Veil : Veiling, Representation, and Contemporary Art

Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting and Insightful
Review: From the hair and face coverings common in the Middle East to bridal costumes and nuns' habits in the West, the veil is "an item of clothing dramatically overburdened with symbolism ... [and] fought over by adherents and opponents," observes Reina Lewis in her introduction to this book, which is drawn from the Institute of Interna-tional Visual Arts exhibition of the same name. Summarizing the work of 20 artists, and incorporating essays and several dozen literary excerpts from a kaleidoscope of view-points, the book offers insight into questions such as: Where did "the veil" come from? What are its meanings, in the East, in the West, and in that growing, often exciting cul-tural space that is neither one nor the other? The editors challenge several notions com-mon in the West: the veil as exclusively Middle Eastern; the veil as "Islamic," the veil as a barrier to social rights for women, and the interpretation of choosing to veil or not as equivalent to choosing "oppression" on the one hand or "freedom" on the other. DD