Nov 03 2016

Qatar: Three Locations, Two Artists, One Capital

by Brady Ng

A visitor stands before Western Bird (1995–96) by DIA AL-AZZAWI. All photos by Brady Ng for ArtAsiaPacific.

In mid-October, two prominent Iraqi artists were featured in Doha—London-based Dia al-Azzawi and Canadian-Iraqi Mahmoud Obaidi. The Qatar Museums Authority has organized a retrospective exhibition for al-Azzawi, curated by Catherine David, deputy director of the National Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompidou. Featuring over 400 art objects created between 1963 and 2016, the retrospective is titled “I am the cry, who will give a voice to me? Dia al-Azzawi: A Retrospective (From 1963 Until Tomorrow),” and is shown in two locations. The first part of the exhibition, held in Qatar Museums Gallery Al Riwaq, profiles al-Azzawi’s practice that bridges art and politics, and charts some of the sources of his inspiration—the Six-Day War in 1967, the collapse of the Palestinian liberation movement in the 1970s, the Gulf War in 1991, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and even his own military service on the Kurdistan war front in the mountains of northern Iraq in the early 1970s.

Contemplations on war and revolution, from Shi’r, issue no.1 (1969). DIA AL-AZZAWI is a trained archeologist and was the director of the Iraqi Antiquities Department in Baghdad from 1968 to 1976. In many of his drawings and paintings, the hollow eyes found in Sumerian sculptural figures are a prominent feature.

DIA AL-AZZAWI during his military service on the Kurdistan war front. The artist is seen in the front row on the left.

DIA AL-AZZAWI, Human States VI, 1974.

DIA AL-AZZAWI, Every Morning the War gets up from Sleep, 2004. In the past five decades, al-Azzawi has created many artist books that were inspired by the literature he consumed. Here we see a poem by Fadhil al-Azzawi, a prominent Iraqi poet who, like Dia, left his homeland in the 1970s and found a home in Western Europe. “I am the cry, who will give voice to me?” is the title of one of Fadhil’s poems.

(From left to right) Installation view of DIA AL-AZZAWI’s bronze sculpture Al-Hawāsem’s Wagon (2015), along with the paintings Rainy Day (1994) and Elegy to My Trapped City (2011).

Rear view of DIA AL-AZZAWI’s Al-Hawāsem’s Wagon (2015), with the painting Mission of Destruction (2004–07) in the background.

DIA AL-AZZAWI, Victim’s Portrait, 1991. In the 1980s, al-Azzawi withdrew
from political engagement in his art practice, but the American-led Gulf War
in 1991 renewed his sense of urgency to interpret events in Iraq through his
artwork.

Detail of Jenin (2002) by DIA AL-AZZAWI. In an otherwise monochromatic painting, al-Azzawi’s red handprint is part of his signature, but perhaps also a reminder of the casualties in the Battle of Jenin that took place in a Palestinian refugee camp in April 2002.

DIA AL-AZZAWI stands before Sabra and Shatila Massacre (1982–83). In 2012, the Tate Museum in London acquired this mural-sized drawing.

The other half of the exhibition explores a gentler side of al-Azzawi’s art practice: his encounters with the written word. The artworks shown in Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art plot al-Azzawi’s interpretations of the shared mythologies that bind together Arab nations and cultures, as well as his engagements with contemporary poets who, like the artist, seek to address the anxieties of the contemporary Arab world.

DIA AL-AZZAWI, Masroor and His Beloved,1967. In this early creation, we see how al-Azzawi depicted Iraqi folklore with forms he encountered during his studies in archeology.

Installation view of The Seven Golden Odes 1–12, 1978. Al-Azzawi was inspired by a collection of poems known as “The Hanging Seven,” which were written in the pre-Islamic poetic tradition. They were apparently embroidered in gold thread on linen and hung on the shrine of Ka’aba in Mecca. However, there is no physical proof to support this claim.

Installation view of various sculptures created in the 1980s. When al-Azzawi settled in London in 1976, he had also fled the consolidation of power by Iraq’s Ba’ath party, which eventually transformed the nation into a one-party state. His sentiments of exile and disaffection were channeled into an increasingly abstract art practice, resulting in experiments in modeling color in three dimensions on wood, terra-cotta, foam and polyester resin.

DIA AL-AZZAWI, From the Diary of Umru’ al-Qays in Byzantium 2015. Poem by Hasb al-Sheikh Jaafar.

DIA AL-AZZAWI, Poetry Book – Mahmoud Darwish, 1995.

Coinciding with al-Azzawi’s retrospective exhibition is Mahmoud Obaidi’s “Fragments,” hosted in Qatar Museums Gallery Katara. While part of al-Azzawi’s retrospective depicts senseless destruction and its consequences, there is also a sense of hope and community, and a dialogue with the Arab World at large. Obaidi’s show, however, seethes with anger and acrimony.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Family (2016) by MAHMOUD OBAIDI. To create this life-size sculpture, the artist mixed discarded American weapons and Humvee parts with melted bronze. The entire process took several months. Referring to the sculpture, Obaidi remarked, “It says this is what you did to us.”

With the backing of Sheikha al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the Qatar Museums Authority develops art-related programs for the country, including those in the Fire Station art space and a plethora of public art projects.

The Fire Station gallery space was built in 1982, and for 30 years served as a civil defense building used by the Doha fire brigade. When it was handed over to the Qatar Museums Authority in late 2012, the building was repurposed for use not only as an art gallery, but also as an incubation hub for individuals selected for Fire Station’s annual artist-residency program. To remind visitors of its past, several fire engines are parked outside the building.

Even the old training tower used by firemen was preserved for the Fire Station art space, which some visitors have commented could be mistaken for a large sculpture.

HANA AL-SAADI, one of the Fire Station’s current artists-in-residence, in her designated studio space provided by the facility.

On a peninsula stands the Museum of Islamic Art, which takes the form of a ziggurat, designed by architect IM PEI.

IM PEI visited landmark mosques around the world over a period of six months. Ultimately, he found inspiration in the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun in Cairo, which strongly impacted the museum’s interior design.

The Qatar Museums Authority displays art in various locations in the capital. At seven meters in height, URS FISCHER’s largest edition of Untitled (Lamp / Bear) (2005–06) sits in the Hamad International Airport.

Eighty kilometers west of Doha, in the Qatari desert’s Brouq Nature Reserve, RICHARD SERRA erected East-West/West-East (2014), a set of four steel plates each over 14 meters in height. As the monoliths slowly rust and erode over time, one is left to ponder the thoughts of generations far in the future as they encounter this sculpture in what may no longer be a sparse, barren landscape.

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Brady Ng is Hong Kong desk editor at ArtAsiaPacific.