NEGAR AZIMI, WIM MELIS, ‘Nazar: Photographs from the Arab World’
NAZAR: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE ARAB WORLD
Size: 23.62 x 23.93 cm
Pages: 251
Published by Aperture, 2005
Cultural critic and curator Negar Azimi articulates a singular problem of being a photographer in the Arab Middle East. "Taswir" (or picture making), according to many Arab scholars, is prohibited by Muslim law, thus the "notorious adage 'mamnous el taswir' (forbidden to photograph)... Exists ubiquitously, seemingly at every turn of the photographer's visual field." Keeping that in mind makes this unprecedented and multifaceted view of the Arab world as seen through the eyes of 56 Arab and Western photographers, the only current survey of its kind, an especially stimulating collection. Western readers will be introduced to multiple generations of photographers (male and female) previously little known outside the Middle East. Originally assembled for the highly acclaimed exhibition Nazar, at the Noorderlicht Festival in the Netherlands, these pictures comprise the largest compilation of Arab photographs ever exhibited in the West. Covering both documentary and fine art photography from North Africa, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, this book opens an often shuttered world. "Nazar," which means "seeing, insight, reflection" in Arabic, challenges preconceptions and reveals a complexity of Arab life not glimpsed on the nightly news.