WASHINGTON, April 2 ,02007, (WAFA)-Made in Palestine is the first comprehensive exhibition in the United States devoted to the contemporary art of Palestine.

PLO Mission in Washington said in a statement that the exhibition will be held at the Andres Bello Hall of the Venezuelan Embassy at 1099 30th Street NW and will be open to the public until mid-June.

It is a survey of work by artists living in the West Bank, Gaza, and parts of Israel. Also included in the exhibition are a smaller number of Palestinian artists from Syria, Jordan, and the United States.

The selected artists in this exhibit, Zuhdi Al Adawi, Rajie Cook, Mervat Essa, Ashraf Fawakhry, Samia Halaby, John Halaka, Rula Halawani, Mustafa Al Hallaj, Jawad Ibrahim, Noel Jabbour, Suleiman Mansour, Abdel Rahmen Al Muzayen and Muhammad Rakouie, were chosen during a month long stay in the Near East by the director James Harithas as well as during frequent trips to New York and California. Mr. Harithas is a former director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington.

These artists, representing two generations of modernists and postmodernists, work in a multiplicity of techniques and mediums, including painting, sculpture, video, performance, textiles, ceramics, and photography.

In style the work ranges from realism to abstraction and conceptual art. Its influences range from the art of ancient Near East and Egypt to Dada, Surrealism, Social Realism, Abstract Expressionism, Arte Povera, and Installation Art. In other words, Palestinian artists, like their peers in Europe and the United States, are thoroughly modern, but with a significant difference. The Palestinian artist is deeply concerned with the historical fate of the Palestinian people and with life and death issues of freedom and justice.

The Palestinian art is a unique contribution to contemporary art because of its diversity, its focus on liberation and its singular approaches to pictorial expression.

M.H.(12:45 P)(09:45 GMT)