The first monograph of Latif Al Ani’s work is shortlisted for the Historical Book Award at the major annual photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles. The book was commissioned and edited by the Ruya Foundation, and published by Hatje Cantz in May 2017.
Latif Al Ani (b. 1932, Baghdad) is known as the founding father of Iraqi photography. From the 1950s to the 1970s, during a period of increased cosmopolitanism and openness in the country, he was prolific in documenting everyday life in Iraq. His vast archive, of black-and white realist photographs, provides a unique record of mid-twentieth century Iraqi experience but from the 1980s it had fallen into obscurity. It is only now that his work is being rediscovered by an international audience, after being seen at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015.
Latif Al Ani, American couple at Ctesiphon (1965). Courtesy of the artist.
Today Al Ani is finally receiving the attention that his impressive oeuvre deserves. The monograph Latif Al Ani crowns the artist’s comeback, assembling around two hundred photographs. Texts by Morad Montazami, curator for the Middle East and North Africa at Tate Modern, accompany the works. There is also an interview between Al Ani and Tamara Chalabi, a specialist in contemporary Middle Eastern art and culture and the Chair and Co-Founder of the Ruya Foundation. Chalabi was responsible for Al Ani’s reintroduction to the international art scene in 2015.
More information about the monograph is available here.
Order a copy of the monograph on the Hatje Cantz website.