Art as a means of surviving

By the end of the seventies the modern art movement had gained in artistic complexity and diversity, encompassing numerous approaches and styles. Large numbers of newly emerging artists supplied the movement with a constant flow of new impulses and challenges.

Throughout the eighties the first Gulf war was to vitiate reality in Iraq profoundly for eight years. The war with Iran hardly over, the second Gulf war following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent imposition of 13 years of history’s most punitive sanctions, the all-consuming degradations of life under a totalitarian regime, dealt yet another blow to the Iraqi society. The daily struggle and hardship, the political volatility and the human suffering led increasing numbers of artists to settle abroad.

Others continued to pursue their art inside Iraq. Among those artists from different generation came the enormous difficulty of daily life and the devastation of the two wars and then the destruction and occupation of their country. These artists among Iraqis watched helplessly as their country’s infrastructure was destroyed and their national treasures (museum and libraries) were allowed to be looted or burnt. Despite all these, they were able to continue their intellectual interest in modern art and made these difficulties an effective means to activate their energies and to step beyond the injustice they all suffer under the harsh political atmosphere of their country.

These artists are now creating challenging new horizons which art work can contribute throughout its development to the modern art movement in Iraq which has been characterized by a combination of intellectual discourse, art theory and criticism on the one hand and practical exploration and experimentation on the other. This gives the Iraqi scene a particular impact and identity which in its artistic maturity is at the forefront of development in the Arab world.

I hope for those who look at these paintings the glow and the beauty are not only invitations to visual enjoyment. Behind the forms and the colours surviving artists go hidden who speak of their country. Our eyes must listen.

D. Azzawi