Dafatir: Contemporary Iraqi Book Art

Organized by Dr. Nada Shabout, Assistant Professor of Art History and Guest Curator
University of North Texas Art Gallery
Friday, January 19, 2007 to Saturday, March 31, 2007

http://www.centerforbookarts.org/newsite/exhibits/
archive/showdetail.asp?showID=160

A group exhibition, Dafatir (notebooks), explores the proliferation of book-form art as currently practiced by contemporary Iraqi artists. Organized by Dr. Nada Shabout, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Texas, the exhibition will introduce the work of 15 contemporary Iraqi artists, some still living and working in Baghdad, Iraq, while others in exile in various countries and for various lengths of time. The artists and their works are selected to present the experiments of three different generations of Iraqi artists, including one female artist, and their diverse approaches. The exhibition will launch their work as a unique contemporary Iraqi experiment, and present the Iraqi culture as a current living entity defying the old clichés of exoticism. It will also bring contemporary Iraqi book art to New York City for the first time and show a different face of a nation that is currently part of our daily news.

Dafatir features works by numerous distinguished artists, including Dia al-Azzawi, Hana’ Malallah and Kareem Rissan. Ismail Fattah, Dia al-Azzawi, Rafa al-Nasiri, Kareem Rissan, Nazar Yahya, Nedim Kufi, Mohammed al-Shamary, Ghassan Gha’eb, Hana’ Malallah, Ammar Dawod, Sadiq Kawish Alfraji, Samar Usama, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Mohammad Fakher, and Mahmmud al-Obidi.