Syrian Art Discourse and Plasticity Around the 1967 Naksa

Between 1964 and 1970, Syrian art discourse underwent significant shifts in valuing formal artistic elements, particularly around the Naksa—the Arab defeat by Israel in June 1967. A reform program at the University of Damascus's Faculty of Fine Arts from 1964 to 1967, along with arts coverage in al-Baath newspaper, exhibition texts, and the reception of works by artists like Nazir Nabaa, Guido La Regina, Mahmoud Hammad, and Ahmed Nawash, reveal these transformations. The term 'plasticity' emerged as a key concept, describing a union between formal malleability and human labor, used to negotiate antinomies such as form versus content and abstraction versus humanism in the post-1967 period. This analysis, published by Anneka Lenssen on June 5, 2013, examines how Syrian artists re-evaluated craft and social value amid political upheaval. The article is available via MIT Press under subscription-only access.