Art
A “Both Sides” Approach to Orientalism
An exhibition hints that Jean-Léon Gérôme and his contemporaries deserve a second look for the virtuosity of their photorealism. I don’t take the bait.
Orientalism
Art
A “Both Sides” Approach to Orientalism
An exhibition hints that Jean-Léon Gérôme and his contemporaries deserve a second look for the virtuosity of their photorealism. I don’t take the bait.
Film
Riff on One Thousand and One Nights Longs for a Bygone Era of Filmmaking
Alternating between charmingly and cringingly unfashionable, George Miller’s Three Thousand Years of Longing defies some orientalist tropes while falling prey to others.
Opinion
How the Contemporary Art World Repackages Orientalism
The depiction of Muslim-majority cultures as a foreign “other,” in contrast to Eurocentric values, occurs in museum art exhibitions and formal visual analysis.
Art
How Academics, Egyptologists, and Even Melania Trump Benefit From Colonialist Cosplay
From khakis to pith hats, certain items of clothing have become enduring emblems of European colonialism and particular scholars who know these problematic histories choose to engage in the aesthetics of colonialism in their everyday lives.
Art
A Worthwhile But Flawed Reconsideration of Orientalist Art
The British Museum's Inspired by the East asks its audience to rehabilitate Orientalist art without ever focusing on what made it problematic in the first place.
Books
How Victorian Intellectuals Idealized Japan and Its Culture
The undercurrent of the book is the link between Japonisme, aesthetics, and queer culture: Admiring Japan was, in several cases, shorthand for queerness and a dainty homoeroticism.
Art
Decoding Techno-Orientalism in Science Fiction
The AC Institute is hosting a series of screenings that will examine the pervasive exoticization of Asian people and cultures in science fiction.
Art
The Getty's Online Palmyra Exhibition Falls into Orientalist Traps
A new online exhibition on the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra by the Getty Research Institute forgoes the city's historical complexity to take an Orientalist approach.
Opinion
The Confused Thinking Behind the Kimono Protests at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts recently cancelled an event they had called “Kimono Wednesdays,” that, according to the museum, sought to engage people by arranging enhanced encounters with works of art.
Art
Using Beauty to Examine Ugly Political Truths
Beauty has long occupied an inferior rank in the modern art world. At best, it’s deemed inconsequential — at worst, shallow. But this puritanical sentiment may be misguided, if two video works on view at the Asia Society are any indication.
Art
The Mystery of the Orient Express Resurfaces at a Paris Museum
PARIS — In forming an exhibition on the Orient Express, the railroad line most steeped in myth, it was wise to bring in the body of the train itself.