‘Archives tell us different stories about how things were’: Inside the journey to document Modern Arab art (The Nation)

The Nation: ‘Archives tell us different stories about how things were’: Inside the journey to document Modern Arab art. “On a most basic level, archives help establish what happened, when. For Arab art history, the problems facing a precise or exhaustive chronicle are double: existing archives are often incomplete, damaged or inaccessible, because of conflict in the region. And the analysis made by canonical art history of what was happening in the Middle East and Turkey – written primarily by US academics – views art of the region through the prism of its engagement with western art.”