Word: persian
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...getting lost in books: the 550-555 section of the Widener stacks, full of ancient and medieval languages. The study carrels here have excellent collections: on an average day, "Modern Persian Poetry" sits between "Language and Science in Mesopotamia" and "Readings in the Cappadocian Fathers." Best followed by an exit through Widener's main entrance, slightly disoriented, around dusk: marvel at the placement of library and church in direct opposition, fodder for any epistemological crisis...
Antoin Sevruguin and the Persian Image, now up at the Sackler, is a retrospective of prints from an Eastern artist who until now has not been recognized in the West. His photographs are precise and beautifully composed, and the content makes them interesting enough to hold their own-but why now? If the images of Persia as portrayed by Sevruguin seem familiar, it could be because you've actually seen them before. Sevruguin's photographs have been published in the past with educational and informative texts about Persia, either anonymously or under some other artist's name. More likely, though...
Among the photographs is a series that Sevruguin took when he had access to the Persian royal court. He was allowed to take formal portraits but also more casual, intimate pictures of the shah. These unlikely photographs were probably made possible because Nasir al-Din Shah, who reigned from 1848 to 1896, was a patron of photography and encouraged the craft in his country. One print is of a Western barber dying the shah's mustache. Here the European is serving the Easterner in a photograph by a native. It is here that it becomes clear that Sevruguin is more...
...photographs of Sevruguin are particularly relevant right now because of the prevalence of post-colonialist studies in academia. If a Persian made women seem passive and highly sexual, whose fault is that? How can we say he was purposefully promoting a Western ideal if he was not Western? Sevruguin's photographs, besides being diverse and stunning images, add a new dimension to the often oversimplified academic dialogue in the post-colonial...
Antoin Sevruguin and the Persian Image is on display at the Sackler through June 10, 2001. For more information, call...