Round 3 Transcript for Anne Glickman

Anne Glickman (AG): I would venture to guess that when most Americans think about modern Iraqi art they either they draw a complete blank. Or they conjure propaganda art-- like the famous Saddam Hussein statue being toppled by American troops.

But many Iraqi artists today are producing and exhibiting small, handmade, sketchbooks which in Arabic are called dafatir, meaning “notebook.” It’s an art form that’s largely unknown to Western audiences.

Dr. Nada Shabout knows just as much as much as anyone in the world about this contemporary Iraqi art. She’s a leading art historian in the field and is here by phone to talk with us today.

Welcome!

Dr. Nada Shabout (DNS): Thank you.

AG: How are Iraqi people responding to contemporary art, if not the dafatir particularly?

DNS: Well today I would say they’re really not responding very much because there is very much... very little that is being exhibited. You can imagine that galleries, one after the other, started closing down. There were some exhibitions up until 2005. And again they will have some ah limited number of viewers because of securities. When you can’t take your children to school you really are not going to think about going to an opening in a gallery.

AG: Right.

DNS: But in general, for most Iraqis that were able to see that... to them that was part of life. They were actually seeing the... ah, um their daily life now articulated in a visual form in these notebooks.

Iraqis had in general had a very flexible relationship with…a very direct relationship with the production of their artists.

AG: Right.

DNS: And that I think is changing now.

AG: And, um I read somewhere that it is kind of a belief that under Saddam Hussein there was only propaganda work being produced, but actually um, modern Iraqi artists were free to produce more work than American’s might think. Can you talk a little about that?

DNS: Sure. Absolutely. Yes.

Unfortunately, with the... you know the world media is discovering contemporary modern... contemporary Iraqi art after 2003. There were many um... what one could think of as clichéd misconceptions about Iraqi art. As that all our art was produced under the Baath regime and Saddam Hussein would be propaganda art or Baathist art.

And certainly some were that. Some were propaganda art. All the portraits of the presidents…the former presidents, Saddam Hussein, or any other sort of the narratives that were woven more of social realism that was being produced would fall under that category.

But, um equally all the rest of the artists continued to produce and develop their work without having to do that.

Not every artist in Iraq produced propaganda art.

And actually, also, one must say not every art that was produced to glorify the regime was necessarily bad art. It would be propaganda. But most museums of the world are full of propaganda art.

AG: Right. And just in terms of your personal motivation to bring this art to national…American consciousness, what is motivating you to do this? This seems like a huge undertaking and something that would require a lot of determination... and I’m wondering what keeps you going to get this work out there?

DNS: Well, I mean, you know…of course, I am an art historian and I do specialize in modern contemporary Arab art of the whole region. And... but I am also of Iraqi origin. And so that becomes a little bit more personal ah for me. And I am…ah…I know, and am in contact with many of the artists.

Iraq had a very strong modern art movement…which even when I was just studying modern Arab art in general, led me continuously to Iraqi artists. And, and it was easy for me to understand what they’re doing.

And so as an art historian, I do have an obligation to bring… particularly in the specialty of my work... I do have the obligation to bring that work to the surface. And have it as part of the global art history... um developments.

But also as an Iraqi I would like to have the work of the Iraqi artists more understood... perhaps a way of understanding Iraqi culture more. But also because I think Iraqi art really deserves it place in world art.

AG: And you mentioned the Iraqi artists that you’re actually in contact with are they actually in…risking their personal safety by producing work right now?

DNS: Yes, very much so, to the effect that, when I started... when I curated the show Dafatir part of the 17 artists, perhaps half of them were inside of Iraq and the other half was outside. By today, none of the artists that I had curated – a few of them have passed on, away since – but also the rest have left the country because most of them came under threats to their lives and families. And otherwise they are not able to, to create anyway.

So, yes... as all intellectuals in Iraq, artists too are now being threatened. And particularly as, you know, as more religious sentiments increase and the government…their creativities are being controlled.

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