[Anne] Behind the Three

A couple of months ago, I noticed a small storefront with a sign out front that read, Iraqi Art Gallery I immediately thought of going in and doing a story about how and why someone decided to bring Iraqi art to a little shop on the North Chicago lake front. But as with many story ideas, this one never fully took root and I did not think about it until the Round 3 directives came out.

There is a certain feeling, a sparkling kind of knowing that arises when you stumble over a subject/person/idea that you think you are going to invest actual production into. It is not unlike when you meet someone you want to kiss or at the very least ask out for a drink (and probably for a drink-drink and not just for coffee). So I got that feeling about contemporary Iraqi art.

Just those three words seemed alluring and important. Who knows anything about art coming from Baghdad? What would such art look like? Why couldn’t I think of any interesting particular about contemporary Iraqi life? I couldn’t think of a single thing I really knew about the daily rhythms of life there – before or really after the bombings.

So I Googled “Contemporary Iraqi Art” and Dr. Nada Shabout popped up.

It was a bit of a scheduling nightmare to get her on the phone – she was in London at the time I first contacted her – but all fell into place.

Check out Dr. Shabout's recent exhibition entitled Dafatir: Contemporary Iraqi Art Book

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