I bought this painting in a decrepit stairway just outside what is now know as the ‘green zone’ in Baghdad. I find dreamy women (and men) incredibly attractive. Yasser, the painter agreed. He also assured me that the man on the upper left corner was not Lenin. I bought it anyway.

There were many painters in Baghdad. Most painted pastorals. Others, portraits, like this one. But every once in a while, you’d see something escape, and think of Paul Klee, or Amy Sillman, or Lee Godie.

I don’t know where the painters get their paints now. They used to smuggle them in from Syria and Jordan. I don’t know where Yesser is either. Fuck.

Roughly two months before the American invasion of Iraq in March 20, 2003, artist Paul Chan went to Baghdad as a member of the Iraq peace team called Voices in the Wilderness. Since 1996, Voices in the Wilderness‘s mission is to ‘campaigned to end economic and military warfare against the Iraqi people.’ This commentary from Paul Chan is from the section Replay, the last page in Flash Art Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, No.241. March-April, 2005.