Plato's Symposium
By: Zea Morvitz
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Zea Morvitz]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Point Reyes Station, CA]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 75
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; Libraries; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Symposium (Plato)
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.

"The destruction of al-Mutanabbi Street - the street of booksellers - in Baghdad by a car bomb in 2007, is a book burning, no different than the book burnings by religious or political fanatics from Europe's Dark Age to the present day, who mean to end freedom of thought and rigidly impose their single belief system on all. It brings to mind the destruction of the monumental Buddha images in the Bamiyan Valley of Afganistan, and also the burning of the library of Alexandria, and the munitions explosion that damaged the Parthenon in 1657, when Venetians bombarded the Ottoman forces occupying Greece. These last two incidents of destruction were casualties of war in which cultural loss is considered acceptable collateral damage, if it is considered at all. All such events expose the vulnerability and fragility of humanity's collective cultural storehouse. The art treasures of the past, as well as the present are always in danger of being lost through natural calamity, of course, but now, much more likely through human brutality, fear and malice. As W.B. Yeats wrote: 'Whatever flames upon the night, Man's own resinous heart has fed.' We are more than fortunate that some of the great works of the past have survived, but it's obvious that we cannot blandly assume that they will continue to survive. We artists, poets, musicians, dancers, writers, performers must be active caretakers, preservers and propagators of the world's culture. An Inventory of al-Mutanabbi Street, a project to recapture imaginatively the wealth of books offered there, brings to mind my own earliest experiences in bookstores, and the great pleasure I felt, and still feel browsing among books old and new. Despite growing up in a house full of books - or even because of that - I sought out bookstores, as soon as I could venture downtown alone. Seeking my own books was my way to learn about the world and what mattered too me. Usually I bought used books, tiny, cheap, ill-printed art books published in Europe in the 50's, poetry, and books I did not understand, books with mysterious and obscure subject matter, but that fit and felt good in my hand. Of course I did not simply buy these books, I took them home and poured over them. Each one was a key to a world full of meaning. I have many of these books still. For the Inventory of al-Mutanabbi Street project, I wanted to represent such a book as I might have picked up at a bookstore long ago. On line, at Archive.org, I found an out of copyright, but still readable, translation of Plato's Symposium. I chose this for its subject matter - on love, love of the beautiful and love of the Good - and because of its miraculous survival from the time of Socrates and Plato until now. To accompany this text I made drawings of damaged but surviving ancient sculpture, mostly Greek, which I based, not on the sculptures themselves, but on the grainy photo reproductions from the art books of the 50s that were my gateway into the art world. May there always be books"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"Zea Morvitz was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and lived in New York, before moving to California. She currently lives in the small village of Inverness, in the San Francisco Bay Area, with her husband, photographer Tim Graveson. In 2010, she spent 5 weeks as a Resident Artist at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland, where she began her current drawing series. Her work has been exhibited in the San Francisco Bay Area, across the U.S., in Canada, and Europe. Zea and husband, Tim Graveson, work and exhibit together from time to time. The artists began collaborating as members of Miz-Maze Theatre, a small group of visual artists working in performance and installation primarily during the 1990s. Many of the themes Morvitz continues to address in her current work were core ideas developed within Miz-Maze Theatre projects, including the history and future of books; forgotten languages and Alchemy. From the 1990s onward, Zea has engaged in collaborations with other artists, as well as pursuing her individual work. Zea Morvitz received a B.A. in Philosophy from Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts and an M.A. in Painting from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied with Elmer Bischoff"--The artist's website (viewed July 7, 2015).
Notes: Printed in an edition of 5.

Medium: The handbound book is laser-printed; the text block is Japanese Shiramine paper.

"The drawings were made in ballpoint pen on paper, and are based on photo reproductions found in my collection of art books from the 1950s, with the exception of page 60, which is based on a drawing or etching of a detail from Raphael's frseco in the Vatican, printed on the title page of the Jowett Symposium, and page 69, which I retrieved from the internet."

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.