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Tuesday, December 19th, 2017

Shoja Azari at Occupy Mana

Shoja Azari, Fanatics of Tangier or The Muslim Rage, 2013
Shoja Azari, Fanatics of Tangier or The Muslim Rage,, 2013. Oil on canvas mounted on wallpaper, 62 × 82 inches, edition 1/3. Courtesy of the artist and Leila Heller Gallery

Radically reworking Eugène Delacroix’s Orientalist The Fanatics of Tangier (1837-38), Shoja Azari shows enraged Muslims – the stereotypical fighters who haunt our political discourse today. And on the wall behind the painting are numerous tiny web-derived images of contemporary political strife. Encapsulating the theme of Occupy Mana, the massive exhibition at Mana Contemporary curated by Phong Bui and Rail Curatorial Projects, this painting asks, what is to be done? How can artists respond to our crises?

Occupy Mana: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale that Society has the Capacity to Destroy ran from October 21 to December 16, 2017

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