Welcome

“Writing/Curating the Middle East,” is organized by the History of Art Department, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Council on Middle East Studies, and takes place on Thursday and Friday, March 30–31, 2017. The symposium opens with a keynote lecture on Thursday, March 30, delivered by the celebrated Egyptian artist Wael Shawky, and sessions on Friday examine issues of national identity and diversity, bringing together curators and art historians who engage with the Middle East through research, publications, and exhibitions. Very often the cultural production of the Arab world and Iran is viewed solely through the lens of European and American modes of art theory. This symposium takes new avenues of research as a launching pad from which it examines entanglements and synchronicity, proposing a new discourse on art from the Middle East that illustrates both how it was inspired by and contributed to global modern art movements.