mona Hatoum interview with Janine Antoni." Mona Hatoum: Domestic Disturbance. North Adams, MA: 2001.19-32.

This is a revealing interview between two friends and colleagues. The personal quality of the article results from Antoni's first hand experience of creating, working and exhibiting with Hatoum. Hatoum is able to talk freely and openly about a variety of her pieces from her large body of work. Gaining the artists perspective through such an intimate reading contributes to the reading, viewing and understanding of her work

Sheena Wagstaff. "Uncharted Territory: New Perspectives in the Art of Mona Hatoum." Mona Hatoum: The Entire World as a Foreign Land. London: 2000. 27-41.

This article examines the cultural and intellectual influences and contexts of Hatoum's work and compares her with other contemporary figures. A few pieces are deeply, individually explored by observing the ideas and issues at the point of conception. Issues of the body, feminism, language and exile are all addressed in the context of Hatoum's life and the consequent effects on specific pieces of her work.

You Should read this article. It is written by an international figure and a world art authority on abstract art from Palestine, Professor Samia A. Halaby.

PALESTINIAN ART

An exhibition at the Konstakademien Vastra Galleriet Fredsgatan 12, Stockholm August 17, through September 20th, 1998, curated by Ulf Thomas Moberg who is also author of the book accompanying the exhibition of the same titled printed by Almqvist & Wiksell, Uppsala 1998.

A response to the book of the exhibition

We Palestinians are Arabs and part of a large aggregation of historical cultures dating from prehistoric times and spreading in mutual cultural exchange with regions as far east as India and as far west as Spain. As modern Arabs we are just as aware of our myriad ancestry as we are of the complex modern world we now live in. We are Arabs distinguished by our language and our history and we count among us adherents to many religions and origins.

Contrary to European art historical views of us, we do not separate ourselves from the ancient peoples which were our progenitors. We the Palestinian Arab artists have roots in the pictorial and cultural traditions of the Mediterranean basin including ancient Lebanon (Phoenicia), ancient Iraq (Assyria), and ancient Egypt; and we share this history in mutual interaction with our ancient neighbors in Iran (Persia), Turkey, Greece, Cypress, and Crete. Our ancestors were the earliest creators of writing and picture making.

In Western Art history more than several hundred different names are used to describe the various arts of our ancestors. Some of these names are religious while others are geographic. These myriad names create the illusion that we as Arabs are different from our ancestors. Concomitantly, modern historians apply to us their own theories of ethnicity calling us by religious or regional labels and avoiding the correct international identification of Arabic speaking people as Arabs. The result is that it seems as though we are alienated from our history.

It creates the illusion that we, as artists, belong to various disenfranchised minorities now seeking to rejoin the art world by imitating modern Western painting. That is precisely nothing more nor less than an illusion, the falsehood of which is amply contradicted by our exhibition here in Stockholm at the Royal Academy of Art which opened on August 17th, 1998. The educational intention of the organizers of the exhibition, as I was given to understand it, is to increase mutual understanding by presenting the art of Palestinian Arabs to the European community, during this year when Stockholm is designated the cultural capital of Europe. The artists in the exhibition thank The Royal Academy, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Agency, and very specially Ulf Thomas Moberg for this commendable effort. And in the spirit of mutuality I wish to present some reflections of the cultural traditions of Arab artists.

During the Middle Ages an unusual Arab art of pictorial abstraction developed from the various currents of our ancient ancestors. We intuitively and intellectually know the depth and breadth of our pictorial history including both medieval geometric abstraction as well as the ancient traditions of illusionism. Our present art is based on this knowledge combined with our awareness of the international nature of contemporary art.

It is an error to think that we borrowed the art of picture making from Europe or the West generally. It has been part of our ancestry from the most ancient of times. Stockholm has a precious and sizable collection of art housed in many museums. Residents and visitors to the city can go to the Medelhavsmuseet (Museum of Mediterranean Art) at Fredsgatan 2 and examine in case D of room 2 of the Egyptian section the amazing pot labeled Negadeh II culture. On it is painted one of the earliest pictures of all mankind. It is an amazing testament from five and a half millennia before our present time. Viewers can easily notice the connection between the imagery on this ancient pot and those of the contemporary paintings off Tyseer Barakat which are on view only a few blocks away at our exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art.

