A new group exhibition of Middle Eastern art curated by Karen Shasha.

Though they currently live in the United States, these artists descend from the Middle East in family and history. Their work, however, is no homogenizing blend of East and West; instead each artist works with elements, either visual or conceptual, of their home-now-foreign Middle Eastern culture in juxtaposition with the objects and interpretation of a foreign-now-home western culture. The result includes an often playful and perceptive exploration of cultural identity.

Carole Naggar, an artist born in Egypt who studied in France, has made scroll paintings that deal with gesture and calligraphy. Many of them are inspired by her investigation of texts in Hebrew and Arabic. Her work evokes a meditation on the relationship between writing and imagery.

Aissa Deebi is from a Palestinian family in Haifa. His paintings are from a series abstracting Arabic letters from such words as “Love.” After a long series of largely political works, he has recently turned towards projects that explore impressions of Middle Eastern culture.

Hamdi Attia was born in Egypt and studied art in Cairo. His video stills come from a work that investigates cultural translation. He was inspired by the Arabic translations for dialogue in American films, which render slang and immoral behavior into perfect, classical Arabic. He explores the cultural assumptions that Arab speakers make, as a result, about American literacy and values.

Karen Shasha was born in the US, but her family came in a Diaspora from Iraq, largely losing touch with their past. In her prints and artist books, her family’s ghost history provides a template for navigating contemporary life in which context and perspective shift rapidly and continuously.