Morad Montazami, “Monaco-Alexandria. The Great Detour. World-Capitals and Cosmopolitan Surrealism”
UIC Art History Colloquium
February 25, 2022
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
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Zoom
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Monaco and Alexandria, namely two cosmopolis with eloquent and yet little-known relations, woven in the heart of the 20th century, through transnational themes: ballets and (post) orientalist performances, meridional surrealism, flora and fauna, feminist eroticism, urban development and nightlife. Two world-capitals, both marked by the imprint of dreams and tourist mythologies as by that of the avant-garde in exile. The aim is to write a transmediterranean history, shaped between several contact zone (Monaco, France, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Egypt, etc.) This connected history made of almost secret links but structuring the meridional experience of modernity is demonstrated by writers, poets, painters, decorators and philosophers who are the free agents, minority and nomadic forces of Surrealism. They all embody a desire to accomplish themselves between fluid and cross-border worlds... beyond the rise of nationalisms and fascisms.
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Morad Montazami, is an art historian, a publisher and a curator. As director of the platform Zamân Books & Curating, he is committed to transnational studies of Arab, Asian and African modernities. He published several essays on artists such as Zineb Sedira, Walid Raad, Latif al-Ani, Bahman Mohassess, Michael Rakowitz, Éric Baudelaire... He was a curator for Bagdad Mon Amour, Institut des cultures d’Islam, Paris, 2018; New Waves: Mohamed Melehi and the Casablanca Art School, The Mosaic Rooms, London; MACAAL, Marrakech; Alserkal Foundation, Dubai, 2019-2020; Monaco-Alexandria. The Great Detour. World-Capitals and Cosmopolitan Surrealism, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, 2022.
For a Zoom link, please contact arthistory@uic.edu.
Date posted
Feb 18, 2022
Date updated
Feb 18, 2022