Women's Art Library Publications

Editor Fran Lloyd, 1999
258 pp softback, colour and b/w illustrations
ISBN 1-86064-599-2
£15.95

This publication is a first for the UK, inspired by the exhibition of Arab women's art, Dialogue of the Present which toured in 1998/99. The book is an anthology of essays challenging preconceptions about the pre-eminence of western art and exploring issues affecting women artists working across the Arab diaspora.

The exhibition's curator, Siumee Keelan explains the exhibition's inspirations and origins, while Salwa Nashashibi, curator of the only other major exhibition of Arab women's art (Forces of Change, Washington DC 1994), writes of support systems in art practice. Tina Sherwell considers the role of the body in contemporary arab women's art from Shirin Neshat to Ghada Amer. The exhibition drew together a vastly diverse range of artwork ranging from calligraphy to body-casting which the editor Fran Lloyd considers in her own essay contemplating the wider cross-cultural dialogues and identities signaled by this work.

The book also includes colour and black and white illustrations plus biographical information on the following artists: Firyal Al-Adhamy, Malika Agueznay, Jananne Al-Ani, Thuraya Al-Baqsami, Rima Farah, Maysaloun Faraj, Batool Al-Fekaiki, Saadeh George, Mai Goussoub, Wafaa El Houdaybi, Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq, Leila Kubba Kawash, Sabiha Khemir, Najat Maki, Houria Niati, Azza Al-Qasimi, Zineb Sedira, Laila Al-Shawa.

Private Views: spaces and gender in contemporary art from Britain and Estonia

Edited by Angela Dimitrakaki, Pam Skelton and Mare Tralla, 2000
122 pp, softback, colour and b/w illustrations
ISBN 1-86064-655-7
£14.95

This collection of specially commissioned writings was also inspired by an exhibition of women's art, the British-Estonian show titled Private Views. The essays expand on many key issues raised by the artists' work which spans Eastern and Western Europe exploring tradition and technology, feminism and postfeminism, and national discourses and the market.

The international list of contributors brings an inter-disciplinary perspective to this latest publication looking at contemporary art from the point of art history, geography, social history, education and cultural studies. The artists and writers featured are: Susan Brind, Angela Dimitrakaki, Naomi Dines, F.F.F.F., Marit Folstad, Anu Juurak, Eve Kiiler, Katrin Kivimaa, KIWA, Mari Koort, Pauline van Mourik Broekman, Aoife Mac Namara, Barbi Pilvre, Ene-Liis Semper, Joanne P. Sharp, Liina Siib, S.Girls, Pam Skelton, Tiziana Terranova, Annika Tonts, Mare Tralla, Sonja Zelic.

Both of these publications are available for purchase from IB Tauris.