A Conversation with Dia al-Azzawi–On Calligraphy as Inspiration, 1960s Iraq, and the US Invasion

Author The Met

Interviewed by Hans Ulrich Obrist

In collaboration with Clare Davies, Associate Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art

In this video, curator and Artistic Director of the Serpentine Gallery in New York, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, interviews artist Dia al-Azzawi (b. 1939) about his life and practice in Iraq prior to his departure in 1976 for political reasons. Filmed in 2022, in the artist’s London studio, the video aims to contribute to the living record of Iraq’s cultural life prior to the country’s invasion in 2003.

The interview is divided into four chapters: In Beginnings, the artist recalls how his early years as a student of archaeology and the fine arts in newly independent Iraq fostered his desire to create a modern school of art that reflected his own experiences. In Where Artists Gather, he discusses the small but vibrant arts scene that developed in 1960s Baghdad and its connections with artists and writers in Beirut. In Art and Literature, he speaks about his ongoing relationship to Arabic literature and how it has intersected with his own practice. In My Broken Dream, he speaks about two works that respond to the long-term consequences of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq and his own relationship to the country after almost fifty years of exile.