Art against the odds: on two recent trips to Iraq, the author found that artists are continuing to make work despite the massive upheaval in their country

Art in America, June-July, 2004 by Steven Vincent

Mohammad Rassim's works also hark back to the towering achievements of Bronze Age Iraq. Here, in semiabstract works made with thick applications of oil on canvas, Sumerian kings debate policy; singers chronicle the exploits of venerable warriors; the sun blazes over the ancient land of Uz. Other paintings are entirely abstract. In Marshlands, Rassim creates a brooding elegy to the fabled marsh Arabs of Iraq, decimated by Saddam in the 1990s. Amid cuneiform-like imagery, the stylized prow of a native skiff cuts through dark red waters, parting the clustering reeds and bulrushes. "I'm drawn to my country's pre-Islamic history especially the Sumerians," Rassim says. "They had great spirit filled with courage and a love of art and literature."

As fine as these works are, they suffer from lack of exposure. Besides the Hewar, Baghdad has a dearth of serious galleries; worse, three of the best exhibition spaces--Akkad, Inaa and Mizan galleries--are struggling to stay open on once-fashionable Abi Nuwas Street, which postwar chaos (and a U.S. military checkpoint) has transformed into a garbage-strewn thoroughfare teeming with teenage thugs. Another problem is a lack of collectors. "Only a few people in Baghdad buy art these days," says Haider Hashim, director of Akkad Gallery. "There is no market in Iraq."

It wasn't always this way. In the 1990s, Iraqi artists enjoyed flash times--even as the test of the country suffered under economic sanctions--selling to embassy personnel and foreign visitors. "Those were good years," Al-Septi recalls. "I put on over 100 commercial shows from 1992 to 2002." But by relying on sales to a relatively non-critical audience of ambassadors' wives, international journalists and NGO officials, many Iraqi artists became rooted in a kind of second tier School of Paris abstraction, of they produced portraits of Mysterious Women of the East. Sculpture, in particular, suffered. One sees in Baghdad a monotonous parade of thin, squarish figures characterized by a self-consciously "mythic" manner--a kind of Jungian archetype-art gone awry. However, credit for subverting the standard should be given to Haider Wady, whose sculptures of heavy-footed, winged figures have the virtue of provoking hard-line Muslim critics affronted by the representation of religious imagery. Perhaps because their international clientele wanted pieces of authentic "Iraqi" art, the artists here never developed less traditional forms like photography or video; installation art is unknown.

No discussion of Iraqi art would be complete without mention of two older artists whose work, for many, defines modern-day Baghdad. Considered by some to be Iraq's greatest living artist, Mohammad Gheni produces realist bronze sculptures that dot the city, depicting such historical and fictional characters as the lawgiver Hammurabi, tale-spinner Scheherazade and thief-killer Kahramana. His large bronze Flying Carpet--based on a scene from The 1001 Arabian Nights in which children rise into the air on the legendary transportation device--is seen every day by journalists, soldiers and private security guards going in and out of the Palestine Hotel. Renowned painter and sculptor Ismail Fattah designed the Martyr's Monument (1983), which was commissioned by Saddam's regime to commemorate Iraqis slain in the disastrous 1980-88 war with Iran. Consisting of a 130-foot-high teardrop-shaped dome, painted turquoise and divided into halves, the monument contains a 16-foot metal rendering of the Iraqi flag and an underground museum. Unfortunately, the American army has taken over the site for a base, preventing average Iraqis from visiting one of the most beautiful structures in the Middle East.