Iraq: Still Going Strong - press release
Galerie Amber: Hooglandse Kerkgracht 8, 2312 HT Leiden, 071-5149040, [email protected], www.eastwestfoundation.org
Press release: 'Iraq: still going strong', January 16th to February 27th 2005; Galerie Amber Laurierstraat 71 Amsterdam, open Fr. 17.00-21.00, Sa. and Su. 11.00 – 18.00 hrs.
Continuation: March 6th to April 3rd Galerie Amber, Hooglandsekerkgracht 8. Leiden.
Whilst the Iraqi, as we hope, go to the ballot box, opens Irma Roefs-de Wit her new Galerie Amber at Laurierstraat 71 Amsterdam with the first Dutch exhibition of Iraqi painters, who in and after 1991 have remained in their country. ‘Iraq: still going strong’ is the title of this 7th project of the East West Foundation (EWF), a corporation which formed itself around Galerie Amber in Leiden and which organises projects of fine art from the Far and the Middle East.
On request of the EWF the paintings have been selected by Mr Ali Talib, a painter*, who currently lives in The Hague and who until 1991 was head of the Graphics Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad. Dia Azzawi, himself a painter and a collector of Iraqi art, has kindly agreed to inaugurate the exhibition and give an introductory remark. Whilst about 4 million, among whom many intellectuals and artists in the nineties left the country, continued others under constantly more awkward circumstances their work. From 1939 artists in Baghdad were educated in the Institute of Fine Arts. In 1961 the before-mentioned Academy of Fine Arts, connected to Baghdad’s university was established. Looking to the current situation one can hardly imagine that from 1960 to 1990 Baghdad was pre-eminently the flowering centre of modern art in the Arab world.
With the recently died Shakir Hassan el Saïd and Ismaïl Fattah, who participated in the triënnial of New Delhi and the biënnials of Venice and Sao Paulo, Amber shows icons from the Iraqi modern art history. Salem al Dabagh belongs to the older generation, but the five others finished their study not long before papa Bush attacked the country. In the meantime all of them penetrated to countries in the Middle East, but also to Europe or America. Where one makes tangible the ancient heritage of hard sculpture and architecture, the other draws attention by the Islamic poetical power and the dreamy atmosphere
Will after the elections many of the nearly eighty fled Iraqi, visual artists return? Can Baghdad play again it’s emancipating role? It’s a burning question. With this project the EWF hopes to give a glimpse of Iraq’s rich cultural substrate.
Octaaf Roefs
*Until January 12 exhibition in Galerie Concourt, Oude Molstraat 14 B, The Hague
