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Embassy of Jordan - Washington, DC
Information Bureau
jordaninfo@aol.com
202-265-1606
www.jordanembassyus.org
February 22, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"Breaking the Veils: Women
Artists from the Islamic World" Included at ARABESQUE:
Arts of the Arab World February 23-March 15, 2009
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2009/2/prweb2139164.htm
The ArtReach Foundation, an Atlanta-based nonprofit
chosen to be the Exclusive Presenter for the US Tour of
"Breaking the Veils: Women Artists from the Islamic
World", is honored to announce that selected works from
the Exhibition will be displayed at the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts during ARABESQUE: Arts of
the Arab World Festival, a three-week celebration of
Arab arts and culture. The festival is presented in
cooperation with the League of Arab States.
(PRWEB) February 22, 2009 -- The ArtReach
Foundation, an Atlanta-based nonprofit chosen to be the
Exclusive Presenter for the US Tour of "Breaking the
Veils: Women Artists from the Islamic World", is honored
to announce that selected works from the Exhibition will
be displayed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts during ARABESQUE: Arts of the Arab World
Festival, a three-week celebration of Arab arts and
culture. The festival is presented in cooperation with
the League of Arab States.
US Tour Co-Chairs, Katrina Griessman and Mitzi Prochnow,
along with Susan Anderson, the CEO & Founder of The
ArtReach Foundation, will be in Washington DC for the
Opening Festivities.
"For all of us who have worked on the US Tour of
"Breaking the Veils," to have selected works included in
such an extraordinary event is the culmination of a
dream", said Griessman. She went on to say, "This
collection of artwork is more than just a tour of art. I
see it as a kind of global diplomatic initiative…through
the use of art. The ARABESQUE is absolutely the perfect
place for some of the women artists' work from "Breaking
the Veils" to be shown".
The artworks are drawn from the permanent collection of
the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in Amman. The
exhibition brings together the contemporary work of
female artists from the Arab and Islamic world in an
attempt to break the stereotypes attached to women who
live there. The works on display address issues related
to gender, the environment, politics, nationalism,
social mores, and include abstract works that convey
purely aesthetic values. For Arabesque, the Kennedy
Center has created an exclusive installation using 29
paintings by the 26 Arab artists participating in the
exhibit. The media are as varied as their subjects and
include: oils, acrylics, watercolors, inks, gouaches,
dry cacti, silkscreen, etching, collage and treated
photographic print.
Susan Anderson, of The ArtReach Foundation, said that,
"We are honored that the Royal Society of Fine Arts of
Jordan, and the Pan Mediterranean Women's Artists
Network (F.A.M.) of Greece, the organizers of "Breaking
the Veils", selected us to bring this remarkable
exhibition to the U.S. Now, to have selections of the
exhibit's artwork shown as part of this unprecedented
event in our nation's capital only adds to that honor.
It is truly an opportunity to advance cross-cultural
understanding and dialogue, a strong need at this time
in our global history." She added that, "There are
several common denominators that exist between "Breaking
the Veils" and The ArtReach Foundation. Both use the
arts to build understanding and bridge a connection
across divides that may have been generated by great
pain and disrespect for humanity. And, after a decade of
working its way from Bosnia eastward, like "Breaking the
Veils", The ArtReach Foundation plans to become
established in Jordan, where it will build the ArtReach
Middle East Institute to train teachers in the use of
the arts for healing.
Under the tireless leadership of the two U.S. Tour
Co-Chairs, Griessman and Prochnow, whose thirty year
friendship began at Harvard in an art history class,
then continued in Washington where they were both
students at American University, this initiative has
become a passion. The Tour's 3-year commitment was
launched at the William J. Clinton Presidential Center
last June, and is now slated to open in September 2009
at Yale University. Ms. Griessman, a former Wall Street
institutional fixed income salesperson, turned full-time
volunteer, and Ms. Prochnow had been looking for an
inspiring project to work on together. That project came
when the two of them accompanied Ms. Anderson to an
International Peace Forum on Rhodes, Greece in 2002,
where she had been invited to speak about The ArtReach
Foundation's work in Bosnia, and the use of the creative
expressive arts as a means to help heal from trauma. It
was then that all three women had a chance to see the
exhibit's artworks, inaugurated at that event by Her
Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan. Ms. Prochnow
remembers from her first impression until now, "This
exhibit provides the viewer with an opportunity to break
the veils of misunderstanding and misconception, and
thus, to embrace all humanity's universal similarities,
instead of differences." Since that 2002 inauguration,
the full 72 works of art have traveled to 21 venues
throughout Europe and Australia.
Delta Air Lines is the major sponsor for this U.S. Tour.
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