The Shapes of Birds

I thought an hour would be enough time for Newport Art Museum’s new exhibit of North African and (mostly) Middle Eastern art, but if I were you I’d plan on two. There’s just so much to see! Among the many names to remember: Saman Sajasi, the Providence-based Iranian artist whose ornate gold woodblock prints are layered over silk Google maps of Istanbul and Tehran; Azeri artist Faig Ahmed and his deconstructed handmade carpets; and Arghavan Khosravi, an Iranian artist whose wild prints feature (among other things) the Ayatollah Khomeini standing aside a figure of Venus. In the museum’s second building, a looping half-hour video program features a sad animation from Iraqi-Finnish artist Adel Abidin, while Egyptian cinephile Youssef Nabil cast Salma Hayek in a brightly colored belly dancing fantasia.