Text/ures of Iraq presents work by New York-based sculptor Oded Halahmy, a Jewish native of Baghdad, alongside that of eight contemporary artists from Iraq: Hayder Ali, Amal Alwan, Mohammed al Hamadany, Ismail Khayat, Hanaa Malallah, Hassan Massoudy, Naziha Rashid, and Qasim Sabti. Gathering works that reference Iraq's literary past in an effort to better understand the region's present, the book finds its constituent artists celebrating their country as a pastoral idyll, where people of different beliefs, cultures, and ethnicities peacefully coexisted for centuries, while also...

Text/ures of Iraq presents work by New York-based sculptor Oded Halahmy, a Jewish native of Baghdad, alongside that of eight contemporary artists from Iraq: Hayder Ali, Amal Alwan, Mohammed al Hamadany, Ismail Khayat, Hanaa Malallah, Hassan Massoudy, Naziha Rashid, and Qasim Sabti. Gathering works that reference Iraq's literary past in an effort to better understand the region's present, the book finds its constituent artists celebrating their country as a pastoral idyll, where people of different beliefs, cultures, and ethnicities peacefully coexisted for centuries, while also...

The boxing term "gloves off"--frequently used as a metaphor to characterize brutal political campaigns and post-9/11 military interrogation--aptly describes the subtle aggressions in American popular culture that Sara Greenberger Rafferty lays bare. Blurring the lines between two and three dimensions, Rafferty attaches her wall-mounted works using custom-painted screws that break up the images. She also deploys cracked paint resembling viscous bodily fluids, further "wounding" the objects. Over the past decade, Rafferty has referenced the language, gestures, and props associated with stand-up...