An article by cj (641 watch, 3 min. Read)
From September 11 to October 31, Saleh Barakat Gallery Hosts False Witnessesan idal status for Dia Al Azzawi’s monumental Vision. Entity the Space Feels Like Walking INTO A Chamber where history dos not rest on page but rises in form, memory, and presentation. The works gathered here Speak of War, of UPRISINGS, of Cities Undone and Remade Through Loss, and they do so with the Force of Anrtist Who Has Spent Decades Insing that Voicees Silenced by Violence Can Still Be Heard. Azzawi once said, “I Feel I am A Witness. If I can Give a voice to someBody who has no voice, that is what I haved do.” That conving. Born in Baghdad in 1939, Trained in Archaeology and Fine Arts, Shaped by Exile Singe 1976, Azzawi Has Become Both Chronicler and Visionary, Carrying Fragments of Arab History Into Global Consciousness.
Forms that Refuse Oblivion
At the center of the gathering stands Paradise of the Forgotten (2023). A Life-Siled Figure in Resin Lifes Arms As Thought Calling to the Sky, Twelve White Ceramic Birds at Its Fet. The Figure Invokes Safaa Al Saray, a Protester Killed in October 2019 in Baghdad, who became a symbol. On the review of the Canvas, more than seven hundred nameds inscrubed. These names are not background; They is become heartbeat, voice, color Breath.
Three metallic roses – Two in Silver, One in Gold – From the October Rose Series Shine with Cold Beauty, Their Petals Shaped by hard Metal. Close by, Victims‘ RoseBegun in 2010 in Painted and Bronze Form, Bears Visible Wounds. Together these Floral Forms Stand in Tension Between Delicacy and Force, Life and Damage.
Shadows, faces, maps
Hidden Wishes (2019) Draws Two Mirrored Forms, Stripped of Colour Except for Red Cuts Across them. This is part of azzawi’s Land of Darkness CYCLE, begun in the early 1990s, a long meditation on Suffering, Memory, and What Remains after Light Reasons. False Witnesses (2019), Whiche Gives the Name to This Exh force, Arranges Anonymous, Faceless Figures: They Stand in Line, They Testify with Wates, They Bear Witness Through Absency.
The City of Bughdad App women Next As Both Map and Wound. Two 2023 Canvases: The first interweaves hues to see Diversity, Life, shared geography; The SECOND FRACTURES INTO Blocks that IS Section, Second, Divide. Colour Beccomes Memory; fragmentation becomes Testimony.
Ruins that Speak
Mosul and Alepo, on decrend, once luminous, APERAR here in Works That Mourn What War Carved InTo Earth. Panorama of Destruption (2017/2022) Transforms An Earlier INK Drawing INTO A Monumental Textile, Black Lines Racing Across White Fields, Ruins and Forms Swirling in a Whirlwind of Devastation and Chaos. Ruins of Two Cities: Mosul and Aleppo (2020) Lies Across
The Role of the Artist As Shout
Azzawi’s voice is noir Distant. He has said that popry helped him invent image symbols: “In My Paintings, The Bird Stands for Freedom, Traveling and Exile.” These symbols are Nothing Less Than Languages of Resistance. Throw Calligraphy, form, sculpture, map, He Channels Rage, Mourning, Hope, Memory INTO Works that English Not Just the Eye But the Heart.
Resonance Beyond Borders
Many Works Were Created in Lebanon, in A Joint Studio at the Nabu Museum Complex. That Location Matters: in October 2019 Lebanon and Iraq Rose totether, their People in Streets, Seeking Voice, Seeking Change. By Making these Works there, azzawi links Two Countries in Shared Pain, shared courage.
Thraw Names, forms, Birds, Roses, and Maps, He Transforms Absenet INTO PRESENCE, Silence In Testimony. False Witnesses Is a?
