Anneka Lenssen, "Beautiful Agitation: Modern Painting and Politics in Syria" (U California Press, 2020)

Beyond the Margins: The University of California Press Podcast · Feb 28, 2022 · 1h 2m

Beautiful Agitation: Modern Painting and Politics in Syria (University of California Press, 2020), by Anneka Lenssen, focuses on modern art practice in Syria from 1900 to 1965 and the ways that artists sought to link their painting to life forces and agitated energies. Examining the works of artists Kahlil Gibran, Adham Ismail, and Fateh al-Moudarres, Beautiful Agitation explores how painters in Syria activated the mutability of form to rethink relationships of figure to ground, outward appearance to inner presence, and self to world. Drawing on archival materials in Syria and beyond, Lenssen…