Baghdad 1258 A.D.
By: Ruth Ginsberg-Place
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: [Ruth Ginsberg-Place]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: [Boston, Massachusetts]
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; Autobiography in art; Politics in art; Nature in art; 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.

Ruth Ginsberg-Place, photographer, printmaker and book artist, was born in New York City. Trained in painting and fiber arts, she had been a tapestry artist early in her career. Her artists' books, accompanied by text, deal with nature, autobiography and politics. Ruth's latest one-person exhibition was 'Wanderings on the Schoodic Peninsula, ' photographs and journals created in residency at Acadia National Park. After receiving her MFA from Syracuse University, she taught art at Southern Illinois University. Collections include: Boston Public Library, The Art Institute of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University's Center for Bioengineering, and others. Her studio is at the Boston Center for the Arts.
Notes: Printed in an edition of 10.

Medium: Archival pigment print created from three monotype paintings, then printed on both sides of Rives BFK paper.

"In 1258 A.D., Mongol invaders plundered the city of Baghdad while the young calligrapher, Ibn Shakir, watched from a minaret. He witnessed soldiers destroying ten thousands of books and throwing them into the Tigris River where the ink from the pages mixed with the blood from dead bodies, turning the waters red and black. For the first time, he made drawings to record the devastation. After fleeing Baghdad, he retrained as a painter, becoming the Islamic world's greatest miniaturist. He believed that unlike ripping a page of text from a book that would destroy its continuity and meaning, if a painted page was torn out of a book, it could live on as an individual image or become part of a new book, and perhaps have an eternal life. In commemorating the destruction of a street devoted to the written word, the Al-Mutanabbi Starts Here project has parallels to Ibn's story. Although he never wrote again, he continued to express himself in painting. Expression lives on and transforms. My book depicts the blue and black waters of the Tigris churning violently with blood red streaming through them, as a grey figure watches. The text describes the plunder; the cover abstracts the turbulent waters"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

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.