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Etel Adnan

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Nationality
  
Lebanese American

Name
  
Etel Adnan

Role
  
Poet


Etel Adnan siwsjnetpublicresourcesimagesBNGR9430315AE

Born
  
Ethel Adnan 24 February 1925 (age 99) Beirut, Lebanon (
1925-02-24
)

Genre
  
Poetry, Essay, Visual arts

Education
  
Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, Sorbonne

Books
  
Sitt Marie Rose, The Arab apocalypse, Paris - when it's naked, Journey to Mount Tamalpais, Of cities and women


Similar
  
Gavin Bryars, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Frank Stella

In conversation with artist etel adnan


Etel Adnan (born 24 February 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a Lebanese-American poet, essayist, and visual artist. In 2003, Adnan was named "arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today" by the academic journal MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.

Contents

Etel Adnan Etel Adnan The New York Times

Besides her literary output, Adnan continues to produce visual works in a variety of media, such as oil paintings, films and tapestries, which have been exhibited at galleries across the world.

Etel Adnan Documenta 13 Etel Adnan Contemporary Art Daily

She lives in Paris and Sausalito, California.

Etel Adnan Documenta 13 Etel Adnan Contemporary Art Daily

Etel adnan her poets friends


Life

Etel Adnan was born in 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon. Adnan's mother was a Christian Greek from Smyrna and her father was Muslim Syrian and a petty officer. Though she grew up speaking Greek and Turkish in a primarily Arabic-speaking society, she was educated at French convent schools and French became the language in which her early work was first written. She also studied English in her youth, and most of her later work has been first written in this language.

At 24, Adnan traveled to Paris where she received a degree in philosophy from the Sorbonne. She then traveled to America where she continued graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and at Harvard University. From 1952 to 1978, she taught philosophy of art at the Dominican University of California in San Rafael. She has also lectured at many universities throughout the United States.

Adnan returned from America to Lebanon and worked as a journalist and cultural editor for Al-Safa, a French-language newspaper in Beirut. In addition, she also helped build the cultural section of the newspaper, occasionally contributing cartoons and illustrations. Her tenure at Al-Safa was most notable for her front-page editorials, commenting on the important political issues of the day.

In her later years, Adnan began to openly identify as lesbian.

Visual art

Adnan also works as a painter, her earliest abstract works were created using a palette knife to apply oil paint onto the canvas – often directly from the tube – in firm swipes across the picture's surface. The focus of the compositions often being a red square, she remains interested in the "immediate beauty of colour". In 2012, a series of the artist's brightly colored abstract paintings were exhibited as a part of documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany.

Inspired by Japanese leporellos, Adnan also paints landscapes on to foldable screens that can be "extended in space like free-standing drawings".

In 2014 a collection of the artist's paintings and tapestries were exhibited as a part of the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Etel Adnan's retrospective at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, titled "Etel Adnan In All Her Dimensions" and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, featured eleven dimensions of Adnan's practice. It included her early works, her literature, her carpets, and other. The show was launched in March 2014, accompanied by a 580-page catalog of her work published jointly by Mathaf and Skira. The catalog was designed by artist Ala Younis in Arabic and English, and included text contributions by Simone Fattal, Daniel Birnbaum, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, as well as six interviews with Hans-Ulrich Obrist.

In English

  • Life is a Weaving, Galerie Lelong (2016) ISBN 978-2-868821-23-2.
  • Premonition, Kelsey Street Press (2014) ISBN 978-0-932716-82-8.
  • Sitt Marie Rose: A Novel (1978)
  • Paris, When It's Naked (1993)
  • Master of the Eclipse (2009)
  • Seasons (2008)
  • In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country (2005)
  • In/somnia (2002)
  • There: In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and of the Other (1997)
  • To Write in a Foreign Language (1996)
  • Of Cities and Women, Letters to Fawwaz (1993)
  • Paris, When It's Naked (1993)
  • The Spring Flowers Own and the Manifestations of the Voyage (1990)
  • The Arab Apocalypse (1989)
  • Journey to Mount Tamalpais: An Essay (1985)
  • The Indian Never Had a Horse and Other Poems (1985)
  • From A to Z Poetry (1982)
  • In Arabic

  • al-Sitt Mari Ruz: riwayah. (Sitt Marie Rose.), with Jirum Shahin and Firyal Jabburi Ghazul.Al-Qahirah: al-Hayah al-Ammah li-Qusur al-Thaqafah, 2000.
  • n mudun wa-nisa: rasail il Fawwaz. (Of Cities and Women.) Bayrut: Dar al-Hihar, 1998.
  • Kitab al-bahr; kitab al-layal; kitab al-mawt; kitab al-nihayah, with Abid Azarih. Bayrut: Dar Amwaj, 1994.
  • al-Sitt Marie Ruz. Bayrut: al-Mu-assasah al-Arabiyah lil-Dirasat wa-al-Nashr, 1979.
  • In French

  • La vie est un tissage, Galerie Lelong, 2016 ISBN 978-2-868821-21-8
  • A propos de la fin de l'Empire Ottoman, Galerie lelong, 2015
  • Le Prix que nous ne voulons pas payer pour l'amour, Galerie lelong, 2015
  • Prémonition, Galerie Lelong, 2015
  • Paris mis a nu. France: Editions Tamyras, 2011, translated by Martin Richet.
  • Ce ciel qui n'est pas. Paris: LHarmattan, 1997.
  • Ce Ciel qui n'est pas. Bilingual edition (French-Arabic): Tunis: Tawbad, 2008.
  • Rachid Korachi: Ecriture passion, with Rachid Korachi and Jamel-Eddine Bencheikh. Alger: Galerie Mhamed Issiakhem, 1988.
  • L'apocalypse arabe. Paris: Papyrus Editions, 1980.
  • Sitt Marie Rose. Paris: Des Femmes, 1978.
  • Jbu: Suivi de l'Express Beyrouth enfer. Paris: P.J. Oswald, 1973.
  • Quotes

    "There's always a conductive thread through space for untenable positions."

    Awards and recognition

  • 1977: Awarded the France-Pays Arabes award for her novel Sitt Marie Rose.
  • 2010: Awarded the Arab American Book Awards for Master of the Eclipse.
  • 2013: Her poetry collection Sea and Fog won the California Book Award for Poetry.
  • 2013: Awarded the Lambda Literary Award.
  • 2014: Named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government.
  • Adnan also has a RAWI Lifetime Achievement Award from the Radius of Arab-American Writers.

    References

    Etel Adnan Wikipedia