Tate celebrates Fahrelnissa Zeid, Middle East modernist pioneer
Come this June (2017), Tate Modern celebrates the life and works of Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid, an artist who can rightly be seen as one of the female pioneers, in the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, of both modernism and abstraction in a western sense, responsive to western aesthetics and sensibilities. Abstraction, through reinterpretation of Arabic/Farsi/Osmanli/Urdu calligraphic forms, isn’t new to a region...
Magisterial, comprehensive: Cho Dong-Il’s History of Korean literature
After many years of exhaustive preparation, Cho Dong-Il’s History of Korean literature finally enters the public domain. It is a magisterial work by Professor Cho Dong-il, translated by Charles La Shure, and more than a decade in the making in its English version. More than 940 pages and priced at GBP 950.50 this remarkable story of Korean literature through the ages is based on a six-volume original in Korean by Professor Cho....
Traditional Arts of South Asia: Continuity in Contemporary Practice & Patronage | Crispin Branfoot
Crispin Branfoot, editor of the book, Traditional Arts of South Asia: Continuity in Contemporary Practice & Patronage, introduces key topics and authors in this ground breaking new publication, published by Saffron: What are the proper subjects for a study of the arts of India? If we were so bold as to define ‘the canon’ of South Asian art, even when the very idea of the canon has been subjected to so much deserved criticism,...
Last of the master: Final paintings of M F Husain
Nine paintings by the late M F Husain (1915-2011), described as his final major works before his passing, are on public display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 28 May–27 July 2014, writes SAJID RIZVI. It’s a poignant tour de force and a foretaste, interrupted, of what could or would have been a sumptuous feast of Maqbool Fida Husain’s creative expression had he not died in self-imposed exile in London....
The Music of Ink at the British Museum
The Music of Ink at the British Museum (ISBN-13 9781872843995), published 17 April 2012 to coincide with China Focus at the London Book Fair, is edited by Helen Wang with contributions by Denis Brown, Rohan de Saram, Romesh Gunesekera, Qu Lei Lei, Yang Lian, Wang Tao and Zeng Laide. Buy this book. About the book How are contemporary artists, east and west, conveying and transforming the soul, philosophy and aesthetics of the classical...