Dia Azzawi Dia courtesy of the artist presented Selected works 1964–1973 works Selected in pdf. copy to www.ibrahimicollection for publishing on the site courtesy of the artist presented in pdf. copy to www.ibrahimicollection for publishing on the site Dia Azzawi Dia courtesy 1964–1973 works Selected of the artist Booth S16 15 - 19 October 2014 presented in pdf. copy to www.ibrahimicollection for publishing on the site courtesy Dia Azzawi is internationally renowned as one of the pioneers of modern Arab art. Azzawi’s oeuvre includes a range of subjects derived from Iraq’s of Mesopotamian heritage, Arabic poetry and topical the political issues, executed in a variety of media: painting, sculpture, prints, drawings, and book art. artist He lives and works in London but continues to draw inspiration from his homeland, Iraq. Colophon presented Born in Baghdad in 1939, Azzawi started his artistic This catalogue is published in conjunction with the Frieze career in 1964, after graduating from the Institute Masters exhibition held in Regent’s Park, London, 15–19 October 2014. of Fine Arts in Baghdad and completing a degree in archaeology from Baghdad University in 1962. Published in 2014. In 1969, Azzawi co-founded the New Vision group, © Charles Pocock uniting fellow artists ideologically and culturally as © Saleem Al-Bahloly in opposed to stylistically. Through his involvement © Nada Shabout © Art Advisory Associates Ltd. pdf. with New Vision, Azzawi found inspiration in contemporary subjects and issues, particularly All works by Dia Azzawi © Dia Azzawi copy the plight of the Palestinians. From 1968 to 1976, Used by permission. All rights reserved. Azzawi was the director of the Iraqi Antiquities Department in Baghdad. He has lived in London ISBN: 978-1-907051-37-1 to since 1976, where he served as art advisor to the A catalogue record for this book is available from the British city’s Iraqi Cultural Centre from 1977 to 1980. Library, Library of Congress, Bibliothèque National de www.ibrahimicollection France, Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Al Noor Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be With exhibitions of his work held worldwide – reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted including, more recently, the unveiling of Sabra in any form or by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, and recording or otherwise, without the Shatila at the Tate Modern – his art features written permission of the publishers. in international private and public collections Art Direction and Design by Noura Haggag of Meem Gallery including the Museums of Modern Art in Baghdad, Damascus and Tunis; Jordan National Gallery Edited by Samar Faruqi of Meem Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Published by the Publications Department of Meem with Art Modern Art, Doha; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Advisory Associates Ltd. Kinda Foundation, Saudi Arabia; Una Foundation, Cover Photography by: Chris Wood, London. Casablanca; Arab Monetary Fund, Abu Dhabi; Development Fund, Kuwait; Jeddah International All the other images photographed by: Anthony Dawton. Airport; British Museum, Tate Modern, and Victoria London. for and Albert Museum, London; Institut du Monde Meem Gallery Arabe, Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Colas P.O. Box 290 publishing Dubai, United Arab Emirates Foundation, Paris; Harba Collection, Iraq and Tel: +971 4 3477883 Italy; Gulbenkian Collection, Lisbon; and Library of www.meemartgallery.com Congress and the World Bank, Washington, DC. on the site courtesy 10 Contributors of 12 the Foreword artist 16 Utopian Reality: 26 Dia Azzawi, 1964– presented 30 1973 40 Iraqi Art in the 50 in 1960S & 1970S pdf. 80 90 In Conversation with copy Dia Azzawi to www.ibrahimicollectionExhibitions & Collections Bibliography Frieze Paintings Drawings Appendix for publishing on the site courtesy 11 10 Saleem Al-Bahloly received a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2014. During the year 2014-2015, he is a fellow at EUME, of a multi-disciplinary research programme at the the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin, where he is working on a book about art and the critique of artist violence in the Arab world during the 1970s. Charles Pocock is Managing Director of Meem Gallery and the founder of Al Noor Institute of presented Contributors Middle Eastern Art (NIMEA) and Al Noor Library. He is cultural advisor to the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation. He has written and produced numerous books on modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art, including publications on the in artists Dia Azzawi, Parviz Tanavoli, Ali Omar Ermes pdf. and Abbas Kiarostami. He also writes art columns on the subject in GCC journals. He provides commentary on the Middle Eastern art market to a copy number of leading international newspapers such as the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street to Journal, Financial Times and Art