Published by Darat al Funun - The Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, 1995
Language: Ar

From 1990 to 1992 the late Shaker Hassan al Said, one of Iraq's most influential artists, directed a series of lectures, which were documented and published in this book.

"I was tasked to be an art consultant to the foundation and to initiate a plastic art program in line with the annual program (1990-1992). The preferred date for the series was to be every Thursday. I selected topics that consider and establish [Plastic Arts Discourse] that encompasses contemporary thought, that culture that does not limit itself to the artist per se, but extends to the audience and art viewers, literature and journalism, critics and aesthetes. This is a new perspective on the meaning of art, and is on the mind of the intellectual world. Art work is not produced by the producing artist alone, but in the interaction of all related counterparts, as well as what is emitted by the work itself after its independence from the artist. In a few words: The [discourse of] the plastic artist is complete only with the interpretation of the viewer, as there is no longer a "sender" or a "receiver", but an "artistic effect" that has been produced by the artist and remains subject to only the viewer. As we hoped to highlight on the importance of artistic effects in and of themselves. This is because our effort in artistic culture believes in the meaning of art as a sum of the receiver, the sender, and the letter."

Shaker Hassan Al Said (Translated from the Arabic text)

With the participation of: Majid al-Samarrai, Vera Tamari, Taysir Barakat, Nabil Anani, Khalil Rabah, Suleiman Mansour, Rafa Al-Nasiri, Ali Talib, Dr. George Sayegh, Dr. Khalid Khreis, Jamal Badran, Hussein Daseh, Abdul Raouf Shimon, Dr. Khalid Hijazi , Mohammed Abu Zuraiq, Ghassan Mufadala, Hatem Saker, Wijdan Ali, Dr. Ali al-Ghoul, May Muzaffar, Dr. Tarek Mazloum, Dr. Ihsan Fathi, Dr. Ibrahim al-Najjar, and Shahida Naimi.