As a writer, painter, and participant in the exhibition of Palestinian Art, I know that an exhibition needs a curator with a good eye as much as it needs a commentator with an intimate understanding of the artwork and its sources. And indeed this show of Palestinian Arab art is well curated by Mr. Thomas Moberg. The installation of the work in the Royal Academy's galleries with natural lighting is also of high quality. To Mr. Moberg goes substantial credit for the immense task of compiling and bringing this exhibition to fruition and for publishing the accompanying book.

Lovers of art know that the words of the artist regarding their work can be extremely helpful as an entry to the art itself. Conversely, historians know that often the words of an artist might be only a partial description failing to relate the intuitiveness of creativity. Yet while cognizant of these pitfalls, I find that important things have not been presented by the book which accompanies this exhibition; while things that are of no significance to Arabic art or to Arab artists receive focus. Furthermore, the goal as stated in the book is to show how Palestinian Arab artists have assimilated international trends and how their art is distinctly Palestinian and of course distinctly Arab since Palestinians are a fragment of the larger whole of the Arab World. This stated goal remains in need of fulfillment. For these reasons I extend a helping hand to the viewer, the critic, and the scholar in approaching and understanding our work. I do so based on my membership in this ancient culture of The Arab World as much as on my studies of the history of art. The artists are presented in Alphabetical order.

Tayseer Barakat

The history of Arabic art is clearly and dramatically visible in the work of Tayseer Barakat. The rows of symbols of ancient Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian (Nabatean), Palestinian (Canaanite) art are reborn in the pictures shown at this exhibition. The Swedish visitor to the exhibition might remember what they studied of ancient Egyptian pictures and see most clearly these sources in the work of Barakat. What the visitors may not know so intimately are the many ancient arts of Palestine and the surrounding area which form a solid base of this modern art. Barakat presents to the viewer rows and compartments full of symbols most of which are flat simplified images of the human figure. The eye of the viewer travels from part to part wondering what is contained and what the images signify. The wonderment of ancient art is coupled with the realities of our time. In the work titled Three Women, 1992, we are moved when we see the female figures which are windblown and seem burnt can yet stand alive and solid as rock. These images remind me of the monumental heads of Easter Island as much as of the ancient figures of Egypt and Palestine. I also see the simultaneity of being blown by burning sandstorms while standing solidly against the fire of the sand. I think of the condition as being supremely Palestinian, standing strong in the face of the exigencies of history and the tragedies of Zionist encroachments. We call it Al-Sumoud and it has a deeply poignant meaning which is Palestinian in quality and which evokes both pain and yearning.

In Barakat's work I also see the profound influence of the abstract art of the medieval Arabs. Western historians like to describe these abstract pictures as Islamic decorations. They are in fact some of history's most sophisticated statements in the art of pictorial abstraction. The formal attributes of these abstractions are intimately part of Barakat's work. The compartments are much like the geometric cells which form the repeat patterns of Arabic Abstraction. The environmental nature of the formal boundaries of Arabic abstraction is a precursor to Barakat's various rectangles within rectangles hich he uses as the formal ground for the compartments. Tayseer Barakat has taken seriously the challenge presented by European misconception of the Arab World and has made a substantial effort to study the art of our ancestry and to do what seems monumental in the face of the modern world. That is, he wishes to develop his art strictly within Palestinian Arab tradition. Of course no one can succeed completely in such an endeavor. Citizens of Sweden might understand this when they consider how difficult it would be for their artists to move forward if they strictly limited their sources to the cultural history of Sweden.

Barakat is of course intellectually curious and thus in spite of this self-imposed limitation he is constantly absorbing the many currents in our modern world. But it is important to take note that in this regard Barakat is taking a stand which is inspiring to the youth of Palestine. And the young of Palestine will imitate his internationalism as much as they will imitate hBorn in Gaza in 1959. Works and lives in Ramallah. Barakat's works are mostly inspired by mythology and old civilization which he tried to relate to the present-day life. The colors reflect the artist's feelings while the whole outlook, made up of interesting sectors, reminds one of ancient friezes, with images multiplied over and over again and having the human being as the central figure.is constructive attitude of pride.

