The Manifest, The Hidden: Geometry and Islam in Contemporary Art – 2

The Manifest, The Hidden explores the entanglement of Geometry and Islam in the practices of eleven contemporary artists based across the Middle East, North America, and Europe. While Geometry and Islam are often perceived as rigid systems, this exhibition invites audiences to see them anew as rich, expansive languages for expressing beauty and wonder.

The title of the show refers to two of the names that describe God in the Qur’an: al-Ẓāhir (“the Manifest”) and al-Bāṭin (“the Hidden”). This pairing illustrates how reality has both an outward face (“the Manifest”) perceived through external, physical senses and an inward dimension (“the Hidden”) known through contemplation and inner sensory experience. Both reflect theological ideas of how God can be perceived through all things yet transcends all things. 

Mathematics similarly reflects an outward and inward dimension. A formal, written geometric proof is the visible culmination of a deeper process of intuition and experimentation. What becomes manifest as a logical proof on the page emerges from exploration into a hidden landscape of mathematical thinking.

The artists in The Manifest, The Hidden work within this same interplay. Drawing on Geometry and Islamic visual cultures, their artworks explore the sensorial, metaphysical, and sociopolitical forces that shape human experience. In doing so, they show how the visible and invisible shape one another.

Featured in The Manifest, The Hidden are artists: Farhad Ahrarnia, Lulwah Al-Homoud, Afruz Amighi, Dana Awartani, Kamal Boullata, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Sahand Hesamiyan, Behnaz Karjoo, Nsenga Knight, Nima Nabavi, and Donna Ruff.