New research into the Baghdad Modern Art Group reveals how Iraqi artists forged a distinctive visual identity while shaping debates that continue to resonate across the Arab art world.
An exhibition at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art is bringing renewed attention to the Baghdad Modern Art Group, revealing how its members drew on Iraq’s cultural heritage to create a modern artistic language that continues to influence generations of artists.
“What Lingers in the Artist Mind: Experiments and Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group” brings together artworks, archival material and research exploring the movement’s development, its members and its influence beyond its original period.
Curator and art historian Nada Shabout said the group did not simply invent a new artistic direction but brought together existing ideas and developed them into a distinct methodology.
Co-founded by Jawad Salim and Shakir Hassan al-Said, the group sought to move beyond stylistic experimentation towards an aesthetic capable of representing Iraq as a modern nation.
“They needed to forge new aesthetics that are capable of representing a new country, Iraq,” Shabout said.
She explained that the artists developed the concept of Istilham al-Turath, or drawing inspiration from heritage, transforming historical and cultural references into a modern visual language.
This approach involved more than incorporating traditional motifs.
The artists used abstraction, particularly through line and form, to communicate ideas about Iraqi identity while negotiating tensions between cultural heritage and rapid modernisation.
Shabout noted that Salim’s representations of an imagined, folkloric Baghdad sometimes contrasted sharply with the changes taking place on the streets.
The exhibition traces these artistic tensions alongside the evolving work of group members, including al-Said, whose practice developed through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s amid changing political circumstances, including the Iran-Iraq war.
One of the exhibition’s central contributions is its effort to bring together historical information that has remained scattered across different sources.
“Almost everything is new insights,” Shabout said, explaining that researchers had previously lacked a complete understanding of the group’s membership, exhibition history and the subsequent trajectories of its artists.
The research has also helped make the group’s manifesto more accessible through its translation and publication in *Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents.
Shabout emphasised that the exhibition does not present a complete or linear account of the movement.
Instead, it connects the founding artists with subsequent groups that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as contemporary practitioners engaging with their legacy.
“It’s not a linear story. It’s a very complex engagement with the story,” she said, describing it as a network of artistic relationships and developments.
Mathaf director Zeina Arida said the exhibition builds on the museum’s earlier exploration of regional modernism through Beirut and the Golden Sixties.
She said that Mathaf worked with Shabout and Bard College to develop the exhibition, which subsequently travelled to NYU Abu Dhabi before its presentation in Doha.
For the Mathaf edition, the focus shifted to the museum’s own collection, allowing the curator to expand certain sections and deepen the research.
“It’s a great pretext and way of activating the collection,” Arida said.
She said documenting and sharing Iraq’s artistic history was particularly important at a time when earlier cultural achievements risk being forgotten.
“It’s very important to remember today that Baghdad was the centre for artistic and intellectual production,” Arida said.
She added that some significant Iraqi artworks are now held outside Baghdad, making exhibitions such as this an opportunity to share them with audiences across generations.
Arida also highlighted the exchanges between artists and galleries across the region, noting that works associated with the Baghdad movement were shown in Beirut as well as Iraq.
For younger artists, she said, understanding earlier movements can provide insight into how artistic practices respond to their own time.
Shabout agreed that the group’s ideas remain visible in contemporary Arab art, although they have evolved to reflect new circumstances.
“We can see sort of threads of these ideas, but that have developed as they should into new forms,” she said.
The exhibition ultimately presents Iraqi modernism not as a closed chapter, but as an ongoing conversation between heritage, identity and artistic change.