12 / Conflict and Resistance

• • CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Prague. August 1968. Warsaw Pact Troops invade Prague. In front of the Radio Headquarters.Josef Koudelka (Czech/French, b. 1938)	Guernica Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973)	Y no hai Remedio (And There’s Nothing to Be Done)Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828)	The Execution of Emperor MaximilianÉdouard Manet (French, 1832–1883)	Afghan soldiers from the ruling Taliban movement and visiting journalists stand in front of one of the destroyed Buddha statues in the central province of Bamiyan, March 26, 2001.Sayed Salahuddin (Afghan, b. 1970)	The Legislative BellyHonoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879)
    Books!Aleksandr (Alexander) Mikhailovich Rodchenko, (Russian, 1891–1956)	Chairman Mao en Route to AnyuanChinese School	Converging Territories #30Lalla Essaydi (Moroccan, b. 1956)	Hagia Sophia (exterior)Anthemius of Tralles (Greek, active 6th c.) and Isidorus of Miletus (Greek, active 6th c.) (architects)	The Earth Spider Creating Monsters in the Mansion of Minamoto no YorimitsuUtagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1797–1861)	Battle of Til-Tuba (Battle of the River Ulai) (detail)Unknown artist(s), Nineveh, Iraq
    Fish and RocksBada Shanren (Zhu Da) (Chinese, 1626–1705)	Calvinist IconoclasmFranz Hogenberg (German, ca. 1540– ca. 1590)	La quema de los Judas (The Burning of the Judases)Diego Rivera (Mexican, 1886–1957)	Alabama Loyalists Greeting the Federal Gun-Boats from Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)Kara Walker (American, b. 1969)	The Third of May, 1808Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish, 1746–1828)

expert perspective

Lalla Essaydi Artist

“

I went to art school and I was very curious to learn more about other cultures than mine. I thought I knew enough already. I needed to add a lot more to my own experience living here. And, as I was studying and learning, I realized that for me to understand other cultures I have to go back and understand mine. And so I just started going back home, going back to my own childhood.

The idea of the veil in my work really deals with the veil as a symbol also to emphasize the stereotype that people always associate the veil and oppression and how women are submissive. So I play with that in the sense that I seem to cater to that. In Morocco, really women don’t veil any longer. When I was growing up, calligraphy wasn’t really accessible to me at school. So it was much more accessible to men than to women in that sense. So we always thought of it as high art—a male art, in a sense. The henna is merely a craft, decorating the hands and the feet. So I wanted to merge this male art with female craft and try to make something of a statement with it. The text is really my diary, and it’s the story of these women. And the women become the pages, the chapters.”