Monday
By: Kathleen O'Connell
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library); Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Publisher: [Kathleen O'Connell]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Lima, Peru?]
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; Relief printing; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: "The unsettling shock of a car bombing: it was a Monday on al-Mutanabbi street. It was an act of violence and terror. The unsettling shock of a bicycle crash: it was a Monday in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. It was an accident. I witnessed the bicycle accident, hearing the man utter an animal groan, seeing the blood pooling in his ear, watching his confusion unfold, waiting for the ambulance to come. It was horrible to see this human hurt. In my mind this event replayed, multiplying and measuring itself. How much more was the impact of the car bomb on al-Mutanabbi street?"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

"Kathleen O'Connell was born and raised in Plattsburgh, New York. After completing her graduate studies, she traveled and began working a series of adjunct teaching and art-related jobs (New York, Vermont, Wisconsin, Oregon). In 2009, she moved to Peru and established the Taller Libros Artísticos, teaching bookbinding classes. In 2012, she relocated to Murfreesboro, Tennessee where she became an Assistant Professor of Book Arts and Letterpress, and an Education Abroad Program leader, at Middle Tennessee State University. She continues to travel to Peru and far beyond"--The artist's website (viewed July 13, 2015).
Notes: Printed in an edition of 6.

Medium: Relief print.

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.