هل يمتلك العرب مشروعا حداثويا في المشروع الجمالي والثقافي
I find the Arab aesthetic deeply beautiful, but seems to go nowhere. It presents, at times a sterile one, a lovely and delightful ideal, but little content beyond a narrow range of symbolism.
If you consider literature and poetry, there seem to have been significant advances and ongoing developments in the last couple of decades:
- https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/articles/new-arabic-fiction-15-must-read-books-from-the-middle-east/
- https://stepfeed.com/10-modern-arab-writers-who-are-proving-that-arabic-still-matters-2247
- https://www.arabamerica.com/15-arab-poets-of-the-21st-century/
Stanley Wilkin if you are referring to the traditional visual decorative aesthetic (arabesque, nonimagistic, calligraphic) I would agree. But I think that if you google arab visual artists and restrict the search to images, you will see at a glance that the range of work is in the same ballpark as much of contemporary Western art.
But whether there is anything that constitutes a "new aesthetic and cultural project" for art, full stop, whether Arabic or non-Arabic, is too soon to tell. It's difficult to see the picture when you're inside the frame. We need some historical distance and the gift of hindsight for that.
Karl, I was thinking of that and will widen my knowledge. In terms of comparison I was considering Japanese and Chinese as much as Western. In terms of poetry, yes it remains brilliant-as it always has been. But I need to look into what you sent me as my knowledge of present Arab writing is clearly limited.
I think the Arabs do not have a modern cultural project. Because modernity means rejection of the sacred and strict rules .. while the Arabs are still interested in the sacred .. And strict rules .. Therefore, it is necessary to study this phenomenon before promoting it!
Ahmed Jumaa Al-bahadli RE: "Arabs are still interested in the sacred .. And strict rules .. "
But what do you think of the advice I gave to Stanley Wiilkin, namely to "google arab visual artists and restrict the search to images, you will see at a glance that the range of work is in the same ballpark as much of contemporary Western art."? Aren't those artists deviating from the traditional rules? I guess part of the problem lies with the fluidity of the term "modernism". Perhaps if we keep the notions of cultural modernity and artistic modernity separate, we will get different answers?
The 17th- and 18th-centuries are regarded as "early modern"; maybe the state of Arab cultural modernity can be likened to the pre-Enlightenment phase of the early modern period, in that Descartes and his contemporaries still operated within the parameters of orthodox religion.
Karl Pfeifer
good greeting..
I am talking about modernity as a project that produced romanticism, impressionism, cubism and other schools, up to the art of motion at Calder
What did the Arabs offer?
Because we are without a technical direction!
Yes, we emulate the West.
Ahmed Jumaa Al-bahadli Did not the New Vision Group provide a direction that wasn't mere emulation? Also, I wouldn't regard Choucair as a mere emulator; she was a participant in developments not a copycat. It's not clear to me what you are after. You seem to want an ism that is avant garde and uniquely Arab (which I guess excludes Iran). The problem with the avant garde in the visual arts is that it has descended into meta-art, sillyness, and recycling, whereas the rise of virtual reality and gaming art (literary-cum-visual) is a global phenomenon that is the project of no national or cultural group. I think that at the moment an Arabic avant garde is only to be found in music.
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