So let us love
Subtitle: for Al-Mutanabbi Street
By: Karen Guancione
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Williams, William Carlos, 1883-1963; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2013
Place of publication: [Belleville, NJ]
Language: eng
Copyright date: 2013
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; Art and society; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: Karen Guancione has been awarded a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Artists and Communities Grant, three New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowships, a Ford Foundation Grant, a Puffin Foundation Grant and an Exhibition Grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation. Her interdisciplinary art includes large-scale installations, performance, sculpture, printmaking, papermaking, bookarts and video; has been exhibited worldwide and is in numerous public and private collections. She has curated many exhibitions, is an adjunct professor of art at the State University of New York (SUNY Purchase) and Montclair State University, and has been a visiting artist and lecturer at numerous schools and institutions in the United States and abroad. She is the first-time recipient of the Erena Rae Award for Art and Social Justice. For over a decade, she has served as artistic director / curator of the annual New Jersey Book Arts Symposium and Exhibition.
Notes: Printed in a variable edition of 6.

Medium/materials: Polyester plate lithography, Rives BFK paper, machine sewing, hand-painted acrylic, antique 23 carat gold leaf, India ink, copies of vintage Iraqi post-cards.

"As I worked on this project, I often thought of my Iraqi friends, activists who risk their lives to advocate for human rights. The daily lives of these friends, their families, and the lives of millions of other Iraqis have been shaped by enormous upheaval and suffering, and yet they continue to actively strive for a humane and decent life in a war-torn country. They consider a connection to art and literature vital to the success of their cause. The variable edition consists of a series of polyester plate lithographic prints bound into an accordion fold format that can be opened to a length of over eleven feet. Each page is machine-sewn and hand-painted, referencing textiles and stitching, common artistry that unites all cultures. An excerpt from William Carlos Williams' poem, Asphodel, that greeny flower, is hand-lettered on the final pages. Perhaps the spirit of this book is best expressed by his words: So let us love; confident as is the light; in its struggle with darkness"--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.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.