[CPProt.net] Artwork looted from Iraq gallery is real

[MSN and CPProt list (Ton Cremers)]

Artwork looted from Iraq gallery is real
By Beth Potter
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL 
Published March 10, 2005 


BAGHDAD -- You've heard of garage sale finds -- old china bought for
quarters worth hundreds of dollars or mint comic book collections thrown out
in the trash to be snapped up by collectors. 
     
    Meet Essam Pasha al-Azawy. The 28-year-old Iraqi bought a Joan Miro
aquatint worth more than $40,000 for $90 in a cramped art dealer's shop near
the Babal Sharji "thieves market" in central Baghdad. 
     
    Pasha isn't your average collector. In fact, he's an artist who painted
the first piece commissioned after the fall of the former Saddam Hussein
regime -- a public mural. He speaks several languages, including French,
English and Russian in addition to his native Arabic. 
     
    The signed and numbered Miro isn't your average artwork. It was stolen
from the Saddam Art Center when Baghdad fell to U.S. troops in April 2003. 
     
    What happened in the next few days looked like a feeding frenzy as
people oppressed for more than 30 years tried to grab anything they could.
First they took tables and chairs, then air conditioners, then fixtures like
windows and door handles. The art museum and houses related to former regime
members were special targets. 
     
    "It was a disaster. We started seeing something unexpected. All of these
looters were after things of big value from the museums, including the
modern art," said Qassim al-Septi, owner of Hewar Gallery in Baghdad. 
     
    As a hobby, whenever he had time after that, Pasha would ask around in
the old part of town for art pieces he remembered from the art center. After
weeks of looking, he said a vendor brought him a rolled-up canvas, which
they took to a nearby shop to lay out on the floor. Digital pictures of the
piece have been shown to galleries in New York. 
     
    "I negotiated with him for $90 and some change. Can you imagine that I
negotiated for Miro's work?" Pasha said, trying to explain the feelings of
patriotism and anger that washed over him as he saw the piece on the floor
of the shop. "I just wanted to take it home so it would be safe." 
     
    Water sometimes drips from the ceiling of Pasha's modest apartment, so
he keeps the aquatint in a cardboard tube standing in the corner. He only
unrolls it for special guests, and sometimes when he's enjoying a cigar
after a hard day at work. 
     
    "I'm going to donate it back to the museum when it re-opens, but in the
meantime, I can take care of it," Pasha said. "I'm proud that my country has
a Miro. I have memories of going to the Saddam Art Center and looking at it
hanging on the wall. Now it's here." 
     
    At nearby Hewar Gallery, stacks of famous Iraq paintings are lined up
against the wall in a cramped corridor and storeroom. Most have the Saddam
Art Center stamp on the back, al-Septi says, carefully pulling back frame
after frame of looted artwork to show the backs of the canvases. 
     
    Al-Septi has paid more than $3,000 out of his own pocket to buy up the
pieces, which include wooden statues that are well-known regionally. Others
are interested in his project to protect the art until it can be returned to
the gallery, but no one has given him money to help out yet, al-Septi said. 
     
    Some of the better-known artwork was quickly spirited out of the
country, al-Septi said. He found at least four pieces in a trendy Jordan
gallery, and there were rumors that a special art show for private dealers
was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 
     
    Saddam Art Center is on dicey Haifa Street, where insurgents shoot at
U.S. and Iraqi troops in the late afternoon when traffic is light. While the
inside of the building is mostly renovated, it still feels ghostly on a
street where no one walks -- scared that fighting could break out at any
moment. It's hard to know when things will be safe enough to re-open the
doors. 
     
    "We will find suitable ways to return back these things," al-Septi said.
"We still hurt inside to think about what happened, but inshallah, these
will be on public display once again." 

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