Artists’ books: big, best and devastating poetry to political artworks
Humanity reflected through artists’ books filled with poignant narratives and emotions
Conflicted Lives, Artists making books: poetry to politics Exhibition
Artists’ books provide visuals of written words
The British Museum hosted an exhibition of artists’ books to reflect on modern humanity through the prism of its contemporary art collection.
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Even though the art sometimes only loosely engages with the stories behind the objects of these ancient civilisations, they inevitably leave a trace of current issues of gender, identity, and politics for reflection by archaeologists and audiences.
Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World, British Museum
Artists making books: poetry to politics is a special exhibition in the British Museum’s Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World – a small part of the museum’s colossal collection of antiquities that cover Islamic religion, cultural tradition, and art.
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Though intimate in size, this exhibition comprises more than forty artists’ books, each bearing some emotional burden of modern human conflict and suffering.
Politics is everywhere in Arab lands. Poetry written by contemporary writers suffering from exile has become a powerful political weapon.
Artists making books: poetry to politics exhibition
Exiled Syrian poet Adonis (b.1930), one of the greatest living poets of the Arab world, has a strong presence in the exhibition.
He is showcased in artist books inspired by his poetry, in which he collaborated, or in books he created himself.
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Lebanon’s most revered artist, Shafic Abboud (1926–2004), was the first artist in the Middle East to create art books based on Adonis’s poetry.
Maraya li zaman al-inhiyar (Mirrors for a time of decline), 1978, book with 10 lithographs, Shafic Abboud
Abboud incorporates Adonis’s handwritten poems over a black-and-white background in his Abstract Expressionist style.
Art inspired by the greatest poets of the Arab world
Born in Lebanon, he went on to study and settle in France. Abboud roots Adonis’s poems in a subtle, metaphysical and romantic French style that satisfyingly integrates text and painting into the final artwork.
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Less directly, Lebanon-Syria dynamics are represented by a facsimile edition of the poetry anthology of nineteenth-century Lebanese judge and poet, Tamer Mallat (1856–1914), used as a canvas for Syrian artist Fadi Yazigi (b.1966).
Over the pages of poetry, Yazigi paints delicate figures, often couples, that echo the people he sees on the streets of Damascus, the capital of Syria and the fourth holiest city in Islam. Mallat was known for his stand against corruption in Lebanon.
Untitled, 2021, ink and watercolour, original book edited by Shibi Mallat, published Beirut, 2009, Fadi Yazigi
Whilst Yazigi’s paintings in the book, Untitled, do not form close ties with the poems in an obvious way, one needs to look at the historical relations between Lebanon and Syria to understand nuances of the interactions.
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So why transform poetry into the form of an artist’s book? As the exhibition wall text states, an artist’s book inspired by or physically constructed from poetry can be a similarly powerful creation that “turns a story or a poem into an object; it lends the weight of materiality to the metaphorical weight of narrative.” In an artist’s book, textual elements contribute to the aesthetics in unique ways.
Third script, 2005, book (unique), printed on cloth, Farkhondeh Shahroudi
A book made of red fabric is immediately noticeable. Third script, by Iranian artist Farkhondeh Shahroudi (b.1962), is opened at a painting of two women wearing hijabs.
A book turns a story or a poem into an object
Known for intentionally using her left hand to write poetry or hand-stitching it to make it illegible, Shahroudi transforms poetic texts into something performative and sculptural.
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An artist’s book as a visual tool adds contemporary context and reactivates sentiments identified by poets in the past.
The late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008), referred to as “the voice of the fragmented soul”, inspired artists in this exhibition.
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His work expresses his discontent with being part of the Palestinian diaspora caused by the Israeli occupation of his homeland.
Exhibition view, Artists making books: poetry to politics
His inner dialogue touched upon language and identity. In Darwish’s work, The Damascene Collar of the Dove (2019), Syrian artist Issam Kourbaj (b.1963) uses the eponymous ode to Damascus as a framework to explore the devastating effects of the civil war in Syria, which began in 2011 and continues.
The Damascene Collar of the Dove, 2019, mixed media on second-hand book fragments, Issam Kourbaj
The artist deconstructed a found diary and handwrote Darwish’s poem in crayoned red text over the pages, alongside images of the country’s destruction and human suffering collaged onto the pages.
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The English translation of the poem is printed on the wall next to the artwork, whilst viewers who do not understand Arabic can also appreciate the poetry in the artwork as a form of visualised sentiments.
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Similarly, deconstructing an old book into a fragmentary installation and treating the pages with collages and handwritten texts, Kourbaj’s other artwork Sound Palimpsest (2003) reacts to the Iraq War of 2003.
Sound Palimpsest (detail- 2), 2003, mixed media on second-hand book fragments, Issam Kourbaj
The yellowing, fragile old pages are arranged in a chaotic way, looking like the scene of ruins after a battle.
It also symbolises the destruction of the Iraq National Library and Archives during the war and the massive amounts of rare books and documents that were destroyed.
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At the corner of the installation lies a Syrian passport that adds a material symbol instead of language to the poetic body.
Every Day, 2005, book (unique), mixed media, Kareem Risan
Another artist’s book addressing the 2003 Iraq War less metaphorically is Iraqi artist Kareem Risan’s Every Day (2005).
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Broken eyeglasses, tyre marks, fragments of a passport, hospital gauze and clothing are pasted onto a blood-red ground.
Both artists’ books mentioned above transcend the two-dimensional space on pages to construct a poetic sculptural body absent of any words.
These pages transcend two-dimensional space
Artists’ books are not history textbooks in a fully descriptive way. Rather, they float through a personal lens and often further ambiguate space and time.
Philistine, 1997, a 1997 American edition of The Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, with nails hammered into the pages, Khalil Rabah
Yet the struggles and emotions expressed are real. This exhibition of artists’ books expresses universal human emotions of a culture and religion overshadowed by decades of devastating struggles.
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The British Museum has an overwhelming collection of artefacts dating from the rise of Islam in 622 until the present day.
Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World
This small collection of artists’ books and its well-presented exhibition enhances the appreciation of Islamic poetry, literature and contemporary art.
Test & photos by Yang Jiang
