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Past Exhibition |
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Cover Girl: The Female Body and Islam in Contemporary Art |
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| Aisha Khalid, Covered / Uncovered II (detail), 2002, opaque watercolor on "wasli" (paper), 70cm x 50cm |
Curated by Atteqa Ali and Mariani Lefas-Tetenes
Artists:
Rummana Hussain, Aisha Khalid, Emily Jacir,Aysha Adil, and Naiza Khan
On view
from:
September 17 through October 23, 2004.
Reception:
Friday, September 17, 2004, 6:00 to 8:00pm.
Curators’ talk:
Thursday, September 23, 2004, 6:00 to 8:00pm
Venue:
Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery, 555 Broadway, Basement Floor,
New York, NY 10012
[Between Prince/Spring St.]
Gallery
Hours:
Tuesday through Saturday, 12- 6 p.m.
Closed on Sundays, Mondays.
Admission Policy:
Unless otherwise noted, all events are free and open to the public.
ISE CULTURAL FOUNDATION is pleased to present the exhibition, “Cover Girl: The Female Body and Islam in Contemporary Art.”
We cover things to protect them. We cover things to hide them from others. We cover things that are private. The five
artists in this exhibition— Rummana Hussain, Aisha Khalid, Emily Jacir, Aysha Adil, and Naiza Khan —cover the female body
both literally and abstractly. Rummana Hussain covers her body with projected images of women; Aisha Khalid shapes paintings of veils to suggest
the presence of women. Emily Jacir paints over once naked body; Aysha Adil uses parts of the female body in unexpected contexts. And Naiza Khan
presents images of women in ways that obscure their physical features. The five artists are women who were born in Islamic regions of the world
or into Islamic households; Adil, Khalid, and Khan are from Pakistan, Jacir from Palestine, and Hussain from India.
Throughout the twentieth century, artists in different parts of the world and in different historical periods have employed either the whole or
partial human form to examine issues ranging from sexuality to notions of beauty. In particular, feminist artists from the 1970s and 80s used
the female body in their artworks to consider the status of women. For example, both Ana Mendieta and Hannah Wilke, in performances and photographs
in which they appeared in various levels of undress, pointed out how women are objectified or oppressed. The five artists in this exhibition
continue to highlight the female body in order to examine the place of women in the world today, yet they do so without showing or exposing it
directly. By covering the female form, they draw attention to it in ways that suggest not only Islamic religious doctrines, but also Western media
images in which Muslim women are always veiled. And while the artists in this exhibition “veil” their representations of women, they
do so in unexpected ways that call into question practices in both Western countries and Islamic societies .
Please contact Ise Cultural Foundation Gallery for
additional information . |
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