Iridescent Kuwait: Petro-Modernity and Urban Visual Culture since the Mid-Twentieth Century

Laura Hindelang

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2022

Iridescent Kuwait

Petro-Modernity and Urban Visual Culture since the Mid-Twentieth Century

Laura Hindelang
Funded by: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714739

Overview
Contents

About this book

Petro-modernity is a local phenomenon essential to the history of Kuwait, while also a global experience and one of the prime sources of climate change. The book investigates petroleum’s role in the visual culture of Kuwait to understand the intersecting ideologies of modernization, political representation, and oil. The notion of iridescence, the ambiguous yet mesmerizing effect of a rainbowlike color play, serves as analytical-aesthetic concept to discuss petroleum’s ambiguous contribution to modernity: both promise of prosperity and destructive force of socio-cultural and ecological environments. Covering a broad spectrum of historical material from aerial and color photography, visual arts, postage stamps, and master plans to architecture and also contemporary art from the Gulf, it dismantles petro- modernity’s visual legacy.

Author / Editor information

Laura Hindelang, Universität Bern. ORCID 0000-0002-9195-9190

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	1
TABLE OF CONTENTS Open Access Download PDF	5
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Open Access Download PDF	7
1. AN IRIDESCENT APPROACH TO PETROLEUM AND MODERNITY Open Access Download PDF	11
2. A (PRE-)OIL HISTORY OF KUWAIT Open Access Download PDF	39
3. IMAG(IN)ING KUWAIT FROM ABOVE IN AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, URBAN PLANNING, AND CARTOGRAPHY Open Access Download PDF	69
4. THE KUWAIT OIL COMPANY, (COLOR) PHOTOGRAPHY, AND IRIDESCENT IMPRESSIONS Open Access Download PDF	113
5. THE PETRO-STATE, ITS POSTAGE STAMPS, AND POLITICAL ICONOGRAPHY Open Access Download PDF	157
6. THE 1990–91 GULF WAR: OIL FIRES, ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE, AND A SECOND RUPTURE Open Access Download PDF	201
7. THE PETROLEUM PROMISE, NOSTALGIA, AND FUTURISM Open Access Download PDF	215
BIBLIOGRAPHY Open Access Download PDF	241
IMAGE CREDITS Open Access Download PDF	259

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Art history, architectural history, history, culture history, asia studies.
Pages
- Main content: 261
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 29
- Coloured Illustrations: 67
Keywords: Visual culture; oil; modernity; Kuwait.

eBook

Published: December 21, 2021
ISBN: 9783110714739

Paperback

Published: December 20, 2021
ISBN: 9783110714661