Rose Issa

Signs of Our Times From Calligraphy to Calligraffiti spans six decades of art from the Arab world and Iran. It features artists who have used either Arabic or Persian script in their work, or who have been creatively influenced by the morphology of letters.

Beginning in the early 1950s, artists in the Arab world and Iran took inspiration from their own cultures, even as they were exposed to international concepts and aesthetics. The result was an alternative and original approach to modernism and contemporary art.

The fifty artists in this curated selection represent three generations, from important pioneers who developed a new aesthetic language after their countries established independence to contemporary artists who reside internationally.

Artworks in a variety of media are interspersed with artists’ statements, essays by experts, poems and relevant literature, putting the innovative use of words in art into personal and historical contexts.