Arabicity: Contemporary Arab Art

Editors: Rosie Issa and Juliet Cestar

Publisher: Saqi Books (2019)

Arabicity reflects on four decades of the aesthetic, conceptual and socio-political concerns of contemporary Arab artists. Whether through video art, painting, photography or installation, these artists challenge the confines of their identity, resisting stereotyping and reshaping the parameters of their cultural traditions while exploring themes such as memory, destruction, and conflict with great warmth, humor, and visual poetry. In their diverse media and subject matter, their works reflect the pulse of the region. In chaos, they discover what endures.

Featuring over 200 artworks by fifty Arab artists, including Bahia Shehab, Ayman Baalbaki, Hassan Hajjaj, and Raeda Saadeh, Arabicity also offers contributions from the historian Georges Corm, the curator Michket Krifa and the poet and artist Etel Adnan.

"Includes some of the most exciting and influential work produced in the Arab region in the last four decades."

–Al-Fanar

"Rose Issa is a pioneer who has supported artists from the Middle East for decades. Arabicity brings together an integral collection of artists from across the Arab world who reflect the layered cultural context, diversity of discipline and rich historical background within which they work."

–Hans Ulrich Obrist