Tayseer Batniji

One such Palestinian Arab youth who admires Barakat is Tayseer Batniji. Batniji seems tired of the limitations of Gazze (Gaza) and wishes to broaden his experience and has exerted a huge effort to gain the opportunity to study in France. The economic strangulation of Gazze by Israel has created near unbearable conditions of unemployment resulting in economic want and crowded living. It is very hard to know how Batniji will develop since he is the youngest participant in this group show. He is just out of art school although he worked for a time as an independent artist. It is clear from his words that he is hungry to continue to learn as much as he can about everything. Works in the exhibition bespeak an interest in Post Modernist symbolism with an intended content extracted from Palestinian Arab life. His work is executed with brashness and power. This visual power allows us to quickly delight in its textures and thus directly enter into the work. One such work, Baal-Composition, 1997, focuses on a Palestinian myth.

Like Post Modernism generally, Batniji's works do not reveal their meaning visually. A verbal explanation is always necessary. The stars of international Post Modernism generally allow the critic the attractive position of interpreting the meaning of their work. This gives the critic a certitude which cannot be challenged by the work itself. However those who have not attained international stardom must explain the work themselves. Short of this explanation the work may be interpreted in any number of ways. This is a condition which the young artist needs to address. For example the several panels which form the work, La travesee du desert, of 1997, may be interpreted differently by different viewers. Someone on the West Bank in Palestine might think that the vertical dark lines through the yellow ochre background symbolize barriers. Thus their meaning is the many closures the Israelis impose on the life of Palestinian Arab Communities. While someone in Japan might see these dark verticals as the pristine simplicity of how bamboo divides the air. And a visitor to New York galleries might say that it is formalism without subject matter. Multiple meaning and the dialogue it provokes may be precisely what is wanted by the artist. Yet despite the openness to interpretation which is implicit in this work there remains a pictorial presence which allow it to stand on its own.

The work, Sans titre, 1998, is even more open to interpretation. To the uninitiated there is no hint of the intended content visible in the 24 rectangles which form the work. Before reading the explanation given to the author and presented in the book Palestinian Art, it appeared to be a simple group of soft rectangles rather than symbols of the culture of Palestinian Martyrs. Should the visual arts depend so completely on written explanation?

Rana Bishara

Rana Bishara is a young and energetic painter and installation artist working in several media. The most striking quality in her work at the exhibition is the decisiveness and assurance of her strokes. It bespeaks a certainty that is more often encountered in far more experienced artists. Visitors to the Dome of The Rock in Al-Quds (Jerusalem) will notice the similarity between the pictorial panels on the walls of this building to the work of Bishara. This is most apparent in the sensations of flatness as though the parts are inlaid one next to the other. The formal similarity is most visible in the delineation of boundaries. These masterful and bold strokes of Bishara's do not float in the white space of the paper -- rather they seem to be embedded in it. This analysis is confirmed by Bishara's use of script on the surface and at times near the edges of these shapes. The awareness of boundaries might also reflect the hostile encirclement of Palestinian communities by Israelis. The doorway is another of the motifs that is prevalent historically in the Arabic art of abstraction and present in Bishara's work. In Composition, 1996, one notes that even the airy textures and the organic brush marks do not contradict the strength of boundaries. The image has a post and lintel motif aiding the sensation that the elements are architectural and thus structurally separate from each other. The doorway can be a Mihrab (an architectural element which defines the direction of prayer for Moslems) as much as it is the entry to a private home. The doorway is a primary motif in the drawings of Palestinian Arab children. It is often topped by the typical semi-circular lunette of stained glass. In Bishara's work the doorway is topped by a triangular weight bespeaking the social nature of monumental stone architecture rather than the privacy of a single home.

