Adel Abdin Solo Exhibition "Jihad"

Adel Abdin Solo Exhibition "Jihad": On display at Anne de Villepoix Gallery from September 10 to October 23. Born in Baghdad in 1973, Adel Abdin is one of the most rare and representative Iraqi artists today. He self-exiled to Finland before the Iraq War and specializes in multi-media video art. He was the representative artist for the Finnish Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale and is the national representative for Iraq at the upcoming Venice Biennale. His work addresses cultural alienation and identity issues under globalization. As the artist states: "In my artistic exploration, humor and irony occupy a major position in my language regarding these issues of cultural estrangement, alienation, and marginality."

The exhibited three-minute twenty-seven-second video takes as its theme "Jihad," as currently termed in Iraq and the Arab world. Dressed in a traditional white Arab robe with a red-striped scarf wrapped around his head, exposing only his eyes like a warrior, the artist replaces guns and bombs with a guitar. Standing before an American flag, he lightly plays romantic love songs, humorously and ironically attempting to conquer hearts through love and romance. Facing the past severe and closed dictatorship and totalitarian barriers of Iraq, as well as the ambiguous situation of current Western coalition powers' suppression, he emphasizes identity and resistance consciousness through soft power.

Art critic Mikko Oranen comments on Adel Abdin's work thus: "Art reflects all aspects of life. A possible comfort and the liberator of art possess a deep understanding of reality, constructing facts that are normally unseen. Furthermore, they open up an unpredictable new perspective, allowing people to break through psychological barriers, whether regarding war or social roles between men and women. More explicitly, his work allows for the extraordinary discovery that the prospects of reality are equally obvious in both Iraq and Finland, ultimately reaching a global theory concerning conquest, pain, and responsibility."