The attention currently directed from the West to the Islamic world has profound ramifications for the art made by those who come from the region but live elsewhere: that origin is increasingly becoming a defining term in the consideration of works by artists such as Mona Hatoum and Shirin Neshat. Resisting any homogenizing impulse, Without Boundary recognizes a need to ask if this art is marked by an Islamic difference. Author and curator Fereshteh Daftari considers issues ranging from the aesthetic legacy of Islamic art to contemporary ideas of identity and faith. Essays by MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry, whose own academic and curatorial background involves traditional Islamic arts; Homi Bhabha, the preeminent theorist and scholar of the postcolonial condition; and the Turkish writer and novelist Orhan Pamuk, winner of the German Book Peace Prize and author of My Name Is Read and Snow. Artists include Jananne-Al-Ani, Ghada Amer, Kutlug Ataman, The Atlas Group/Walid Raad, Mona Hatoum, Shirazeh Houshiary, Emily Jacir, Y.Z. Kami, Mike Kelley, Rachid Koraichi, Shirin Neshat, Marjane Satrapi, Shirana Shahbazi, Raqib Shaw, Shahzia Sikander and Bill Viola.
Bhabha, Homi K.., Daftari, Fereshteh., Pamuk, Orhan. Without boundary : seventeen ways of looking. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2006.