Bishara also executes installation works which are overtly Palestinian Arab in their political content as they are intuitively Arabic in their history. She, like some other Palestinian Arab artists, is distinguished for her use of the leaves of the Prickly Pear plant which in Arabic is called Subair or Saber in plural. The signular form is called Sabra. In this usage, Bishara asserts that the words, Subair, Saber, and Sabra, are Arabic in language and Palestinian in tradition despite their use by foreigners. Her work also asserts that this land of her ancestry and her present life is hers even in the face of grave adversity. The bravery of her stand is magnificent.

Jumana El-Husseini

Jumana El-Husseini creates fields of space. They vibrate with her masterful handling developed over many years of distinguished practice. These fields are articulated through the use of marks which mostly stand for individual characters or script. These fields might be rectangular and frontal attenuated in the traditions of abstract space or they might be three dimensional fields articulated through the use of atmospheric perspective. In the abstract ones some frontal fields possess ambivalent distance while others possess the stability of a writing surface. A field of blue may recede in spite of the letters etched at its edges. Those fields which are filled with scripts gain the illusion of the hardness of a writing surface. The interplay of surfaces depends on the incidence of written marks. Some slabs appear transparent, made so by the overlap of blocks of script. Often a rhythm is played over the entire surface of the paintings independently of these rectangular fields. A fragment of script is bolder than the rest and catches the attention of the viewer. The viewer's eyes jumps from one such signal to another being led thereby into a structured perusal of the whole. The paintings reward careful contemplation with a wealth of overlapping patterns. As we jump from signal to signal we feel that we are driven into a world of written information and later, after we leave, we regret not having read the script.

In those paintings which create aerial perspective a sensation of floating is created by layers and layers of evenly distributed single characters. These single characters graduate in size from larger at the bottom of the picture to smaller at the top. The gradually diminishing size creates an aerial perspective. We thus feel that we are floating in an atmosphere of depth where we encounter various characters whose significance is less important than the promise thereof. A romance with the beauty of written characters and script is often encountered in the work of Arab artists. Indeed it is also a part of the work of Rana Bishara in this exhibition. This beauty seems to have a rightness and a power which is greater than the work of an individual artist. At times we are just as deeply moved by script as we are by natural beauty. I believe that this is due to the social formulation of script. It is as though millions of artists over centuries have contributed to their refinement. They have been subjected to millennia of use and have grown more elegant as they grow more functional in their power to communicate.

The work of Husseini depends on the traditions of the calligraphic art in the Arab World. In this tradition art lover and artists share in mutual artistic challenge. The artist must be creative within certain norms while the lover must show her/his prowess in deciphering the script. The art lover is disappointed if the calligraphy is too easy to decipher or if the artist excessively stretches the rules of the art. Husseini like many contemporary Arab artists has initiated a new set of rules in regard to this exchange between art lover and artist. We are no longer expected as viewers to actually read the text but we are expected to apply our traditional experiences with abstraction to test if the work succeeds in its ambitions to create pictorial space through the manipulation of calligraphic form. Thus in Husseini's work the pictorial space of twentieth century abstraction combines with medieval Arabic abstraction and is delineated through calligraphic markings.

