It Is What It Is
►http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4461/it-is-what-it-is
These objects were meant to “ground and stimulate discussion.” However, the use of a bombed out car and Arabic script as a starting point for a conversation in America about the complexity and tragedy of the war in Iraq begins the conversation with stereotyped images found on the evening news for the last ten years. Isn’t the grounding of the conversation with the same tired props used in nearly every US media report on Iraq exactly the wrong place to begin an open and exploratory dialogue?
The curatorial literature states that the bombed out car was a remnant of a car destroyed in the bombing of Mutanabbi Street on March 5, 2007. This bombing, which claimed 26 lives, was a searing blow to Iraqis because of its history as a main Baghdadi thoroughfare famous for centuries as a booksellers market and hub of intellectual activity. In Deller’s project, the bombed out car is the only signifier needed, apparently, to make a link to Iraqi culture. Speaking to Art in America, Deller explains that the bombed out car was important because, “Its very difficult to even hold or see something that’s actually come from Iraq. Its very rare that you get that opportunity so here we have this huge car –it’s a massive, ugly, mangled wreck from Iraq. Its almost like a piece of evidence has been dropped down in the museum.”2
But why is it so “rare” to see or hold something from Iraq? What could Deller possibly mean by this? Iraqis have produced a vast canon of artistic work, literature, and cultural objects, from ancient works that are very visible in museums in Britain and the US, to modern and contemporary works in a variety of disciplines. Deller’s comment speaks to either an ignorance of this work existing (which hardly seems possible), or a problematic insistence on Iraq as a site that can only be made visible as a map of mangled objects. This is especially disturbing when considering the very concrete losses that took place under the occupying forces, who famously allowed Iraq’s museums, cultural institutions, and other critical sites to be looted and irreversibly damaged at the start (and during the course of), the war; deeming Iraqi cultural production at best insignificant.
By relying on the use of a blown up car, Deller chooses to replicate narrow British and American media portrayals of the conflict and this bombing in particular.