Wavering at the Crossroads of Pain and Progress: Art Exhibit "Breaking the Veils" Reviewed

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK

Photo: The ArtReach Foundation

December 2009

Nestled in the underbelly of the Yale Divinity School lies an insightful exhibit: “Breaking the Veils: Women Artists from the Islamic World,” which will be displayed at Yale until December 11^th as part of the show’s three-year US tour.  The show offers a wide range of artistic styles: from photorealistic paintings and candid photographs with expressly political aims to more abstract arrangements, such as Suha Shoman’s The Legend of Petra (1992), one of the first paintings to incorporate sand as a medium along with oil and acrylic.  These pieces inconspicuously line the hallways, so that the exhibit is fragmented by doorways leading to classrooms and offices— a strange contrast.

The exhibit is composed of the work of fifty-one women from twenty-one different Islamic countries.  These powerful pieces are both visually and conceptually striking.  As the statement on the wall at the beginning of the exhibit claims, “Art transcends differences of culture, history, gender, and religion.”  The art creates a window into a different culture, illuminating the feelings of a group of people who are often misunderstood, especially after the 2001 terrorist attacks of 9/11.

In its illustration of the zeitgeist of the present-day Islamic world, the exhibit presents an ambivalent perspective.  It is a picture of hope for the future advancement of women—socially, economically, and sexually—but it is tempered by a fear of change and a longing for the traditions of the past.  Palestinian Mounira Nusseibeh’s painting Four Arab Women details this alarming contradiction.  Four women wearing deeply textured, faded gold veils, leaving only their eyes in view, are huddled together, staring at a monolithic black wall.  These women may be seen as forcefully kept inside, longing to see what lies beyond the wall, or retreating, desperately seeking protection from the future.

The exhibit itself is a performative representation of the new opportunities available to women in Islamic countries.  The role of artist has presented itself as another means for women to break out of traditional stereotypes, a fact reflected in many of the artists’ exploration of groundbreaking ways to depict their subjects. This new freedom is particularly visible in their use of abstraction and expressionism.  The modernism of Rabha Mahmoud’s vibrantly colorful Omaniat 3 (1992) depicts life among constantly moving women.  The picture itself gives no hint of where these women might be, but the sweeping brushstrokes and the vivid colors express the move forward into the future.

One of the most beautiful paintings is Blue Paradise by the Iraqi Saud al Attar, which depicts a serene, dreamlike scene.  The scene draws on Islamic design, Assyrian art, and traditional folk art, in an expression of the importance of the homeland.  Saud al Attar says that she drew her inspiration from the death of her sister in the bombing of Baghdad in 1991. Like many of the other artists, al Attar’s story alludes to the violent tragedies that many of these women have endured—tragedies which have lead them to explore issues of tradition and myth, sexuality and law, in an attempt to shatter oppressive stereotypes.

Breaking the Veils will be showing at Yale through December 11. The exhibit is making a 3-year U.S. tour which runs through May 2011; for locations, visit artreachfoundation.org/veils.

Christopher Peak is a freshman in Yale College.