“His dissent equally lies in his belief that nothing is fixed or static, that everything is in flux, endlessly changing and moving; that there is an inextricable link between the intensely personal and the cosmic truths that govern our lives; that the visual and spatial are expressions of a mental operation cast into tangible form, inviting further individual and collective reflection on the interrelations between everything around us.”

Publication: “Incessant Inquiry,” introduction in Mehdi Moutashar. Montpellier: Méridianes Editions; Paris: Bernard Chauveau Editions, 2023.

Keywords: art, contemporary, modern, Mehdi Moutashar, artist, Iraqi, French, monograph, catalogue, book, research, scholarship, English, Arabic, language, translation, career, survey, overview, history, past, modernism, migration, exile, diaspora, artworks, exhibitions, criticism, method, technique, geometry, geometric, calligraphy, ornamentation, patterns, abstract, abstraction, Islamic, Muslim, mosques, shrines, architecture, buildings, tradition, heritage, modernism, Abstraction, Minimalism, Op-Art, kinetic, post-WWII, 20th century, 21st century, region, culture, regional, international, global, Southwest Asia (”Middle East”), North Africa, Arab world, Baghdad, Babylon, Iraq, Arles, France, Europe

Image: Mehdi Moutashar