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

Jawad Selim, Children’s Games, 1953. Oil, linen, wood, 90.5 cm x 71 cm x 1.5 cm.

An oil painting titled Children’s Games (1953) by Jawad Selim features childlike, geometric figures with large almond eyes interacting in abstract spaces across a pastel-toned canvas.

“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