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In a bold symposium on “fine art” and its concerns in Iraq: the legacy of the Iraqi plastic movement is dusty at the Ministry of Culture

عامر مؤيد
تصوير : محمود  رؤوف

Within the seminars of the Iraq International Book Fair “Absent Tohme Farman Course… The Palm and the Neighbors” and with the participation of artists Dr. Saad Al-Taie, Zuhair Al-Jazaeri, Jabr Alwan and Riad Nehme, a seminar entitled “Iraqi Plastic Artists” was held and moderated by critic Dr. Jawad Al-Zaidi.

At the beginning of the conversation, the artist Jabr Alwan confirmed that he was happy to meet his professor in the arts, Dr. Saeed Al-Taie, and spoke about the professors of the Institute of Fine Arts in the sixties of the last century, who built the Iraqi formation movement after the pioneers, and expressed his regret for the loss of the works of some plastic artists after they passed away outside Iraq without anyone keeping their works, such as the late Muhammad Mehr al-Din and Rafi Al-Nasiri, whose wife kept some of his works in Jordan, and among the names are Salah Jiyad and Ahmed Amir Mansour al-Bakri, Rahman al-Jabri and others, because their families were not present with them in the diaspora, the works of nearly five decades of Iraqi plastic art history have gone.

The spokesman demanded “the existence of a museum that includes these works and when he reviewed the Ministry of Culture in this regard, the minister facilitated the matter of entry to the museum and suddenly he saw a store no more and because of that he was saddened and almost had a fit of crying from what he saw and that the Ministry of Culture is unable to manage such a place because the legacy of this Iraqi plastic movement is filled with dust and damaged and he does not ask the state to acquire these works, but the establishment of a museum interested in these works so he spoke with the Foundation Al-Mada in order to present his idea to the public, where the President of Al-Mada Foundation, Fakhri Karim, received this idea and opened the doors of the newspaper to him in order to reach the goal that we hope to reach, not compared to international exhibitions such as exhibitions in France, which are visited by fifty million visitors and forty million in Italy.

While the intervention of the artist Riad Nehme was somewhat similar to Alwan, where he stressed that he “Zamil four ministers successively on the Ministry of Culture and there is no interest in plastic art,” stressing that he “visited in his life nearly a hundred museums and sometimes saw children in the museum learn patriotism through art and what our children do if they want to learn drawing because art is continuity and permanence communication between generations and continuity creates a form of national trends.”

He added, “If someone wants to visit Iraq, the first thing he aspires to visit is tourist places such as the museum, statues, main squares and model places, and Iraq is the source of this creativity and diversity,” stressing “the existence of an idea in this museum as the Museum of Ancient Antiquities or the Museum of Modern Works of Art and that there is a plastic heritage that allows us to establish this gathering and we should not give in to the disasters that caused interruptions in art and foundation, and we should not stand and wait for a golden or prosperous stage, but rather on On the contrary, we always suffer from interruptions and that this issue is fundamental and its existence is important and the rest of it must be preserved.”

In turn, Saad Al-Taie talked about the legacy of Faiq Hassan and how to agree that his house will be a museum for him like international artists, that one of the heirs of Faiq Hassan was a good follower and welcomed this idea, as I and Nouri Al-Rawi were with the artist Qahtan Al-Madfa’i, who was designed at the time, and indeed the house was prepared to become a successful museum and the opening was made by the minister, but his role ended after the opening and was neglected and closed due to lack of care.

He stated that “the public museum in the Gulbenkian Hall had important paintings, carved works and ceramic works, but unfortunately in 2003 during the war on Iraq, these works were lost, just as the works were stolen from the Arts Center and exported to unknown destinations, and now our works are scattered in several places, as I have works that were in Syria, Jordan and the UAE, and some works now do not know their fate,” noting that “the Iraqi administration has not acquired any painting of modern art since 1980 and did not enter any A museum where before this date all the general managers came to the exhibitions and bought paintings to be included in the museum.”

Al-Taie added, “If we want to return the paintings first, the correct headquarters and place must be prepared, and that there is a center on Haifa Street, which is the Baghdad Center for the Arts, but unfortunately the Ministry of Culture has included a large part of it, and the rest of it is only a store for some paintings, unlike what it was, and that this major responsibility lies with the state and that it must take care of its men to whom the poetic house that I mentioned in the beginning applies, and that a museum is established and attention is paid to all arts.” Especially the plastic arts.”

As for the writer and novelist Zuhair Al-Jazaeri, he said, “There should be a museum that preserves these works and preserves them because they must be displayed in their natural place, not to be located in some places from ministries and institutions, and there is no harm in selling some works of art because this work will be displayed in the buyer’s house, meaning that he appreciates this work and will be seen by friends and some visitors, and he is not surprised if some names are mentioned and some attendees do not recognize them.”

Al-Jazaery referred to the media and in the introduction of works in the virtual museum, which is an essential step towards the real realistic museum that exists, as we notice today, many artists have displayed works by other artists, and there are special places for Iraqi plastic art, but unfortunately some of these works we do not know where they are located or they exist or not because they are only in the picture, unlike a child sitting in front of the artist who draws and watches the brush strokes on the painting and the harmony of colors and lines, and this is the real work The museum is like my daughter who used to sit and try to imitate Picasso, and how beautiful it would be if we saw a child trying to imitate a healthy horse or Faiq Hassan, and he could grow up in this image and become a kind of communication between the former and the later, so that it is based on something called Iraqi Rafidani, inheriting all Assyrian and Sumerian arts.”

He pointed out that he is not a painter, “and I did not try to draw except on the notebook, but when I enter any museum, I live in an aura of beauty and visual reception that captivates me.”

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