Contemporary Art in the Middle East

This course explores the history, aesthetics and discourse framing the art of the Arab world, Iran and Turkey from the late twentieth century to the present. With a focus on building the skills of visual analysis, lectures and discussions will explore the intersection of media, technique, subject matter, artistic discourse and political and social conditions as codetermining factors in art objects. Representing many nations, each with a distinct political and cultural history, the Middle East is multi-ethnic, religious, and complexly interconnected place, whose influence in the art world has steadily grown throughout the last thirty years.