Rendering 4:“Persian Calligraphy Opens a Door to Modern Art” in NYT

The article which was published October 17, 2012 at “NewYorkTime” titled “Persian Calligraphy Opens a Door to Modern Art” reports at length that like many children of her generation growing up in Iran, Pouran Jinchi, 53, learned the ancient art of Persian calligraphy in school. When she moved to the United States, she did not leave that education behind.

The article carries a lot of comment on that her parents sent her to George Washington University, in Washington, to train as an engineer, but she chose to become an artist instead. Her drawings and paintings were abstract works based on script forms that, to an American eye, most closely resemble cursive jottings or musical notes.

The article discuses that her teachers were quite surprised with her style, and they couldn’t make any comments because they didn’t know enough about it even to make comments. It’s necessary to note that her teacher Rudolf Baranik, an artist of the midcentury New York School who was her instructor at the Art Students League of New York, has described her work as “Islam invaded the Abstract Expressionists. That’s why she has had little success selling her paintings: only friends used to buy her works and those have been really nice friends trying to be supportive.

Analyzing the situation it is important to point out that the situation changed in 2007 when Ms. Jinchi was picked up by the Third Line Gallery in Dubai. It is an open secret that she also exhibited that year at Art Dubai, an international art fair that drew worldwide attention to the growing gallery scene in the United Arab Emirates.

Giving appraisal of the situation it’s necessary to emphasize those collectors and curators from the region quickly took an interest in Ms. Jinchi’s particular mixture of Eastern and Western influences. For instance in 2008, the Third Line presented her first solo show. It’s very likely that her work has been selling steadily to private collectors and international institutions, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and, in March this year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Laila Binbrek, the director of the Third Line, is sure that Ms. Jinchi creates work that is very modern and still has the essence of history behind it. Sometimes her work becomes so abstracted that you no longer see it as calligraphy.

There is every likelihood that western museums are now showing substantial interest in contemporary work by Iranian artists, Ms. Nasser-Khadivi added, pointing to institutions like the Met, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Tate Modern, in London.

The article draws a conclusion that the fact of having a couple of wars in the Middle East, and having more exposure to Islamic culture, made Westerners more interested in the art forms. I think it’s sad that it takes a war to become interested in other peoples’ culture, but that’s often the case. It is the opinion of the author of the article – Nina Siegal.