All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group

All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group is a group exhibition of thirty-six artists at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, from 12 February 2026 to 3 January 2027. It is curated by Nada Shabout.

The exhibition traces the Baghdad Modern Art Group, founded in 1951 by Jewad Selim (1919 to 1961) and Shakir Hassan Al Said (1925 to 2004). It brings in artists of the group's circle and those it influenced, at the time and in later generations. The gallery opens its text with a line from the group's manifesto: the artist "will carry out all manner of experiments, as his head, eyes, and hands dictate." The show combines painting, sculpture, works on paper and archival material, with posters, manifestos and photographs of the group's exhibitions in the 1950s. Selim's Monument of Freedom, commissioned after the 1958 revolution, is represented by a maquette and contextual material. Works include Nizar Salim's Untitled (1974), Dia al-Azzawi's Homage to Jewad (1988 to 1989) and Rand Abdul Jabbar's Earthly Wonders, Celestial Beings (2024). Al Said later formulated the idea of al bu'd al wahid, "the one dimension", and The National notes that works by Himat Mohammad Ali and Hanaa Malallah extend his thinking through scraping, burning and ruination.

The artists are Faraj Abbo, Sadik Kwaish Alfraji, Himat Mohammad Ali, Rasoul Alwan, Suad al-Attar, Qahtan Awni, Dia al-Azzawi, Bogus Bablanian, Amar Dawod, Ghassan Ghaib, Faiq Hassan, Mohammed Ghani Hikmat, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Rand Abdul Jabbar, Fouad Jihad, Saadi Al Kaabi, Ardash Kakafian, Salma Khoury, Hanaa Malallah, Mahmoud Obaidi, Widad al-Orfali, Khalid al-Rahal, Kareem Risan, Miran al-Saadi, Mahmoud Sabri, Naziha Salim, Nizar Salim, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Delair Shaker, Jewad Selim, Lorna Selim, Walid Siti, Ismail Fattah, Madiha Umar, Khalil al-Ward and Nazar Yahya. They range from the group's founders and members to later and diasporic artists such as Rand Abdul Jabbar, who is based in Abu Dhabi.

Nada Shabout is an Iraqi art historian, Senior Investigator at al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art and visiting professor of art history at NYU Abu Dhabi. She is the founding director of the Modern Art Iraq Archive and the author of Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics (2007). The exhibition was first shown at the Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard, in 2025.