Ask why
By: Ronni Komarow
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: [Ronni Komarow]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: [Boston, MA]
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: "Ronni Komarow is a teacher, artist and curator living and working in Boston, Massachusetts"--The artist's website (viewed June 23, 2015).
Notes: First in an edition of three.

Medium: Altered book with mixed media.

"As a young woman some twenty years ago, I took a long, meandering journey through Turkey and the Middle East. I fell in love and spent several months in Istanbul. During that time, I was introduced to a bookshop in the book sellers' market in Istanbul, a small, musty shop belonging to a local order of Sufis. The order was one where artists were particularly welcome; art is considered a form of prayer. I spent many hours in this bookshop over the course of several months, getting to know members of this Sufi group, drinking lots of tea and trying my hand at traditional miniature painting under the guidance of a Sufi artist. I became friends with several members of this Sufi order, often attending religious ceremonies and in doing so learning a bit about Islam. It was a rich and mystical experience, deeply spiritual, and one that I have continued to cherish in the many years since. In approaching the Al-Mutanabbi Street Book Artists Project, I began with this personal story. Even now, I find it hard to reconcile my own experiences of warmth and kindness in an Islamic culture, the wonder of hours spent deeply at peace in a booksellers market, with such a seemingly senseless act of violence. My artist's book, 'Ask why, ' uses by personal experience as a springboard and speaks to this inexplicable chasm"--Artist's statement from 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.

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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.