Heech

This summer, the British Museum has a special exhibit called "Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East." Below is a work by Iranian sculptor Parviz Tanavoli of the Persian word "heech," which signifies negation. Several other Tanavoli interpretations of that word were on display, most simply the word itself, though one had it climbing out of a golden cage.



What I remember most about the exhibit is how calligraphy, historically the Middle Eastern art par excellence, has blended with Western modern art forms in interesting ways, from an avant garde display designed to be like graffiti on a wall (I forget what it said) to abstract expressionist calligraphy involving random letters over random displays of color.