Untitled
Subtitle: a collection of maps for Al-Mutanabbi Street : Baghdad, Iraq
By: Suzanne Vilmain
Contributors: Counting Coup Press; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library); Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Publisher: [Counting Coup Press]
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Santa Fe, New Mexico]
Language: mul
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; Maps in art; Artists' books
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.

"Quaquaversal - wheresoever - turned in whatever way towards a single point viewing from right or left - reflecting the direction of written languages - English/Arabic ... map cartography in multiple languages, timelines, histories, beliefs & boundaries ... ephemera from old newspapers, children's books, atlases, dictionaries, encyclopedias ... Other names for Wheresoever: Al-Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad, Bagdad, Iraq, Mesopotamia (The Land Where Two Rivers Meet - Greek), British Mandate Of Mesopotamia, Persia, Ottoman Empire, Far East, Middle East Asia Minor, Assyria, Sumer, Chaldean Empire, Garden Of Eden, Paradise. Designed in recycled wooden cigar boxes from Cuba, the container is a conceptual form of a map-holder (knee-board) that I saw in an old National Geographic photo. I designed this edition of books as a collection of maps and ephemera - juxtaposing images from satellites to stone carvings. The books are untitled and unscripted - no sequence, no numbered pages, no order - with over 17 different names for this ancient place. A jet pilot wore a metal clipboard strapped on above the knee so as to free hands for flying while unfolding and reading maps. There is no sequence of time, no preferred direction, no real sense to be made of any of this! There is no anatomy of bombing, no need for actual maps, no real sense to be made of any of this! There is no point of view that is right, no point on a map that makes sense to be bombed, same as it ever was; no real sense to be made of any of this"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: Medium: Recycled wooden cigar boxes in containers.

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.

"My experience with books has been a life-long engagement - scribbling marginalia, deconstruction, conceptual, rebellious, reader, writer, designer, typesetter, printer, artist, collector, bookstore, book maker and now, letterpress. I've been under the influence of teachers, mentors, books read, art seen, workshops and in the company of many collaborators. My mind's eye is like a spinning collide-ascope with surrealist-einsteinian hands (4th dimension) which includes transparency, impression & mark making"--Vamp & Tramp, Booksellers website (viewed July 30, 2015).