Newspaper. He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic and Royal Geographical www.ibrahimicollectionSocieties in London. Nada Shabout is Professor of Art History and the Director of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Studies Initiative (CAMCSI) at the University of North Texas. She is the founding president of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World, Iran and Turkey (AMCA); the author of Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics (University of Florida Press, 2007); co-editor with Salwa Mikdadi of New Vision: Arab Art in the 21st Century (Thames & Hudson, 2009); and is currently co-editing with Anneka Lenssenfor and Sarah Rogers the forthcoming volume Modern Art of the Arab World: Primary Documents, part of thepublishing International Program at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017. She is the founder and project director of the Modern Art Iraq Archive (MAIA), which documents and digitizes modern Iraqi heritage. Shabout is the Consulting Director of Research at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha. on the site courtesy 13 12 What Professor Nada Shabout and Saleem Al- Bahloly have written in their essays in this catalogue about Dia Azzawi and his work cannot be bettered. of I really cannot thank them enough for really getting theto grips with the subject matter and examining the body of work exhibited and the period it was producedartist in. Both Nada and Saleem are exceptional Foreword art historians and it is a great honour to have them both contributing to this publicationpresented on Azzawi. I have worked with Dia now for eight years. We first met at his studio eleven years ago in 2003 and it took a few years to prove my worth. I have learnt so much from and with Dia. I cannot do justice with words to the relationship we have built over the years, both professional and personal. I will Azzawi: 1964 to 1974 in endeavour to ‘take it easy’ in times of stress and pdf. Kaissar Rizkallah, when something is unacceptable, be quite happy Charles Pocock, and Dia Azzawi to say ‘insult!’—expressions well known to all in La Mirande, those who know Dia well. I believe the relationship copy Avignon, August 2014 between an artist and gallery should be close and mutually beneficial. There has to be respect, trust to Eastern art but to Azzawi’s work from an early collection and after her passing in 2008, the estate and understanding between both parties. We learn www.ibrahimicollectionperiod of his career, the 1960s and 1970s, many of was sold at Skinner Auction House in 2009, where from each other and grow together. which have not been exhibited in London or Europe. we acquired the work for the Barjeel Art Foundation. Having moved from Baghdad to Britain in 1976, It feels that we have come full circle, from 1964 to The international awareness of modern and London is very much home to Azzawi—his studio is 2014, fifty years. contemporary Middle Eastern art has grown here as well as his family. rapidly over the past eight years. In 2012, Azzawi’s I cannot thank enough Samar Faruqi, Meem’s masterpiece Sabra Shatila joined the permanent I would like to thank Dia Azzawi for being my guide, Director of Research, for editing and organizing collection of the Tate Modern, hung in the my accomplice and above all for being an incredible the content of this publication; Noura Haggag, our ‘Transformed Visions’ display at the museum.* We friend. The project at Frieze Masters 2014 has been Creative Director, for designing a great book; and have seen the works of Azzawi, Parviz Tanavoli, put together with Dia and he has supported us in Meagan Kelly Horsman, Meem’s Director of Business Ibrahim Salahi, Marwan and Abbas Kiarostami all ways: with the catalogue and the exhibition. I Development, who joined the gallery one year ago, join the permanent collections of the Tate Modern, would like to thank Tala Azzawi-White for lending for her focus on developing our participation in British Museum, Centre Pompidou, LACMA, MoMA, us some of her father’s magnificent works as well international art fairs and making Frieze Masters V & A, Mathaf, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and the as the collectors who lent works who would like tofor happen for Meem. Thank you all for your patience, Met in the past six years, to name a few leading remain anonymous. I would like to thank Sultan bin understanding and for making this happen. international collections. Meem Gallery has worked Sooud Al-Qassemi and the Barjeel Art Foundation publishing directly with these leading artists and to see their for the loan of Pretenders Mask, a work Meem Charles Pocock work exhibited to a broader audience and as part of acquired for Barjeel at Skinner Auctions in Boston, Managing Director, Meem Gallery this movement is a great honour. Massachusetts. The painting was first acquired Dubai directly from Azzawi’s first solo show at Al-Wasiti September 2014 Dia Azzawi has been at the forefront of Gallery in Baghdad in 1965 by Louis Albert McMillen contemporary Arab art for fifty years.