In recent years the parameters of Islamic art have expanded to include contemporary works by artists from, or with roots in, the Middle East. This art often has an up-to-the-minute sensibility in terms of its medium (such as video or digitally constructed images) and its political messaging, but what we have here termed “Islamic Art Now” shares the same DNA with historical Islamic art: the use of writing in the Arabic alphabet as a means of both communication and decoration, brilliant color, geometric ornament, and superb balance between design and form. These works of art provide a contemporary face to LACMA’s world-renowned Islamic art col¬ lection (currently on tour), demonstrating the deep connection between past and present, which is at the heart of an encyclopedic art museum. Of equal concern—and quite apart from our historical collection —is how the works signal the virtuosity and creativity of artists from the Middle East (and diaspora communities), whose work is at once local and global.

LACMA has only recently begun to acquire such work within the context of its holdings of Islamic art, with the understanding that the ultimate success and relevance of this collection lies in building creative links between past, present, and future. This exhibition is the second part of our first major presentation of contemporary art from the Middle East, drawn from a collection that now includes more than two hundred works. Some of the artists presented here may be new to visitors, while others are perhaps better known. What they share is not mere geography—nor is it even a common faith (as Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian artists are represented) —but a demonstrable fluency in the visual language of the Middle East and its associated cultural traditions.

This trio of images belongs to a series inspired by the life of Huda Sha’arawi, an early twentieth-century feminist, nationalist, and founder of the Egyptian Women’s Union. In the series Sherin Guirguis references a watershed event in which Sha’arawi, on her return from an international conference on women’s suffrage, publically removed her face veil at the Cairo railway station. Guirguis here continues her hallmark practice of using hand-cut paper embedded with paint, gold powder, and gold leafing, but she eschews her more usual abstraction by depicting architectural elements. These windows (hence the word shubbak, Arabic for “window,” in the title), with their traditional geo¬ metric designs, establish a connection with the Bab al-Hadid railway station, where Sha’arawi’s revolutionary act precipitated the eventual disappearance of veiling among upper- and middle-class Egyptian women.

Born in Luxor, Egypt, educated in the United States, and today based in Los Angeles, Guirguis produces work that investigates the tensions between the contemporary and the traditional and between East and West. Her often bold, neon palette subtly contrasts and harmonizes with her use of geometric patterns and designs associated with traditional Islamic art.

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