Orientalist Recursions

This article discusses Orientalist depictions of Middle Eastern women in contemporary Western art and public discourse. Analyzing the work of two contemporary artists from the US and Europe, graphic novelist Craig Thompson and photographer Marinka Masséus, as well as two artists originating from Iran, Shirin Neshat and Newsha Tavakolian, it unpacks a long history of visual culture presenting women in the Middle East and North Africa as in need of liberation. While showing how nineteenth-century Orientalist paintings depicting women in the Middle East and North Africa were intertwined with a broader discourse on Islam, women, and the Arab slave trade, which helped to legitimize European colonial projects, the article argues that the image of the Muslim woman as a victim of male oppression and violence is still hugely popular today. Taking curatorial practices and current debates on Muslim women into consideration, it probes the underlying assumptions of this ongoing discourse.