Rethinking Modernism in North Africa and the Arab World

Khaymaz, Sheyda Aisha

doi:10.71806/k855-5z22

Rethinking Modernism in North Africa and the Arab World

Resource type

Presentation

Creator (person)

Khaymaz, Sheyda Aisha

Date published

February 5, 2026

Abstract

Convened by Sheyda Aisha Khaymaz, 2024 Brooks International Fellow in Tate Modern Curatorial, Rethinking Modernism in North Africa and the Arab World took place at the Starr Cinema, Tate Modern, London, on 20 November 2024. In The Darker Side of Modernity (2011), Walter Mignolo impugns the dichotomy between modernity and tradition, propounding that these concepts are framed within a Western perspective that positions ‘modernity’ and the ‘West’ as constructs that necessitated the invention of ‘tradition’ and the ‘Orient’. Numerous scholars, Naoki Sakai prominently among them, have likewise contested the applicability of the term ‘modern’ across the board, going as far as to declare modernity inherently and irredeemably Eurocentric and its discourses less than innocent.â In twentieth-century Europe, artists addressed the problem of representation by launching a complete break from the past, a creed manifest in the iconoclastic experiments of the avant-gardes. Clement Greenberg similarly described modern painting as the ‘devolution of a tradition’, which focused primarily on technique and medium. Greenberg’s articulation of modernist art as a reflexive, medium-specific exercise led to the centring of painting in modernist discourse and the hierarchisation of modernist expressions, with abstraction being particularly privileged. Rupture-centric, self-referential conceptualisations alike have since become a benchmark in the study of aesthetic modernism and, in turn, redounded to a distorted understanding of the various idiosyncratic modernist sensibilities in cultures around the world. These sensibilities involved a negotiation that reflected not only innovation but also a continuity of tradition, but they also often deviated from the convention of oil paint on canvas. The presenters addressed how artists from northern Africa and the Arab world engaged with Indigenous epistemes and traditional visual forms alongside other cultural vernaculars such as oral storytelling, muralism, functional objects, and ephemera. They considered how these artists responded to the socio-political events of their time, particularly revolutions that ended European colonisation and inaugurated nation-states. Additionally, they examined how postcolonial histories have shaped modern art in this region, as well as the impact of local and transnational exchanges, art schools, pedagogies, and collective efforts focused on solidarity. The symposium brought these considerations into focus, reassessing and complicating our understanding of aesthetic modernism. It also built on Tate Modern’s In the Studio display ‘The Shape of Words’, facilitating discussions and further explorations of the display’s thematic remit. Panel 1: Re-evaluating Appropriation, Transculturation, and Representation William Gallois, Professor of the Islamic Mediterranean, University of Exeter Max Boersma, Postdoctoral Researcher, Kunsthistorische Institut, Freie Università¤t Berlin Hannah Feldman, Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Associate Professor of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania Panel 2: Thinking Beyond Modernism – Thinking Through the Local and the Vernacular Connie Sjà¶din, Doctoral Researcher, University of Oxford Abdeslam Ziou Ziou, Independent Researcher, CARCDAM - Creative Research Cooperative Jessica Gerschultz, Lecturer in Contemporary Art History, St Andrews University See the programme PDF for full details including biographies.