The Bidoun Library Project at the New Museum

Museum as Hub:
The Bidoun Library Project
4 August – 26 September 2010

New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002

www.newmuseum.org

The Bidoun Library Project at the New Museum is a highly partial account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about, and around the Middle East. Arrayed along the library’s shelves are pulp fictions and propaganda, monographs and guidebooks, and pamphlets and periodicals, representing the oil boom and the Dubai bust, the Cold War and the hot pant; depicting Pan-Arabs and Black Muslims, revolutionaries and royals, Orientalism and its opposites.

Most of the 700-odd titles in the library were acquired specifically for this exhibition. The shape of the collection was dictated primarily by search terms on the World Wide Web rather than any intrinsic notion of aptness or excellence. Searching for “Arab,” “paperback,” “1970s,” and “Bidoun: Arts and Culture From the Middle East.