Pipeline Landscape & Cruel Generations

Al Fadhil

These images are selected findings of my visual research on the modern history of Iraq. These images deal with visual memories of the place, memories that stay with me as a traumatic and dramatic experience. The photos mainly deal with relations between the human figure and nature, in the context of the current social and political situation in Iraq. Trauma, pain and loss, and the dream of a better life. Al Fadhil, Cairo, March 2012

East and West, modernity and tradition, are inseparably interwoven in the work of Al Fadhil. The Iraqi artist left his country in the 1970s, moving first to Italy and then to Switzerland. In the early ’90s, the first Gulf War shifted the emphasis of his work: since then political and social commitment have moved to the foreground. Provocatively, sarcastically, at times even pathetically, Fadhil offers his audience a critical look at the dramatic vicissitudes of our time. Elio Schenini, Curator, Museo Cantonale d’ Arte, Lugano, Switzerland