Different shades in the sand
By: Frans Baake
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Enschede, Netherlands
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; 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.

Frans Baake studied Graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts AKI in Enschede. Afterwards, he took a course in Graphics at the Rijkacademie in Amsterdam. Baake usually makes printings and artists' books, containing photographs, woodcuts, collages, texts, associations. He often prints, binds, and publishes them in limited editions, and his books can be found in international collections.
Notes: Printed in an edition of 3 copies.

Medium consists of stenciled, abstract forms on sandpaper.

"Looking for elements that could possibly fit into an inventory, Frans Baake decided to stay close to his interest in basic shapes and forms, meanwhile thinking of a typical atmosphere that the Middle-East landscape represents to him. In 8 more or less abstract forms stenciled on sandpaper, he used the roughness of the paper itself. These shadows are reflections of forms; they belong to each other. While the object might have disappeared, the shade remains as a memory. Each picture has been introduced by the letterpress-pressure of the title of the book"--The Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website (viewed May 8, 2015).

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.