Biography of a Head

Author Sadik Kwaish Alfraji Studio

2014, the Netherlands - (written & engraved 1985, Baghdad)
...

These are the pages of an artist's book, which I
made using linocut technique in Baghdad in
1985, when the Iraq-Iran war had the upper
hand on life and death in Iraq.
I could not publish or exhibit the work then,
all I could do is to document it on a poster for
one of my exhibitions in 1989 and in an
interview with me in one of the local
newspapers at the time.
I here reproduce it again without any
alteration on the written script nor the
accompanying printed graphics, what is mainly
done in the reproduction was to animate the
printed lines as well as the written script in its
original state with all its faults.

I would like to say here that this
Head was nothing but me,
and that crystal body,
made of the sunrays,
was my dream to escape the cruelty of
our existence,
which, sadly,
is a dream doomed to failure.