Event Details

Date/Time: 

Feb 27 2009 7:00pm - 10:00pm

Price: 

$10 at the door includes a drink
Or $18 gets you an autographed copy
Beer/wine cash bar

Where: 

*** Grand Opening Event ***
Levantine Cultural Center
5998 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90035

Wafaa Bilal at Levantine CenterJoin us Fri. Feb. 27 when we inaugurate our new space with guest artist/writer Wafaa Bilal, co-author of Shoot An Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun (with Kari Lydersen, from City Lights 2009). Also featuring Baghdadism, a new exhibit of drawings by Faris Al-Saffar. This evening is cosponsored by CODEPINK: Women for Peace. This program is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs.


“History simply refuses to leave some people alone. The Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal grew up under Saddam Hussein, survived two wars, was forced to live for periods at refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and finally escaped to the U.S. in 1992 to study art.

“When his father and brother were killed during the latest U.S. invasion of his country, Bilal responded by creating the now infamous art piece ‘Domestic Tension,’ in which the artist spent a month living in a Chicago gallery where Internet users could watch his day-to-day movements and, if they felt like it, take shots at him with a remote-controlled paint gun. By the end, more than 60,000 people had opened fire. Shoot an Iraqi—a name he initially considered for the installation—combines autobiographical narrative with a discussion of his work and its political implications.” —The Village Voice

Wafaa Bilal's life in Iraq was defined by the oppressive rule of Saddam Hussein and two horrific wars. Forced to flee his country in the chaotic aftermath of the Gulf War, he spent two grueling years interned in refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. During that time he continued to make art, something he did consistently since childhood. In 1992, Bilal was granted asylum in the U.S., arriving with a small suitcase of photos of his paintings and a few belongings. He pursued his art education while working at minimum-wage jobs and learning English, ultimately earning a graduate degree and landing a professorship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Baghdadism: new and recent work by Faris Al-SaffarHis work was receiving positive attention and he was enjoying a successful career, but as the U.S. invasion of Iraq dragged on into a prolonged and violent occupation, Bilal became increasingly concerned about the safety of his family still in Iraq, and the disparity of his life of comfort in the U.S. Then, in 2004, Bilal’s brother was killed in Iraq by a U.S. bomb, targeted by an unmanned Predator drone. Not long after, Bilal watched a TV interview with a young U.S. soldier whose job was to launch missiles into Iraq from a computer in Colorado. He was struck by the young woman’s complete lack of connection to the grief and suffering she was causing, and realized this was just the sort of person who might have targeted his brother for death. The shock of this sudden example of the complete disconnect between those in the comfort zone of the U.S. with those in the conflict zone in Iraq was the genesis of “Domestic Tension,” the interactive artwork he created to attempt to make some kind of sense of his grief.

For one month, Bilal lived alone in a prison cell-sized room in the line of fire of a remote-controlled paintball gun and a camera that connected him to internet viewers around the world. A virtual audience that grew by the thousands could shoot at him 24 hours a day. Bilal encouraged shooters to “chat” with him and with each other on the “Domestic Tension” website, and watch his daily video diaries on YouTube. News of the project spread virally over the internet and in the online gaming community. Soon hackers were fighting with each other for control of the gun and the chatroom was buzzing with a provocative online debate while Bilal was being shot at constantly by people all over the world. Pitting "trigger-happy" gamers against their own moral conscience, the project received overwhelming worldwide attention and garnered the praise of the Chicago Tribune, which called it "one of the sharpest works of political art to be seen in a long time.”

Structured in two parallel narratives, Shoot An Iraqi tells of Bilal's journey and of his experience performing, and living, "Domestic Tension." It’s a compelling story of endurance in life and art.