Al-Mutanabbi Street
By: Pauline Lamont-Fisher
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: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Hereford, England?]
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: "I made three different artist's books for this (An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street), because I did not feel my response could be contained in one. [I created] Al-Mutanabbi Street, 2012, Murder and Mayhem, 2012, and Stains, 2012. I wanted to convey something of the raw devastation caused by the car bomb, and the lasting effect it has had. While responding to the universal issues, I thought of my nearest street of booksellers in Hay-on-Wye, known for its literary festival and its bookshops, and of the community that is relevant to all bookshops on any street anywhere"--Statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"I have been making artist's books for nearly 10 years. My practice is principally based on walking, but some of my books have not involved walking at all, although the idea for the book may have been formed on a walk. I have exhibited work in a number of exhibitions, and my work is represented in both public and private collections"--The artist's website (viewed June 30, 2015).
Notes: Medium: Kozu 34gsm, drawing inks, Fabriano Artistico 200gsm.

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.

English and Arabic.