San Francisco Center for the Book

Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here

A project of Beau Beausoleil and Sarah Bodman
Exhibition coordinated by Sas Colby

 

An exhibition of fifty-five artist's books, created in response to the March 5, 2007 bombing of Baghdad's "Street of Booksellers"

 

Exhibition Dates

February 1 – May 11, 2013

 

 

About the Exhibition

In July 2010, Beau Beausoleil put out a call for book artists to join ‘An Inventory Of Al-Mutanabbi Street’, a project to “re-assemble” some of the “inventory” of the reading material that was lost in the car bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad on 5th March 2007. The San Francisco Center for the Book joins with Beauto showcase the artists that joined the project creating work that holds both “memory and future,” exactly what was lost that day.

 

From February 1 – May 11, 2013, the San Francisco Center for the Book will exhibit fifty-five of the two hundred and sixty-one books that currrently compirse the inventory.

 

Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad

Al-Mutanabbi Street is the centuries-old center of bookselling in Baghdad, a winding street filled with bookstores, cafes and outdoor book stalls. Named after the famed 10th Century classical Arab poet, Al- Mutanabbi, this street has been, since time immemorial, the historic heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.

 

The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition

On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Al-Mutanabbi Street. At least thirty people were killed and one hundred wounded.
Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition was formed soon afterwards to commemorate not just the tragic loss of life, but also the idea of a targeted attack on a street where ideas have always been exchanged.

 

The Al-Mutanabbi Street Inventory Project

The coalition asked each Book Artist who joined the project to complete three books (or other paper material) over the course of a year, books that reflected both the strength and fragility of books, but also showed the endurance of the ideas within them. We asked for work that reflected both the targeted attack on this “street of the booksellers” as well as the ultimate futility of those who try to erase thought.

A complete set of all the books will be donated to the Iraq National Library in Baghdad. The other two sets are touring for the next few years in conjunction with shows of the broadsides as well as in shows of their own.

The inventory of al-Mutanabbi Street was as diverse as the Iraqi population, including literature of both Iraq and the Middle East, history, political theory, popular novels, scholarly works, religious tracts, technical books, poetry, mysteries; even stationery and blank school notebooks could be purchased on this street, as well as children’s books, comics, and magazines. Arabic was of course the predominate language but books in Farsi, French, German, and English were also represented. Because books have their own journeys, ones quite unknown to us, there were also a few books in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, or Italian, as well as classic Greek and Latin, Hindi, or even Russian.

This project is both a lament and a commemoration of the singular power of words. We asked that the work move within these parameters. We hope the books created would use al-Mutanabbi and its printers, writers, booksellers, and readers, as a touchstone. We hope that these books will make visible the literary bridge that connects us, made of words and images that move back and forth between the readers in Iraq and ourselves. These books will show the commonality of al-Mutanabbi Street with any street, anywhere that holds a bookstore or cultural institution.

And that this attack (part of a long history of attacking the printed word) was an attack on us all.

The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition is not an anti-war project, nor is it a healing project. The coalition feels that until we truly see what happened on this one winding street of booksellers and readers, on this one day in Baghdad, until we understand all the implications of an attack on the printed word and its writers, printers, booksellers and readers, until we see that this is our street, until then, we cannot truly move forward.