Why Middle Eastern artists are using landscapes as a tool of societal critique
experience in the Middle East behind the exhibition. “The region has been controlled from map-making to aerial surveillance, not just in the Sykes-Picot line, but also in the Orientalist image of the Middle East as a vast desert of emptiness, or as a place of ruin and war. The idea of landscape has itself been weaponised.” These ideas hold together a show that draws on 11 prominent Arab artists, including Larissa Sansour, Wael Shawky, Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme. Muller says she deliberately chose major artists from the region because of the lack of familiarity with Arab contempor...
Source: thenationalnews.com