Arab and Iranian Artwork on Display on Campus
An exhibit is currently being shown at 116 Kroeber Hall (it closes Friday, so hurry by if you would like to see it) featuring "eight different Arab and Iranian artists who work in various art genres including painting, sculpture and film. Each artist’s piece is meant to confront stereotypes and misrepresentations about Arab and Muslims in the Middle East." According to the Berkeley Daily Planet article on the exhibit, "Arab and Muslim Art in a New Light at UC Exhibit", "Many of the pieces in the show look at stereotypes about the Middle East. Others examine the particular forms of discrimination that Arabs and Muslims faced after Sept. 11."

The sculpture that caught my attention was by Khalil Bendib:

My sculpture "Gas Christ" is an ironic statement on the ongoing reconquest of Arab lands by a new wave of Western "civilizators" come - once again -to bring Democracy and Freedom into the heart of darkness. This work was of course prompted by the infamous Abu Ghraib photo of a hooded Iraqi being tortured by U.S. troops.
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The title of my "Gas Christ," of course, alludes to Andres Serrano's controversial photograph "Piss Christ," in which an image of the Savior was infamously submerged in urine. Only in this case, it is petroleum - the new object of Western desire, the fragrance du jour - which despoils the symbolically crucified Iraqi. Christ, in this work, is not cast in a negative light; he's identified with the natives, some of whom happen to be Christians.

Gas Christ:

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