Samir Salamah

The paintings of Samir Salamah are abstract images which combine consciousness of twentieth century Cubism and abstract expressionism with the geometric divisions one sees in Arabic abstraction. It seems that artists of the Arab World unconsciously express in their work the fitting of parts together to fill foreground space. The division of the surface into parts, all of which seem to have the outline of positive parts, is peculiar to their work. Shapes which imply by their outline that they are negative shapes are rare. To understand what I mean, the viewer might create in their imagination a view of a tray full of small lumps of dough ready to bake. If the lumps are far enough apart they will each grow to be puffy and circular when they finish baking. When we look at the tray from above we will see circular shapes possessing positive outlines and we will see the tray behind them as negative background. If the small lumps of dough are very close to each then as they puff-up in the baking they will push each other into a pattern of uneven squares thereby filling the entire space of the tray. The tray as background will not be seen and all the shapes will seem positive. It is just this sort of pattern that one sees in little villages where houses seem to adhere one to the other for safety and warmth. This quality is as much visible in medieval European village as it is in the villages of the Arab World. It is precisely this quality of fitting together and filling space that is seen in the painting by Salamah called Ma'lula, of 1974. It is also this quality of fitting together and filling space which underlies the geometric abstractions of medieval Arabic art. Its geometry is a sophisticated and highly developed technology which is still the study of Christalographers and scholars of Symmetry. It is also this quality of fitting parts together which we saw in both Barakat's work and in mine as well as in the recent landscapes of Salamah such as Ma'lula Garden, of 1998. In this painting each segment takes on a strong life of its own and a definite texture of its own. Each shape is carefully studied and seeks to move forward as a positive frontal shape. Some shapes have clear outlines and all have clear boundaries. Even the sky is a definite shape simplified into a triangle which has the power to move forward in our perception of space or to remain behind other parts. When all shapes have the nature of positive shapes then they have both the tendency of seeming to push forward as well as the tendency to be pulled back by the forward motion of neighboring shapes.

This power to change position in space and to see-saw back and forth creates the sensations of motion even while it seems to freeze the parts. In some of Salamah's works one senses that the textures have grown strong and the see-sawing action might soon create an artistic explosion of color and painterly life which will challenge the formal boundaries of the painting. It does not enlighten us to read in the book of the exhibition about the European history, Jewish or Crusader, which touches Salamah's birthplace. This is merely a small fragment of a larger history of the area dating back millennia. The imposition of this European fragment at the very start of the essay on Salamah's paintings has nothing to do with either his work or the inspiration of his work. In fact it is not even appropriate as history since it is fragmentary and misleading. It leaves the reader wondering about the reasons for such lack of focus.

Naser Soumi

Naser Soumi is most concerned at present with installation work. He has put heart and soul into the creation of works which pay homage to the cities of Palestine. I was fortunate to examine the installation work of Soumi's at Darat Al-Funun in Jordan and to talk to Soumi about his work and to enjoy his collection of photographs of Yafa (Jaffa). With Soumi, I share the terror of watching our cities being razed and with it the incredible artistic and architectural history of Palestine. I wonder if citizens of Sweden would not feel a small part of our pain if they had to stand by helplessly watching foreigners tear down and bulldoze each and every building on the island of GAMLA STAN and then replace them with generic apartment buildings. A horror such as the one Swedes might feel creates the yearning and the pride at the base of the powerful creativity leading Soumi to make these homages to Palestinian cities. In the installation work as homage to Yafa, Soumi placed letters in Arabic and English from men and women who lived in Yafa and who write about their memories. This work of art and others like it have become a part of the process of healing and dealing with the monumental wounds created by the ongoing Israeli destruction of Palestinian Arab society. A dialogue on this issue continues among Palestinian Arab intellectuals of which Soumi is aware. I lived in Yafa as a child and returned to it as an adult and produced also a work on the subject which is available on the WORLD WIDE WEB. I would be thunderstruck if someone told me they will do an artistic critique of this work by telling of the history of a minority (Jewish Palestinians) which they confusedly associate with our oppressors -- the very oppressors who are destroying Yafa. Yet this is precisely what is done to Naser Soumi. It is important to learn to make a distinction between Judaism and Zionism. It is a distinction which the book fails to make. Judaism is an ancient religion and Zionism is a recent political movement. Clearly not every Jew supports Zionism and most certainly not every Zionist is a Jew. Furthermore, Jews of the Arab World are Arabs not Israelis unless they expressly change their identity and their loyalty.

Soumi's work is not presented in the exhibition but some pictures are presented in the book. What is unfortunate in the book is the description of unrelated fragments of history which do not enlighten us about Soumi's work. These minuscule fragments of the history of Arab Jews and of the Crusaders in Palestine leave me as an artist feeling doubt about the implications of the book -- implications which may or may not be intended. Perhaps unintentionally they belong more to a political point of view which seeks to undermine us as Palestinian Arabs more than it seeks to enlighten the viewer about our artistic sources.

