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The revolutions that began to sweep across countries in North Africa and the Middle East in December 2010 - like other revolutions in diverse modern historical contexts - have often been articulated, internally and externally, in black and white terms of success or failure, liberation or constraint, for or against, friend or enemy. These internal and external clichés are perpetuated by what Jellel Gasteli has called 'icons of revolutionary exoticism'. Paying particular attention to works from the Tunisian Revolution of 2011, this book examines a diverse body of art including photography, sculpture, graffiti, performance, video and installation by over twenty-five artists. Examining how art can evoke the idea of revolution, Art and the Arab Spring reveals a new way of understanding these revolutions, their profound cultural impact, and of the meaning of the term 'revolution' itself.

A striking proliferation of artwork has emerged in response to the Tunisian Revolution, following decades of censorship under the former president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, who was forced to flee the country on 14 January 2011. Certain visual representations of the Tunisian Revolution employ the iconic language that has been utilised in revolutions in diverse historical and geographical contexts. However, many seek to avoid what the photographer Jellel Gasteli has dubbed '[des] icônes de l'exotisme révolutionnaire'. Drawing on postcolonial theory, this article argues that a still emerging corpus of artwork reveals an alternative 'aesthetic of resistance' with which to communicate the complexity and diversity of Tunisia. Such artwork forges a third way between totalising internal and external visions of the country. It presents a nuanced engagement with the Revolution, allowing – in distinctively visual or multisensorial ways – for 'untranslatable' voices or 'unrepresentable' visions of democracy in a universal sense.