A rare exhibition focusing on the work of prominent and emerging Iraqi artists will be on view at Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller (LTMH) Gallery from April 7 through April 30, 2010. BEYOND THE WAR: Seven Expatriate Iraqi Artists, curated by artist Gayle Wells Mandle, will bring together painting, sculpture, video and works on paper from seven prominent, contemporary Iraqi artists: Dia Azzawi, Ahmed Al Bahrani, Amar Dawod, Hannaa Malallah, Mahmud Obaidi, Kareem Risan, and Nazar Yahya. Their new work, created especially for the exhibition, will reflect the enormous talent that has vanished from Baghdad since the war began in 2003. The work is in on view in New York for the first time. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
The artists were selected for their similar, yet unique, abstract and socio-political content, expressed with text and texture that resonate with the curator’s own artistic expression. Rather than dwelling on the theme of separation caused by the war in Iraq, BEYOND THE WAR addresses the unity that can come from artistic vision. The language of art communicates in a way that defies any verbal, ethnic, religious, gender, or age barrier. Having left the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad, their arts community, and their homes in Iraq, each of these distinguished artists has relocated studio and home to various parts of the world.
As Nada Shabout, an Iraqi American art historian specializing in modern Iraqi art, writes in the catalogue, “The works presented here all represent a recent phenomenon: the making of “global” Iraqi artists, some of whom are beginning to acquire the level of international acclaim given to Palestinian and post-war Lebanese artists before them. Despite different circumstances and creative paths, the artists in this exhibition are “visualizing the unspeakable” in Iraqi art. They share the desire to communicate and make palpable their perception of pain and sorrow – particularly in the “western” world – and are provoking potent dialogues with the traumatic memories they carry.”
Background on Artists
Dia Azzawi, whom Mandle refers to as “the grand art father” is now residing in London. A painter, sculptor, and graphic artist, Azzawi had founded the New Vision Group of artists while living in Baghdad, and is the creator of the dafatir (journal/sketchbook), which inspired and encouraged other artists to record their lives. One of his most famous dafatirs is The Book of Shame: Destruction of Iraqi Museum.
Ahmed Al Bahrani, before the start of the Iraq war, taught sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad. He now lives in Doha, Qatar, and creates large abstract sculpture using textured steel.
Amar Dawod has made his home and studio in Sweden. His mixed media art “strives toward universalization,” as he continues to explore the common language of art that reaches across borders.
Hanaa Malallah, known as Iraq’s leading female artist, is one of a group called the Eighties Generation, which stayed in Iraq during the wars with both Iran and Kuwait. Unable to remain after the U.S. invasion in 2003, the Scholars at Risk program allowed Hanaa to move to England. She is currently creating a series of large scorched papers in a method she describes as her “ruins technique” which abstractly reflects the powerful loss from war.
Mahmud Obaidi resides presently with his family in Doha, Qatar, his home having been destroyed in Iraq. His artwork explores what ‘home’ means, and his own sense of identity that is questioned as a Middle Eastern man traveling in the U.S. His juxtaposition of childlike images with the tough texture of his collage materials creates a composition of calm and conflict, innocence and experience, through his constructing and destructing technique.
Kareem Risan is living and working currently in Canada. Risan’s paintings also convey the sense of loss and destruction, yet glow with the optimism of making something out of nothing. His abstract, graffitied paintings and his dafatirs have titles that speak volumes: Uranium Civilization, Graffiti of Occupied City, Book of Sanction, Baghdad Burning.
Nazar Yahya now lives in Texas. He feels that most of his work has “a shadow of war cast over it.” He uses found objects and construction materials in his mixed media artwork. His palette reflects the sand, dust, tar and deterioration that make up a war-torn environment. His dafatirs say it all with titles such as Baghdad Day of Destruction and Book of Emptiness.
Gayle Wells Mandle, the curator of BEYOND THE WAR, is a U.S. citizen living currently in Doha, Qatar. She has become familiar with these Iraqi artists through her friendship with one of them, Mahmud Obaidi. “All of this started from an early visit to Obaidi’s studio,” Mandle says, “making me realize the importance of communication and understanding of differences in cultures through our similar artwork.” And so, in the spring of 2009 when Leila Heller asked Mandle to consider being one of the curators for her gallery, essentially an artist choosing artists, she agreed to do this exhibition.
Symposium on April 7
A symposium for BEYOND THE WAR will be held at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, 1 East 78th Street at Fifth Avenue, on April 7 from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., prior to the opening of the exhibition from 6 to 8 p.m. Speakers will include: Gayle Mandle, exhibition curator; Nada Shabout, an Iraqi American art historian specializing in modern Iraqi art; and several Iraqi artists with work in the exhibition.
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