Forthcoming

Vol. 6 (2024): “L’art abstrait, Paris et les artistes du Maghreb et du Moyen-Orient”, edited by Perin Emel Yavuz and Claudia Polledri.

After World War II, Paris continued to attract artists from the MENA region. The form of abstraction that was developing then in Paris, particularly in the artistic networks gravitating around the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, created in 1946, could, for certain aspects, echo living traditions that were familiar to them. The general historiography of gestural/lyrical abstraction and Art informel is rather silent about these artists and traditions. When analyzing the works of Georges Mathieu, Hans Hartung or Jean Degottex, it rather refers to East Asian arts. The works of these artists from the MENA region — some of whom were trained in calligraphy — are most often studied in terms of the “cultural area” they originated from, be it Hurufiyya (“letterism” in Arabic), the production of the Turkish school in Paris, or the work of the Iranian Charles Hossein Zenderoudi.

This issue will study the artistic context and the abstract art scene in Paris in the post-WWII period, the sources allowing to trace the presence of artists from the MENA region, and the rediscovery of these artists who were essential contributors to global abstract art.

Vol. 7 (2025) "Lebanon’s Visual Arts in the 1980s: Artistic Production and Reception in a Conflicted Decade," edited by Nadia von Maltzahn.

The 1980s in Lebanon were marked by the ups and downs of its civil war that had officially started in April 1975 and lasted throughout the decade with varying intensity. Artistic production and exhibition practices have largely been overlooked for this conflicted period. While the circumstances of the war forced some exhibition spaces to close and artists to migrate, the 1980s also saw cultural infrastructures and artists adapting to the evolving context, and new spaces and art practices emerge. This special issue focuses on the experience of Lebanon’s artists and its art world during the 1980s. It questions how the political, social and economic environment impacted day-to-day artistic production and reception. One concern is to rethink the conventional periodisation of Lebanon’s history into a “golden age” leading up to the civil war, a war period, and a post-war period starting in the 1990s. Instead, the nuances of artistic production and its reception throughout the 1980s will be analysed by interrelating context and artistic production. Whereas the so-called post-war generation of artists engaged extensively with the aftermath and memory of the war, in the midst of conflict artists had different approaches to their engagement with what was happening around them. War did not emerge out of nowhere; underlying social and political tensions had been present since the foundation of modern Lebanon. Artistic production during the 1980s will be situated within the larger trajectory of artists and institutions. While taking one country during one decade as a starting point, the issue speaks to overarching questions that are relevant for art historical inquiry in a broader sense. These include the question of periodization in art history, breaking down the idea of a monolithic bloc of wartime cultural production or even a shared experience of conflict, transnational experiences, how artists and institutions adapt to an unpredictable environment, how artists relate back to their home country in case of exile or migration, and to what extent the use of diverse media can be linked to the socio-political context of production. Artist’s trajectories will also be embedded within socio-cultural debates of the time, such as the global movement for civil rights or the cultural studies movement.