Interview: Curator Nada Shabout On the Baghdad Modern Art Group’s Enduring Legacies

Shakir Hassan Al Said, The Café, 1958.

An ink and watercolor painting shows five stylized figures seated around a square table, their faces mask-like and abstract, in The Café (1958) by Shakir Hassan Al Said.

“All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group” explores this important chapter of Arab modern art in an expansive survey currently on show at Bard’s Center for Curatorial Studies.

Interview: Curator Nada Shabout On the Baghdad Modern Art Group’s Enduring Legacies