Hayv Kahraman

The vital practice of Hayv Kahraman produces ethereal figures relating to each other in complex grounds. Their grace belies the brutal history of violence and displacement Kahraman’s subjects endure, creating an oscillating effect that entices the viewer with its seductive order. The artist combines elements of Italian Renaissance painting and twelfth-century Baghdadi illuminated manuscripts to create an evocative, hybrid vocabulary. Her quietly radical shifts—where traditional Iraqi screens’ geometric patterns are replaced with sections of a woman’s body, or a manuscript figure is presented as doll-like parts—convey the artist’s developing exploration of femininity, acculturation and abstract patterns.

Kahraman was among the Jameel Prize 5 shortlisted artists and designers. The exhibition was on view at Jameel Arts Centre from April 25 to September 14, 2019.⁠

Martin Daughtry is Associate Professor of Music at New York University.

Walter Mignolo is Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies at Duke University.

Octavio Zaya is an independent writer, art critic and curator living in New York City since 1978.

Founded in 1945 in Florence, Mondadori Electa, part of the Mondadori Group, publishes art titles, exhibition catalogues, fiction, children's books and illustrated volumes on subjects ranging from reportage to fashion, photography, design, music, cinema and travel.

An imprint of Rizzoli New York launched in January 2018, Rizzoli Electa is dedicated to Rizzoli's museum and exhibitions publishing in collaboration with leading Italian book publisher and sister company Mondadori Electa.

Rizzoli New York joined such prestigious American institutions as Tiffany’s, Saks, and Cartier when it first opened the Rizzoli Bookstore on Fifth Avenue in 1964. In the following years, its landmark building in New York became the center for the company’s national expansion, adding new bookstores throughout the country and, a decade later, establishing an eminent publishing house renowned today for high-quality, illustrated books.

Rizzoli New York began its publishing operation in 1974 and has become a leader in the fashion, interior design, culinary, art, architecture, and photography fields. Rizzoli’s Universe Publishing imprint was added in 1990, marking Rizzoli’s entrée into the pop-culture worlds of humor, beauty, sports, performing arts, and gay and alternative lifestyles, as well as a highly successful calendar program. In 2011, Rizzoli established Ex Libris, an imprint dedicated to publishing up-market literary fiction and nonfiction with a transatlantic character. Starting in January 2018, Rizzoli produces its museum and exhibitions publishing under the new imprint Rizzoli Electa, in collaboration with leading Italian book publisher and sister company Mondadori Electa.