TASWIR - Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam

TASWIR is the Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish term for mapping, visualizing, describing and outlining.
The international platform for philosophy and art, ha’atelier, in co-operation with the Berliner Festspiele is currently preparing an exhibition 'TASWIR: Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam', to be shown in the Martin-Gropius-Bau from November 4 of this year to January 18, 2010. It will be staged on 3200 qm of the Martin-Gropius-Bau's ground level. Martin-Gropius-Bau is the international exhibition building of the Federal Republic, the site of many large-scale exhibitions in recent years.

The exhibition places classical objects that are usually labelled as 'Islamic art' in the context of contemporary artist positions in graphics, drawing and painting, photography, video and installation, following a narrative parcours which ha’atelier developed in conversation with its members from Ramallah, Cairo, Paris, New York, Berlin, Istanbul and other places. More than seventy artists from Iran, Turkey, Arabic Countries, Europe and the US present their work in this exhibition along with selected objects and artefacts of Persian, Arabic and Ottoman provenance. In this way we create a poetic documentary in which classical traditions correspond with contemporary ones in a fractal, fragmentary and subjective manner.

The curator of the exhibition, Dr. Almut Sh. Çoruh, is realizing this exhibition together with her colleagues at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin as well as with her ha’atelier associates. The exhibition is organized thematically and laid out in eighteen different rooms. The inner court of the exhibition will function as an exhibition space within the exhibition; artists will be invited to interpret and critically comment the exhibition, show more of their work in public round tables discussions – in conversation with curators, intellectuals, poets, composers and performance artists from international contexts. The works developed in this context will constitute an exhibition of its own. This exhibition will be introduced as 'TASWIR-Project' at the 'Central Asia Pavillon' at the Venice Biennale 2009, and move on to Istanbul during the year 2010.