A bomb explodes just once
Subtitle: a book a thousand times
By: Barbara Tetenbaum
Contributors: Petroski, Henry, author; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [B. Tetenbaum]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Portland, Oregon]
Language: eng
Subjects: Violence; Pictorial works; Booksellers and bookselling; Bombings; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Protest movements; Books and reading in art; Intellectual life; Social conditions; Censorship; Terrorism in art; In art; War and civilization; Vehicle bombs; Visual literature; Specimens; Cultural property; Destruction and pillage; Conceptual art; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

"Barb Tetenbaum (Professor and Dept. Head, Book Arts) is an artist working in printed books and installation. She founded her imprint, Triangular Press, in 1979 and this work can be found in many private and public collections in the U.S. and abroad. She is the recipient of two Fulbright Lecture awards to teach in Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as other honors, including a Koopman Distinguished Chair at the Hartford Art School in 2012, and a Sally Bishop Fellowship at the Center for Book Arts in New York City, in 2011. She has taught workshops at Haystack School of Crafts, Penland, Wells College, Idyllwild, Pyramid Atlantic, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and the Paper and Book Intensive. Tetenbaum has a BS (Fine Art) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; she has an MFA in Printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago"--Artist's statement from Letterpress Commons website (viewed July 24, 2015).
Notes: Medium: Instructions on cardboard (to be placed inside accompanying book). Includes title page sheet created by the artist.

Accompanying book is Henry Petroski's The book on the bookshelf (New York : Alfred A. Knopf : Distributed by Random House, c1999).

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.