Art is the space where conversations collide in Maryam Yousif's humorous, wild and thoughtful three-dimensional works—an exchange that connects the women of Mesopotamia's long history with family memories of exile and the vibrant beauty of the Bay Area Funk movement.
Deeply connected to his Chaldean and Assyrian roots, Yousif's visit to the British Museum in 2018, where he saw ancient Iraqi artefacts, was a defining moment in the young artist's formative years. This visit exposed him to a rich past and visual culture when he began to explore pottery. When Yousif and his family left the tumultuous Iraq of the 1990s, this exodus led to the adoption of diverse influences and creative combinations that permeate his various shows, including two new solo shows this year: “Tremble Like Reeds” at Rebecca Camacho Presents and “Riverbend” at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco.
Yousif explored the negative influence of Iraq and its multi-layered history in early 2017 in his first exhibition which dealt with the legend of the Assyrian Queen Shamiram (also known as Shammuramat or Semiramis). This queen, who lived in the 9th century BCE, unusually maintained her status during the death of her husband and during the reign of her son, which led many researchers to confirm that she may have reigned simultaneously. The details of her personality remain mysterious, yet she was powerful during her lifetime and inspired later writers and artists to see in her the legendary Babylonian warrior-queen and builder. This powerful figure inspired the installation of Yousif's altar which combines ancient motifs (a horse-drawn chariot) and modern ones (hands holding crossed sabers reminiscent of the Victory Arch in Baghdad, which commemorates the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s).
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In 2018, the artist looked at Queen Puabi—another Mesopotamian female ruler whose elaborate tomb excavated in the 1920s at Ur showed luxury and personal taste—rethinking the materials used in her lavish burial. This resulted in an eclectic installation including sculptures of crowns and regalia, amphoras, jewelry and musical instruments.
These experiments set the course for Yousif to examine the achievements and legacies of other prominent Mesopotamian women such as Enheduanna—the first recorded writer of history, recently discovered by the Morgan Library—an influence that extends to “Tremble Like Reeds,” whose title is borrowed from one of the books. Verses by Enheduanna.
A poet; high priest of the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and war Inanna (later known as Ishtar); and the daughter of King Sargon, Enheduanna lived more than 3,000 years ago. “Enheduanna was an arm of his father's kingdom that extended south. He was part of this new sect,” Yousif told the Observer, stressing how much he loved these poems and the ancient style that still exists. In his popularity The exaltation of Inannadedicated to the goddess he served, Enheduanna writes: “By his loud cry, the gods of the Earth are afraid. His roar made the gods of Anuna tremble like a solitary reed. Because of his fame, they all hid together.”
In this latest exhibition, Yousif invites us on an allegorical journey through time and space set on Iraq's two major rivers—the Tigris and the Euphrates—considering transference as an overarching theme. The power of the goddess (and the agency of women in general) is shown through the work done. We think about the symbolic nudity of a single reed and divine wrath in images and installations that revisit these famous Mesopotamian myths and legends, as well as closely related stories.
The works in Yousif's “Habibti” series (“moment of love” for the artist) are clay sculptures of female devotees channeling an ancient form of Sumerian sculpture created to invoke the gods on behalf of devotees. Here, they are playfully decorated with flowers, ruffles and reeds. In Babylonian Lion and Seated Ishtar (2024), we see the goddess riding a lion—an animal long associated with Inanna/Ishtar. Yousif's image represents one in ancient Babylon showing a lion that appears to be mating with a human figure. In the first image, a lion is occupying a chair, which people believed may have been the seat of a goddess. Yousif rethinks this absence at the same time as he considers personal loss. His family used to visit the place before being deported to Iraq, as a souvenir of the family photo.
Migration (2024) shows birds on tree branches about to begin their seasonal flights, and we wonder, perhaps like Yousif, about their eventual return and how much the journey can transform them. These stories about the collective history and family history of Iraq take us to familiar places—palm trees, swamps, river crossings—that were once thought to be eternal and are now at great risk due to conflict, climate change and policies of neglect. They remind us of a golden age that is often steeped in nostalgia and curiosity that often obscures diasporic questions.
Yousif grew up with the US invasion of his country. This violence—made physically distant by exile and intimate and painful—appears in his other solo play, “Riverbend.”
Riverbend was an anonymous 20-year-old blogger who wrote about life under the US occupation on his blog, Baghdad Burning. Writing in English, Riverbend recounted his frustrations with the political class, the impact on residents of sectarian strife, power outages and the despondency of young people who longed for a better life in open and clutter-free areas. (“Is the American soldier who died today in Anbar more important than my cousin who was shot last month on the night of his engagement to the woman he has wanted to marry for the past six years? I don't think so.” )
“It is difficult to do work based on the latest things because you will never do justice, you are not the one who feels so much pain and trauma,” said Yousif. “I wanted to honor his word.”
Riverbend eventually left Iraq and settled elsewhere. And like many of Yousif's other leading female characters, Riverbend's mystery and voice are deeply moving, affecting many Mesopotamian female narrators while simultaneously questioning, witnessing and writing.
“Iraqis are very proud of their two rivers,” Yousif explained. “When I thought about Riverbend, visually, I felt a little pain—rivers change, there's a time warp. I was thinking about his name in a different way than he intended. He still had hope. His name meant a lot to me.”
“Riverbend” exhibition includes an eclectic number of artefacts arranged in an excavation-like environment. Yousif's image is expansive and generous. The works are composed of panels that recall the comic strips and architectural style of old Iraqi building facades and balconies. Arab divas, such as singers Fairuz and Majida El Roumi, whose songs the artist listens to while working on his station, naturally find a place among the images and heroines of Mesopotamian women. With the same aim of combining timelines and symbols, Iraq is also celebrated as the starting point of modern Arabic art with the distinctive heads of opening painter and sculptor Jawad Saleem's famous studies.
The persistence of the archetypal mother and her multiple appearances as goddess, queen and river emphasize the importance of fertility and the influence of Yousif's own mother on his artistic practice.
“I look at the past but I also talk about it in my own way with a sense of self-reflection from my mother,” said Yousif. “He was my first clue to interpreting culture visually.”
His mother, who painted while living in Baghdad, kept a painting from the 1970s that had a lasting impact on Yousif's exploration of figurative possibilities and artistic means of conveying desires for looseness and freedom.
Paired with Bay Area Funk visuals with vernacular sympathies, absurdist cartoon characters and bold color schemes, Yousif playfully evokes a past made familiar with vestiges of memory and self-affirmation. The result is a beautiful version of the first art grafting procedure that leaves a person under a permanent spell.
“Maryam Yousif: Shake Like a Reed” appears on Rebecca Camacho Presents through December 20, 2024. “Maryam Yousif: Riverbend” is on display at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco until February 23, 2025.
