Endorsements

Of all the many books that have been published about Iran, none so viscerally conveys the absurdity of the censorship that bears on the nation, or the spirit of rebellion against it as ​The Artist, The Censor, and ​The Nude. Only an artist of the keenest sensibilities, like ​Pamela ​Joseph, can make such a distant experience so present.
– Roya Hakakian, author of Journey from the Land of No​: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran​

A provocative and engaging discussion of the alteration, erasure and suppression of art.
– Donna Kaz, author of UN/MASKED, Memoirs of a Guerrilla Girl On Tour

It’s no secret that Glenn Harcourt is a triple threat: he’s first rate as a graceful (and rigorous) writer; an art historian, and a cosmopolitan intellectual. All his talents are on display in The Artist, The Censor, and The Nude. “Erasure” is a common enough theme in both art history and critical studies, but it becomes a particularly potent subject when discussing Iranian art and culture, and by extension, contemporary art in the so distant Islamic world.
The fun of Harcourt’s piece is his coupling of Islamic pudeur and post-modernity’s blank ironies. Pamela Joseph’s work provides an excellent jumping off place for juxtaposing Islamic modesty and post-modernity, without getting into tedious neo-Marxist mea culpas on the guilt of western orientalisms, or for that matter, of middle eastern occidentalisms. Harcourt has a keen eye (and a light sense of irony) for appreciating those conjunctions, but the real depth of Harcourt’s work is his brilliant juxtaposing of the two. And to do this all, while providing an excellent survey and analysis of the human body as a universal subject for art-making, makes this book a real tour de force.
– Donald Cosentino, UCLA Professor Emeritus, World Arts & Cultures