G. Peers (ed.), Byzantine Things in the World. New Haven: Yale University Press., 2013
A short while ago, I paid a visit to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum, St... more A short while ago, I paid a visit to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). After wandering through its cavernous spaces for some time, I suddenly burst into an enormous hall filled with extraordinary objects from the Pacific Islands. I stopped in front of a display case holding some wood carvings, and not having any familiarity with them, I started looking at them carefully. Within minutes my head was spinning, my knees were weak, and my steps unsteady. I tried to find a place to sit, but on my way, tripped, stumbled, and crashed into several of the exhibits. Soon I was in the custody of the museum guards. Those guards sat with me until I calmed down, and sure that I would do no further damage, they released me. I made my way back to the display case where it had all begun, and, sure enough, I felt the same sensations starting up all over again. I rapidly withdrew, but not before reading the label attached to the vitrine. That label declared that when these pieces were first exhibited at an art gallery in dresden in the early twentieth century, they had been accompanied by a warning from the gallery director: looking at these objects for too long can cause one to become feverish. Of course, had I seen a label like this anywhere else in a museum, I would have scoffed at the old-fashioned sensibility that produced it, but not now. Invisibly, I saluted and chalked up a mark of victory both to the makers of these remarkable objects and to the gallery director who had understood them so well. The works that had caused me such perturbations are known as malanggan carvings, and they come from new Ireland, Papua new Guinea. They are produced in association with funerary rites. I take it as a testament to the extraordinary interweaving of a cultural-religious worldview with a formal prowess in wood-carving that I, knowing absolutely nothing about the universe of the people who made these works, nor sharing any of their beliefs, could be as overwhelmed as I was by my encounter. 1
E. Baboula and L. Jessop (eds), Art and Material Culture in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds. Essays in Honour of Erica Cruikshank Dodd. Leiden: Brill, 2021
Even though I have only met Erica Cruikshank Dodd once, I consider her as a mentor who earlier wa... more Even though I have only met Erica Cruikshank Dodd once, I consider her as a mentor who earlier walked the same path that I later followed. Both of us trained in Byzantine art history, and we have both spent a long time teaching at the American University of Beirut. In Beirut, we also both turned our attention to Islamic art. Most important for me, however, is her approach to that subject, perfectly captured in the title of her book, The Image of the Word. In that work, she examined the carved inscriptions appearing on many Islamic buildings from a unique perspective. Whereas most other scholars studied the content and meaning of those inscriptions, Erica performed an art historical analysis on them, inquiring what their visual form might signify as well. In this chapter, I follow Erica closely in this regard, believing, too, that a close, visual reading of Islamic art is essential in order to do justice to its many subtle complexities. I dedicate the following essay to her in admiration not only of that approach, but of all her work carried out in the Levant, now more important than ever, since so much of what she examined has subsequently suffered such degradation. The subject of this article is the geometrical interlace pattern, also known as girih, that occurs in many different settings within the Islamic world.1 It features prominently in architectural settings in mosques and frequently appears on minbars and in mihrabs. Two examples that will be used in this paper are the minbar of the mosque in the funerary complex of Sultan Faraj ibn Barquq (r. 1399-1412) in Cairo, built in the early fifteenth century, and a nearby dome from the funerary complex of Sultan Al-Ashraf Barsbay (r. 1422-38), from the early 1430s (Figs.
This is the Time, This is the Record of the Time., 2016
This paper examines the way the subject and time sometimes fall out of alignment with each other.... more This paper examines the way the subject and time sometimes fall out of alignment with each other. First, it looks at the question from a psychoanalytic perspective, drawing on both Freud and Lacan. Then, it considers two works of art, one in sound and one in visual art, that also deal with the topic. The first is a work by Laurie Anderson, “From the Air,” from the album Big Science (Warner Bros. 1982), from which the lines “This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time” are drawn. The second is a work by Walid Sadek, What Job’s Wife Said (2014).
