“His experience is wholly unique: His father was a pioneer of Modern Art in Iraq,” said Tam Rankin, program manager of the Portland State Middle East Studies Center, about Iraqi visiting artist and scholar Salam Atta Sabri.
“His experience is wholly unique: His father was a pioneer of Modern Art in Iraq,” said Tam Rankin, program manager of the Portland State Middle East Studies Center, about Iraqi visiting artist and scholar Salam Atta Sabri.
On Monday, Feb. 27, the center will host a lecture by Sabri, titled “Modern Art in Iraq: From the Pioneers of the 1930s to the Looting of 2003,” in the Smith Memorial Student Union. Sabri, the director of the National Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad, will discuss the history of Iraqi modern art and the trials faced by his institution in restoring exhibits lost to years of war and theft.
“For student attendees, this is a unique experience to not only hear from, but also speak with, an important scholar in Iraqi modern art,” Rankin said.
Modern art in Iraq has much in common with Western contemporary art, but it is also entirely distinct, having been shaped by its own extensive cultural heritage and history.
Dr. Nada Shabout, associate professor of art history at the University of North Texas who has written extensively on the subject, advised against direct comparisons between Iraqi and Western modern art.
“Iraqi modern art…was fully engaged with modernism,” Shabout said. “Many of the pioneer artists studied in Europe and were contemporary to many known European artists.”
The art covers a wide range in subject matter and compositional approach. Iraqi artists depicted landscapes and portraits and produced abstract and impressionistic works.
“Iraq had a very progressive modern art movement, and artists were more focused on aesthetics rather than topics,” Shabout said. “Topics were important around the mid-20th century as an ideological method to construct and assert a national Iraqi identity.”
Shabout is among those responsible for helping Sabri visit the U.S., and has been actively involved in efforts to raise awareness of looted Iraqi art. She founded the Modern Art Iraq Archive project, which catalogs missing artwork from the region. It was through this project that she met Sabri.
Sabri’s visit to PSU is being facilitated with the help of the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq, a consortium of American universities and institutions devoted to promoting research within Iraq. The PSU Middle East Studies Center is an institutional member of the Institute.
“We want to connect some of these people to American scholars and the American general public while explaining what’s been going on in Iraq and how that might affect scholarship on Iraq, of Iraq and in Iraq,” said Beth Kangas, executive director of the Institute.
The MESC joined with the Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland Community College to apply for the grant which made Sabri’s Portland visit possible. That grant, awarded by the Council of American Overseas Research Center, was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
“At the center, we’re especially proud of that collaboration, to be plugged into these national and international organizations and also to be partners with PCC and PNCA,” Rankin said.
Sabri’s lecture is just one installment in an ongoing series presented by the MESC, which aims to host one lecture each month on issues relevant to the region.
“We’ve had speakers with a variety of backgrounds on a variety of topics, from academics to activism,” Rankin said. “We try to conceive it in the broadest possible terms.”
Even today, art lost during the war is sold on the black market or tucked away in the dark corners of the underfunded National Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad. Sabri’s discussion will provide an opportunity for students and faculty alike to look back to Iraq, now that American troops have made their departure.
“Americans don’t hear a lot from individual Iraqis about the current situation in Iraq,” Kangas said. “So when someone from the academic fields has a chance to come to the United States, we try to expand the audiences that get to hear from the visitor.”
