March 28 (Bloomberg) -- How do you tell a convenience store in Ramallah from the same kind of store in New York?

You don't. Not, at least, in ``Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking,'' a new exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, where East meets West on surprisingly common ground.

The show, on view at MoMA through May 22, presents a selection of culturally crossbred paintings, photographs, sculptures and videos by artists, most of whom who were born in the Islamic world but live in Europe and the U.S.

The artists in the show refer to an Islamic ideology or cultural tradition in their work, but they do not call themselves Islamic artists. In fact, there is no such thing as ``Islamic'' art -- no one mode of expression could represent several very different cultures. As a result, the show is replete with art that insistently straddles incompatible traditions.

What do we call a dazzling cloisonne painting that looks like a 15-foot-high version of an Indian miniature? It's undoubtedly a work of Islamic art, even though it is based on ``The Garden of Earthly Delights,'' by Hieronymus Bosch.

Where do we place an actual miniature whose decorative calligraphy surrounds a black minimalist monolith?

These very different works, by Calcutta-born Londoner Raqib Shaw and Pakistani-born New Yorker Shahzia Sikander, respectively, exemplify the contradictions built into a globalized world where every artistic tradition is up for grabs -- by whoever wants to grab it.

Islamic Gaelic

Mike Kelley, an Irish-American conceptualist included in the show, has turned a red Persian rug into a green Gaelic pennant by having it remade, in Iran, with a shamrock at its center.

In an embroidered canvas, Ghada Amer, an Egyptian-born New York artist, weaves a French dictionary's definition of love into pornographic images of women, with looping, colored threads that deliberately mimic the macho drip paintings of Jackson Pollock.

From a standing position, the floor-bound black ``Prayer Mat (1995),'' by Egyptian-born British artist Mona Hatoum, looks like a deep-pile, velvety-soft area rug embedded with a brass compass pointing to Mecca. One has to kneel to see that it is actually made of nothing but sharp, densely packed pins whose points are facing up.

Revolver Earring

There is more pride than confrontation in a gorgeous, larger-than-life photograph by Iranian-born New York artist Shirin Neshat, where a woman's face is inscribed with minuscule lines of calligraphic script. Her chador may hide her head, but does not quite cover her ``earring'' -- a revolver with its barrel pointed at the viewer.

Arriving on the heels of the deadly response to the Danish- published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, this show could have been seen as merely provocative. Curator Fereshteh Daftari, however, takes such an evenhanded approach to its message-heavy art that the show comes off as thoughtful, even conciliatory.

``Ramallah/New York,'' for example, is a double-screen video by Emily Jacir, an American-born Palestinian who lives in both of the title's cities. Her video records everyday activities in generic travel agencies, saloons, convenience stores and beauty salons located in each place.

Forget about being able to tell which shop is where: It's impossible. It's also clear that people retain a national identity no matter where they happen to be.

`99 Names'

Or take ``99 Names,'' a video installation by Kutlug Ataman, the Turkish-born winner of the 2004-05 Carnegie Prize.

Projected on five screens suspended from the ceiling at angles that suggest windows scattered by an explosion, the work shows a praying man whose agitation increases on each screen, going from silent meditation to violent -- and loud -- breast- beating.

Ataman made the piece after the terror attacks of Sept. 11. While I was at MoMA, viewers gathered just inside the door of the projection room, seemingly afraid to move closer to the life-size images.

It appears that East and West still remain wary of each other -- in life if not in art.

``Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking'' runs through May 22 at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53rd St., New York, (1)(212) 708-9400 or see http://www.moma.org.

To contact the writer of this story: Linda Yablonsky at fabyab@earthlink.net.

Last Updated: March 28, 2006 00:07 EST