Translated by Rico Franses In the following extract, Mondzain examines the way in which the spiri... more Translated by Rico Franses In the following extract, Mondzain examines the way in which the spiritual hegemony of the Early Christian and Byzantine church was transformed into political power. The primary tool used in this endeavor was the icon. The representation of the holy figures of Christianity as space-occupyingphysical beings puts into play a series of spatial operations which aided in the exercise of temporal, imperial authority. Christianity's true genius lay in its attempt to rule over the entire planet by organizing an empire which drew its power and authority from the linking together of the visual with the imaginal. The Church, founded by Paul, was apparently the first to provide a response to the problems under consideration here, which are those posed by iconocracy. This concerns the entire apparatus
G. Peers (ed.), Byzantine Things in the World. New Haven: Yale University Press., 2013
A short while ago, I paid a visit to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum, St... more A short while ago, I paid a visit to the Ethnological Museum in Berlin (Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). After wandering through its cavernous spaces for some time, I suddenly burst into an enormous hall filled with extraordinary objects from the Pacific Islands. I stopped in front of a display case holding some wood carvings, and not having any familiarity with them, I started looking at them carefully. Within minutes my head was spinning, my knees were weak, and my steps unsteady. I tried to find a place to sit, but on my way, tripped, stumbled, and crashed into several of the exhibits. Soon I was in the custody of the museum guards. Those guards sat with me until I calmed down, and sure that I would do no further damage, they released me. I made my way back to the display case where it had all begun, and, sure enough, I felt the same sensations starting up all over again. I rapidly withdrew, but not before reading the label attached to the vitrine. That label declared that when these pieces were first exhibited at an art gallery in dresden in the early twentieth century, they had been accompanied by a warning from the gallery director: looking at these objects for too long can cause one to become feverish. Of course, had I seen a label like this anywhere else in a museum, I would have scoffed at the old-fashioned sensibility that produced it, but not now. Invisibly, I saluted and chalked up a mark of victory both to the makers of these remarkable objects and to the gallery director who had understood them so well. The works that had caused me such perturbations are known as malanggan carvings, and they come from new Ireland, Papua new Guinea. They are produced in association with funerary rites. I take it as a testament to the extraordinary interweaving of a cultural-religious worldview with a formal prowess in wood-carving that I, knowing absolutely nothing about the universe of the people who made these works, nor sharing any of their beliefs, could be as overwhelmed as I was by my encounter. 1
E. Baboula and L. Jessop (eds), Art and Material Culture in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds. Essays in Honour of Erica Cruikshank Dodd. Leiden: Brill, 2021
Even though I have only met Erica Cruikshank Dodd once, I consider her as a mentor who earlier wa... more Even though I have only met Erica Cruikshank Dodd once, I consider her as a mentor who earlier walked the same path that I later followed. Both of us trained in Byzantine art history, and we have both spent a long time teaching at the American University of Beirut. In Beirut, we also both turned our attention to Islamic art. Most important for me, however, is her approach to that subject, perfectly captured in the title of her book, The Image of the Word. In that work, she examined the carved inscriptions appearing on many Islamic buildings from a unique perspective. Whereas most other scholars studied the content and meaning of those inscriptions, Erica performed an art historical analysis on them, inquiring what their visual form might signify as well. In this chapter, I follow Erica closely in this regard, believing, too, that a close, visual reading of Islamic art is essential in order to do justice to its many subtle complexities. I dedicate the following essay to her in admiration not only of that approach, but of all her work carried out in the Levant, now more important than ever, since so much of what she examined has subsequently suffered such degradation. The subject of this article is the geometrical interlace pattern, also known as girih, that occurs in many different settings within the Islamic world.1 It features prominently in architectural settings in mosques and frequently appears on minbars and in mihrabs. Two examples that will be used in this paper are the minbar of the mosque in the funerary complex of Sultan Faraj ibn Barquq (r. 1399-1412) in Cairo, built in the early fifteenth century, and a nearby dome from the funerary complex of Sultan Al-Ashraf Barsbay (r. 1422-38), from the early 1430s (Figs.
This is the Time, This is the Record of the Time., 2016
This paper examines the way the subject and time sometimes fall out of alignment with each other.... more This paper examines the way the subject and time sometimes fall out of alignment with each other. First, it looks at the question from a psychoanalytic perspective, drawing on both Freud and Lacan. Then, it considers two works of art, one in sound and one in visual art, that also deal with the topic. The first is a work by Laurie Anderson, “From the Air,” from the album Big Science (Warner Bros. 1982), from which the lines “This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time” are drawn. The second is a work by Walid Sadek, What Job’s Wife Said (2014).
Translated by Rico Franses In the following extract, Mondzain examines the way in which the spiri... more Translated by Rico Franses In the following extract, Mondzain examines the way in which the spiritual hegemony of the Early Christian and Byzantine church was transformed into political power. The primary tool used in this endeavor was the icon. The representation of the holy figures of Christianity as space-occupyingphysical beings puts into play a series of spatial operations which aided in the exercise of temporal, imperial authority. Christianity's true genius lay in its attempt to rule over the entire planet by organizing an empire which drew its power and authority from the linking together of the visual with the imaginal. The Church, founded by Paul, was apparently the first to provide a response to the problems under consideration here, which are those posed by iconocracy. This concerns the entire apparatus
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