Shown to the left is one of three versions of Teparić’s Gens Una Sumus [We are one people] (2017-2018), which shows the Virgin Mary in a mihrab, and is inspired by Frithjof Schuon’s conception of the transcendent unity of religions, and also by the Maryami understanding on the figure of Mary. It is especially relevant in Bosnia, where the sectarian divisions that emerged during the Bosnian War of 1992-1995 are still not fully resolved.
As well as the work shown, Teparić has also worked with re-imagined Arabic calligraphy, as can be seen on her website at http://melihateparic.com/paintings/.
Her work is inspired not only by Islam and Maryami Traditionalism, but also by “the abstract forms of artists like Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Ad Reinhardt.” This synthesis might be seen as not very traditional, but “Her deconstruction of Islamic calligraphy is not an act of rejection but rather a method of renewal—an attempt to bring the script into conversation with contemporary art while preserving its spiritual significance.”
Teparić graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Sarajevo in 2002. In 2003 she joined the Naqshbandi tariqa of Shaykh Mesud Hadžimejlić (1937-2009), who came of a long line of Bosnian Naqshbandi shaykhs, and whose son Ćazim Hadžimejlić (born 1964) was teaching calligraphy at the Academy of Fine Arts. Professor Hadžimejlić later succeeded his father as Shaykh Ćazim.
3 comments:
Hello professor Sedgwick.
Thanks again for your excellent site, studies and books.
Just a detail: this sculpture is not made by Meliha Teparic: her website shows a picture of it mentioning a certain Pierfrancesco Gava as the artist who has made this rather kitsch Virgin Mary.
This kitsch aesthetic may reminds of the heavy kitsch style of Schuon awful paintings, although if at leat this Virgin still wears all her clothes! But it doesn't seem that this Gava is a declared perenialist.
The artwork of miss Teparic has nothing that seems obviously inspired by Schuon's or other perenialist backgrounds: it is only a serie of very modern "conceptual" art pieces that I guess a real traditionalist of the "strict guenonian observance" would judge quite severely !
Thank you for that. Indeed, the installation is by Meliha Teparic, not the sculpture (which is indeed somewhat kitsch, but perhaps that is OK under the circumstances?). And it is certainly true that someone of the "strict guenonian observance" would disapprove of the treatment of calligraphy at http://melihateparic.com/paintings/, and also of the idea that deconstruction can be the way to renewal, as is suggested in the quotation in my original post.
Thanks a lot professor Sedgwick for your remarks.
It is however interesting and sometimes surprising to see, as your works show it well, the ability of the schuonian to make its way in some influential circles.
All best wishes for a happy new year.
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