Theater of Operations

Theater of Operations Book Description

This exhibition catalogue, accompanying the major building-wide exhibition Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, includes four new commissioned texts by scholars of Iraqi art Zainab Bahrani, Rijin Sahakian, and Nada Shabout, as well as a media-focused critique from McKenzie Wark. The book will also feature essays from our curators Ruba Katrib and Peter Eleey, as well as critical reproductions from contemporaneous media artifacts, ranging from the Baghdad Diaries--the personal diaries during Iraqi occupation and sanction of artist Nuha Al-Radi--as well as entries from the still-anonymous blogger Riverbend's Baghdad Burning blog chronicling her time living under occupation, as well as texts from Serge Daney, Jean Baudrillard. As this conflict was the first to disseminate via a 24hr televised news cycle, this publication examines the impact of this period of ongoing conflict and its pervasive effects on visual culture.