Story of the Car

One day there will be a museum dedicated to the conflict in Iraq. Until then we have to imagine what it might contain.

A car destroyed in a suicide bomb attack is a familiar image in the Western media, often a convenient replacement for the human form (or a corpse to be more precise). This particular car was destroyed in an attack on the crowded book market at Al-Mutanabbi street in central Baghdad on March 5, 2007. Thirtyeight people were killed and hundreds injured. And only recently has the market reopened.

Al-Mutanabbi street is a cultural and social hub of Baghdad, and the attack was inevitably interpreted as an attack on contemporary Iraqi culture itself as opposed to the ancient culture of museums and historic sites.

The street is aptly named after the celebrated ninthcentury poet Al-Mutanabbi. A controversial figure even in his own lifetime, he was under no illusion as to his own talents. He harbored political ambitions and was murdered by bandits on the road from Shiraz to Baghdad.

Much of his best-known work was concerned with immortalizing his powerful patrons, most notably Prince Saif al-Daula, for whom he wrote a number of poems celebrating the Prince’s achievements on the battlefield. In contrast, in a moving poem he describes his patron’s grief on the occasion of the death of his mother:

“The age has hurled rough times at me my heart is numb from its missiles And neatly where the arrow struck me the point of one blunted the other”

—Jeremy Deller

In May of 2007, after four months of negotiation, Dutch curator Robert Klüijver succeeded in shipping this and another bombed vehicle from Al-Mutanabbi to the Netherlands for an event entitled “War on Error,” which included a daylong discussion and performances, as well as the exhibition of the vehicles on Leidse Plein Square in Amsterdam. One or both of the cars have subsequently been exhibited in Rotterdam, Enschede, Utrecht, the Hague, and Houston, Texas.

Concept: Partizan Public; Logistics and organization: Robert Klüijver for the “War on Error Event.”

Project support: IKV Pax Christi, Hivos and the Green Party.

Donated to the New Museum by Robert Klüijverre

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