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Exhibition in the galleries of the German Institute for International Cultural Relations (ifa), curated by Rose Issa.
Jul 2003The artistic positions of four authors, whose native countries are of Islamic influence, are presented under the universal title "Love Affairs". Commissioned by ifa-galleries in three German towns, Iranian curator Rose Issa, who lives in London, has selected video pieces, installations, and drawings, in which intimate and public, individual and social aspects of the theme are taken up.
"They give us an insight into dreams, longings, and fantasies - as granted us in the drawings by Selma Gürbüz. They treat experience as related by memories, such as in Jananne Al-Ani’s video installation 'A Loving Man'. They connect the inner and the outer world, recollect personal and foreign history and tales: In his drawings and images that pay homage to Egyptian women and tell their tale from the 1950s to well into the 1980s, Chant Avedissian repeatedly quotes the great Egyptian singer Oum Koulsom. In her sound installation 'Haremharassement, Cairo Street Courtship', Nadine Touma documents male reactions, when she appeared in the outfit of the Diva admired by all Egyptian men." (From the catalogue foreword by Iris Lenz, head of the ifa-gallery in Stuttgart).
The exhibition is organized in the context of the series "Islamic worlds", with which the ifa wishes to contribute to the dismantling of an undifferentiated attitude - in line with 19th century Orientalism - towards art from countries of Islamic influence.
Galleries of the ifa - German Institut for Foreign Cultural Relations:
Stuttgart
5 Sept. - 25 Oct. 2003
Bonn
12 Nov. - 21 Dec. 2003
Berlin
16 Jan. - 14 March 2004
Curator: Rose Issa
Artists:
Jananne Al-Ani
Chant Avedissian
Selma Gürbüz
Nadine Touma