Start of the Symposia “Islamic Arts between Heritage Identity       and Global Society “

2nd and 3rd March – Al-Maha Hall, Sheraton Hotel

The Visual Arts Centre, a department of the National Culture for Arts, Culture and Heritage organizes many exhibitions, roundtables and symposia, among which one of the most important is surely the series of Lectures dedicated to Islamic Arts.

From the list of the Lecturers, we can deduce the importance that the organizers give to the theme that will be debated. Quite logically, the Visual Arts Centre has direct interest to bring a stone to the widespread debate in the Arab World, which focuses on Islamic Arts and Aesthetics. The speakers are artists, researchers, academicians and art critics from Qatar, Tunisia, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

The series of lectures are divided in four Sessions, two sessions the 2^nd and two others the 3^rd of March.

Muhammad al-Belooshi directed the morning session. He read a short biography of each lecturer and invited Dr. Emna Nasiri to speak.

The title of the lecture of Dr Nasiri was: “Difference in Visions: Personal Artifact or Search in Identity?” The Yemenite researcher focused on some issues that were raised from the middle of the twentieth century and to whom the Arab figurative Artist cannot answer until now: issues related to heritage, figurative contemporary content, Islamic aesthetic structure…

She presented an artistic approach defended by a group of artists that consider that arts develop inside defined cultural, historic, politic and belief contexts. As other cultures, Islamic heritage, particularly from the beginning of last century connected itself with the international artistic net. Dr Nasiri brought he own vision explaining that Aesthetic Islamic Thought was made out of various philosophic sources but still reflects a strong belief presence. This is seen particularly in the idea of the unicity of existence, an idea that traveled from the belief level to the visual artistic image. This aesthetic was then concretely expressed in various concepts and artistic values such as abstract art, miniaturism, symbolism, purity, softness…

The following speaker was the Tunisian Dr. Habib Bida who presented his Lecture: “Updating Western and Islamic Thought and Aesthetics in the Global Age”. As an expert in Arts and Arts Sciences (Paris Sorbonne) and as an art practitioner and teacher and academician (High Institute of Arts, Tunis), Dr. Habib Bida started by explaining that if we look at the history of arts since primitive times, we may say that globalization existed since men lived in this planet. If we consider that arts speak to humans as mankind, globalization is present in all arts. His lecture focused on updating Islamic Aesthetics in our Globalized Age, by placing again fundamental questions such as the forbidding of representation in Islamic Arts. He answered that the issue is wrongly addressed if we ask the question: does Islamic Art allows representation? Usually religious Scholars answer hastily no. But the Art Critic and the Art Historian as well as the Artist in the Islamic Sphere consider that the cultural approach of Muslims to arts is naturally abstract. Abstraction is an inner element to Islamic civilization, thus fading away the question of figurative representation. Dr Habib Bida said that he disagrees with the Western opinion that states that Abstract Arts developed in the Islamic World because figurative representation was forbidden. He explained that this reducing and simplifying approach was unfair, since abstract arts may be seen in Islamic Arts all along its history in all aspects of arts, and even in extremely liberal societies where the religious interdiction is not strong.

The last Lecture of the morning Session was Dr. Ibrahim Ismail’s “Islamic and Western Arts: Civilization Clash or Cultures' Dialogue?” The speaker explained the birth of the idea of Civilization Clash and its spread by some unfair Western writers defending an aggressive agenda that tries to push towards a confrontation between the West and Islam. He explained that wise thinkers from both sides developed the antagonist answer to the Clash of Civilizations, that is: Cultures’ Dialogue. This dialogue is spreading everywhere in the world, creating many debates, conferences, meetings, associations and a wave of thought, but, he added, no one has heard about organizations dealing with Clash of Civilizations. The approach of Dr. Ibrahim Ismail to globalization was an introduction to analyze if Islamic Arts and Western Arts were working in the same directions and have the same trends, of if there are clashes between them. Dr. Ismail concluded, according to his analysis, that there’s space for optimism, since true artists work more towards understanding and respect, rather than discordance, notwithstanding their cultural backgrounds: Western or Islamic.