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THE FERTILE CRESCENT: GENDER, ART, AND SOCIETY
BOOK LAUNCH EVENT AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
6:00-8:00 p.m.

FREE, OPEN TO PUBLIC

Margaret Liebman Berger Forum Room 227, 2nd floor (Opens to Public at 5:30 p.m.) The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 5th Avenue at 42nd Street, New York, NY 10018, 917-275-6975

The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art, and Society, published by Rutgers University Institute for Women and Art and distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, presents the work of 24 contemporary women artists of Middle East heritage who examine matters of gender, homeland, geopolitics, theology, and the environment through painting, video, photography, sculpture, film, performance art, and multi-media. These artists challenge Western stereotypes of Middle Eastern women, while acknowledging existing social and theological restrictions that have caused many of them to leave their homelands.

Judith K. Brodsky and Ferris Olin, co-directors of the Institute for Women and Art at Rutgers, and authors of The Fertile Crescent: Gender, Art and Society, along with essayists Kelly Baum and Gilane Tawadros, and artists Negar Ahkami and Nik Yalter engage in a discussion about the complex social, theological and historic issues that have, and continue to shape, the status of Middle East women. The discussion addresses the multiple identities of women artists from the Middle East as women, and as Muslims, Christians, Jews, or a secular identity, and often
as members of the diaspora.

For more information, visit www.fertile-crescent.org.