Images of Iraqi Prisoners Used In Art
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Images of Iraqi Prisoners Used in Art
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The crouching man is naked, his hands tied and his head covered with a hood. The alabaster sculpture on display at a Baghdad gallery bears a striking resemblance to some of the shocking photographs that emerged last week of Iraqi prisoners abused by their American guards at the Abu Ghraib prison.
But the 15-inch sculpture — with words "We are living American democracy" inscribed on its base — was fashioned two months ago.
"We knew what went on at Abu Ghraib," Abdul-Kareem Khalil, the artist, said Saturday. "The pictures did not surprise me."
The nature of America's occupation of Iraq — which many Iraqis increasingly perceive as intolerable — is finding its way to the local art scene.
Jubilation over last year's collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime has dissipated, replaced by terrorist attacks, an unprecedented rise in violent crime, inadequate public services and a foreign occupation force that many Iraqis consider heavy-handed and scornful of Iraqi traditions.
Photos of smiling U.S. soldiers — male and female — mistreating Iraqi prisoners only add to the sense of powerlessness among people subjected to house raids, searches, checkpoints, barbed wire, detention of women.
At the Hewar, or Dialogue, art gallery where Khalil's works are on display, owner Qasim al-Sabti recently invited artists to write or paint their impressions of the occupation on a 6 1/2-foot by 10-foot rectangular piece of wood in the gallery's garden.
About 40 artists and writers took up his offer. One painted an American eagle with feathers that look like rockets.
"You liberated us. Ok. Thank you! Go home," someone wrote in English.
"America is the plague," another one wrote.
"We are not strangers to what the U.S. Army does," said Khalil, standing next to the statue of the naked man and two other alabaster sculptures also inspired by the occupation. "Our dignity cannot endure this humiliation. Anyone detained by the Americans is ready to join the resistance upon his release."
Al-Sharqiyah, one of several satellite TV channels that have sprung up in Iraq over the past year, has been broadcasting ads for a sitcom about life under U.S. occupation that will air soon.
Some of the scenes ridicule American soldiers, focusing on their ignorance of local culture or their zeal in searching for insurgents and weapons.
Khalil, 44, is angry about the U.S. occupation and what he said are accounts given to him over the months by Iraqis who had been released from Abu Ghraib.
One of his works depicts a muscular man stripped down to his underwear, his head concealed by a pyramid-shaped cover reminiscent of the hoods that American soldiers routinely used to blindfold detainees until the practice was ordered halted this month.
A third sculpture depicts a man whose chest resembles a stone tablet divided into nine squares. Each square records the artist's perception of one aspect of the occupation.
"The American army surrounds Fallujah, kills women and children," reads an engraving, alluding to the siege last month by U.S. Marines of a rebellious Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad.
"They raid homes, arrest women and steal," reads another inscription.
Soon after U.S. forces captured Baghdad in April 2003, Khalil began work on a sculpture of a man raping a woman that he said symbolized the occupation of the Muslim nation. The sculpture has been finished but was not on display Saturday.
Another sculpture is a bronze image of an American Marine.
"He is armed to the teeth and has a massive body," Khalil said. "But his head is small to make him look empty."
URL: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u ... use_in_art
Originally Posted by When_Black_Roses_Bloom