Vera Tamari

I have written before about Vera Tamari's work. This treatise is available on the WORLD WIDE WEB at http://www.art.net/~samia. Tamari has utilized photographs of her own family's life in Palestine prior to the imposition of the State of Israel and the beginning of our dispossession. These photographs have then been rendered into bas-relief panels which are often glazed or painted. Tamari also made bas-reliefs of the Palestinian landscape. They are constructed from many three dimensional pieces of sculpted clay. The pieces fit intimately together like birds huddling together for warmth. The numerous parts are often fragile and thin. The pieces are assembled and mounted on a slab. Delight in the intimate fitting of parts to fill a ground is Arabic in its tendencies as explained above where the visual metaphor of a tray of buns was used. These ceramic works are fragile and seem that way to the viewer. This quality is completely intended by Tamari and communicates a message which is unnerving. Tamari wishes to show us through this message the fragility she feels is the condition of Palestinian Arab life at the present time.

The new installation work by Tamari in this show is a wonderful increase in artistic power. Visitors to the exhibition to date have expressed admiration of this work. Fourteen ceramic masks float at various distances from a pictorial background made up of repeated reproductions of the Mediterranean shore of the city of Yafa. Tamari titles the work Oracle from the Sea, 1998. I was deeply moved by this work as a Palestinian who once lived in Yafa. I went to school there and recently visited the shores of Yafa and I found myself having to mentally cross the mountains of garbage which the Israelis continually dump on the sea shores of this city. I felt that the ancestors came back from the sea and came back to look at what has been done to Yafa. I felt that there was a promise in this, a connection, and the beauty of return of which we dream. I felt that it alleviated my loneliness and brought me back from strange distances. The work is artistically whole even while Tamari tells that much more space is needed for this work and that the photographs should have been larger. The artist has given us a strong dose of her expressive powers. This power lies in the aggregate of the work, and in the content of its parts. The expressive power of the faces is substantial.

I cannot describe Tamari's work as Post Modernist as I did with Batniji. The message is clear and the power of the message collects and grows as we examine and remember it. Its sum is greater than the sum of the parts. It is intentional in style and the scope of its subject is social even while it remains somewhat open to precise interpretation. In the book is reproduced a photograph of some of these masks taken against the background of the Mediterranean sea on the shores of Yafa at a recent date.

In conclusion I thank the author, Ulf Thomas Moberg, for his love of Palestine which led him to undertake the huge task of research and travel needed to assemble materials for this book. The work was done with humor, tenderness, and sincerity. He brings to the book many sweet passages of Palestinian Arab life both social and cultural. Moberg deserves a lot of credit for his courage in doing so on the artistic stage of one of Europe's most distinguished nations. In this he is singular. His admirable determination has allowed him to fulfill a dream which started when as a youth he visited Palestine and began collecting political posters seeing their historical value long before others did. Where my views differ from his is related to the general concept of the history of Palestine. This is a very political issue which might have been better avoided in this book. Implicit to the text is the misconception that Zionist Israel may exist in Palestine due to Crusader and Jewish history even while Israel's past and current actions seek to extinguish us. Palestine is Arab and does not belong to Europe because of Crusader history nor does it belong to modern Zionism due to religious history. Our art, its form, its content, and its historic sources should have been the single focus of this book. Moreover, the repetition in numerous places in the book of an idyll of past harmonies between ethnic groups in Palestine is a shameful apology to false accusations. I feel neither guilt nor shame in relation to Israelis or Jews. I do feel immense pride in our struggle for national liberation. Thus I see both the apology and the accusation as remnants of European Colonialist thinking which does not belong to me.

The book Palestinian Art possesses a political point of view with which I disagree. To be specific what Moberg calls Israeli Independence I call Israeli occupation and what he might understand as The Peace Process I understand most clearly is a process of economic strangulation. Thus, in view of the political content of the book of which I was not informed in advance this statement is made necessary especially since my position was made clear from the very beginning. I do owe a debt to Moberg for making clear through his book precisely the European attitudes towards Palestinian Arabs which I must address -- and this helped form the structure of my response. Without his venturesome nature and his sincerity we would not have had this arena for dialogue and exchange.

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