Monaco and Alexandria, two cosmopolis with eloquent and yet little-known relations, woven in the heart of the 20th century: ballets and (post)orientalist shows, southern surrealism, flora and fauna, feminist eroticism, urban development and nightlife… Two world-capitals, marked by the imprint of dreams and tourist mythologies as by that of the avant-garde in exile. The writers, poets, painters, decorators and philosophers presented here are the free agents, minority and nomadic forces of Surrealism. They embody a transmediterranean and cross-border world, beyond the rise of nationalisms and fascisms.
Monaco-Alexandria. The big detour presents itself first and foremost as a definitive departure from the spectrum of nationalist and European-centric art history.
Text(s): Björn Dahlström, Cléa Daridan, Amina Diab, Arthur Debsi, Mehri Khalil, Marc Kober, Morad Montazami, Francesca Rondinelli
About the Publisher
With a variety of formats, monograph, thematic or collective books, Zamân Books publications (historically born out of a generation of marxists and postcolonial intellectuals) cultivate a spirit of activist/archivist. Committed to the general fieldwork study of Arab, African and Asian modernities, our books seek to constitute authentic data and theoretical tools; at the service of an emancipated history of visual arts, their geographical and conceptual journeys. Eventually to play the role of an interface between different spheres of knowledge and art theory: academic knowledge, artistic knowledge, vernacular knowledge, digital knowledge…
Co-Publisher
New National Museum of Monaco, or simply New National Museum, is the art museum of the Principality of Monaco. It promotes its heritage and disseminates contemporary creation through temporary exhibitions in its two establishments: Villa Paloma and Villa Sauber.
