Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited with text by Sébastien Delot. Foreword by Abdullah Alrashid, Farah Abushullaih. Text by Toni Maraini, Morad Montazami. Chronology by Etel Adnan, Grégoire Prangé.
As a poet, painter and philosopher, Lebanese American artist Etel Adnan was a major figure in Arab modernism. Her creative output was shaped by her extensive travels: from studying philosophy at the Sorbonne and Harvard, to teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area and her trips to Mexico and North Africa. It was not until the 1960s that she turned to painting, exploring what she called “the immediate beauty of color.” Her works on canvas often center around single shapes, placed against solid rectilinear backgrounds. She also painted landscapes on foldable, book-like paper screens inspired by Japanese leporellos. As part of her lifelong fascination with writing, she also incorporated Arabic calligraphy into her paintings and books. In recent years, her art has been included in museum shows dedicated to women artists and postwar abstraction. For the first major exhibition in Saudi Arabia of Adnan’s work, the catalog brings together a number of works from all periods and in all mediums to show her richness and diversity of output while solidifying her legacy as one of the great creative figures in the 20th-century Arab world. The book is enriched through three curatorial essays and a comprehensive, multilingual chronology. Etel Adnan (1925–2021) was born in Beirut to a Greek Orthodox mother and a Turkish father. She was a professor in the philosophy of art at the Dominican University of California from 1958 to 1972. Upon returning to Lebanon she became a journalist for Al Safa magazine. She wrote essays and poetry in English, French and Arabic.
Published by Koenig Books. Edited by Julia Peyton-Jones, Hans Ulrich Obrist. Text by Simone Fattal, Robert Grenier, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie.
Praised by Hans Ulrich Obrist as "one of the most influential artists of the 21st century," Paris and California-based Etel Adnan (born 1925) has quietly worked in a variety of media, and across continents and languages, exploring themes of love and war. Her work is the opposite of cynicism," writes Obrist. "It is pure oxygen in a world full of wars." Presenting the impressive diversity of Adnan’s work, The Weight of the World includes paintings, drawings, poetry, film, ceramics and tapestries. The catalogue’s title is taken from a new series of paintings completed for the show it accompanies at the Serpentine Gallery in London. It includes an essay by critic and writer Kaelen Wilson-Goldie that places Adnan’s art within the political and social context that has inspired it; a text by poet Robert Grenier; and writings by artist and publisher Simone Fattal on Adnan’s practice.
Poet, artist and essayist Etel Adnan describes various expressions of love--the love for ideas, for God, for things and for nature--addressing in particular how the lack of affection for nature in our culture leads to ecological catastrophe.
Etel Adnan: The Weight of the World
Etel Adnan: The Cost for Love We are Not Willing to Pay