IRAQ ARTEFACTS LENT TO VENICE
Forty ancient objects spanning six millennia and works from eight modern artists will be exhibited at event in May
Historical riches, some recovered from looting, on their way to Biennale,
LONDON // From the glories of ancient culture to darker shades of contemporary conflict, works by Iraq’s most influential artists are to go on display at a major European event expected to draw at least half a million visitors.
The National Pavilion of Iraq’s exhibition, entitled Archaic, will be staged at the 57th Venice Biennale in May and feature artefacts spanning six millennia from the Neolithic Age to the Neo-Babylonian period, alongside the works of eight modern Iraqi artists.
Apart from those recovered abroad in recent years after being looted following the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the artefacts – loaned by the National Museum of Baghdad – will be leaving Iraq for the first time.
Their appearance at the prestigious Italian event will be accompanied by newly commissioned work by the Belgian Francis Alys on the subject of war and the artist.
Among the contemporary Iraqi figures represented in Venice will be Ali Arkady, a photojournalist who has covered the turbulent post-Saddam era and reported regularly from the front line since ISIL’s attacks in Iraq began in 2014.
His images will be arranged in three sections, illustrating how war affects soldiers, civilians and the land.
Details of the Iraq pavilion have been published by the Ruya Foundation for Contemporary Culture in Iraq, an NGO founded in 2012 with the aim of promoting Iraqi art around the world.
Explaining the exhibition’s title, the foundation describes a country “whose existing political, administrative, social and economic reality is arguably as archaic as its ancient heritage”.
The curators – led by Tamara Chalabi, the foundation’s Iraqi-Lebanese chairwoman and co- founder and an authority on Middle East art and culture – said: “In exploring Iraq’s artistic heritage from the Neolithic Age to the present, Archaic will also explore the different ways in which Iraq’s ancient past has affected its modern and contemporary visual languages, examining the opportunities and restrictions presented to the nation by its immense ancient inheritance, in the context of today’s fragile reality.”
Among 40 ancient objects that will be displayed in Venice are items from the Halaf period (6,100BC to 5,100BC) and the later Neo- Babylonian period (635BC to 539BC).
They include items stolen from the national museum in 2003 as Saddam’s forces tried to fight advancing US troops from inside the building.
Thousands of the items stolen never left Iraq and many have been returned to the museum, including some objects that turned up in the West.
Not all of these will be taken to Italy for the Venice Biennale. But the exhibits will include a Babylonian stone weight measure and a clay figurine, dating from 5,000BC and appearing to depict a fertility goddess. Both were returned to Iraq from the Netherlands in 2010.
In selecting ancient artefacts for display, the curators have identified seven themes: water, earth, the hunt, writing, music, conflict and exodus.
Six of the eight artists to be displayed in Venice are alive – Arkady, Sherko Abbas, Sadik Kwaish Alfraji, Luay Fadhil, Nadine Hattom and Sakar Sleman. Most are creating new work for the event.
The other two artists whose work will be seen are Jewad Selim, who died in 1961, and Hassan Shaker Al Said, who died in 2004. Both are acclaimed pioneers of Iraq’s modern art tradition.
One exhibit will be Selim’s The Hen Seller, a work that has not been presented in public since its first showing in the 1950s.
The curators say many artists working in Iraq today “continue to abide by an orthodox aesthetic tradition that has been limited by mid-century education trends and the lack of cultural exchange in Iraq in recent decades”. The Ruya foundation views one of its roles as nurturing and promoting artists who break free of such constraints, which explains why video and photography will be represented alongside traditional paintings and sculptures.
The Vienna Biennale opens to the public on May 13 and will run until November 26.