A few days ago my friend Charlie showed me a book that rocked me like a hurricane. It’s called Word Into Art. It was created to coincide with an exhibition of the same name that showed at British Museum a couple years ago and featured the work of 80 artists from around the Middle East. As the name implies, the artists are mostly calligraphers and printmakers. I wasn’t familiar with any them, sadly, but now I’m trying to catch up on my homework.
One of the book’s most beautiful works is the one above, “Love” by the Iraqi calligrapher and writer Hassan Massoudy. His work spans decades and media, but, from what I’ve seen, it consistently graceful and strong. Many of his pieces visualize proverbs. Here’s a small selection…
“Human being”
“There is enough room on earth for everyone.”
“Instead of damning the darkness, it’s better to light a little lantern.”
“If you can’t say a good word, keep silent.”
“Love understands all languages.”
Check out more of Hassan Massoudy’s work here.
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Lundolphin said on Apr 28 08 at 04:43Those are pretty incredible. I had actually been thinking of bringing all you guys some calligraphy when I come back, I’ve seen a couple exhibitions of local guys and they’re pretty amazing.
Brendan said on Apr 28 08 at 18:10Yeah man, please do. Most of the work I’ve seen is from artists in the fertile crescent area, not N Africa so much.
Do you have any names you can recommend?
Lundolphin said on Apr 29 08 at 08:54Check out this website, the father of a friend of mine is Hayder I. Ibrahim, a painter, but he uses alot of script in his paintings which are amazing. I’ll give you the name of a calligrapher I liked when I get back to Khartoum.
http://www.sudanartists.org/biography.htm
andre said on May 05 08 at 08:31amazing. i am curious to hear about your trip into the middle east. when are you coming back?
Brendan said on May 06 08 at 02:51Hey Andre.
It looks like I’m going to be here for a couple weeks. I’ve been meaning to make a post about it, but the work situation is very hectic. Hopefully this weekend. Eventually I’d like to do something comparing Beijing and Dubai. There are a lot of obvious similarities…
The Dolph said on May 06 08 at 04:37The local calligrapher I liked was Waleed Warrag, I’ll try to get more info for you.
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