Aesthetic (dis)pleasure in a war zone: complexities of US-military patronage of an ‘enemy’ Iraqi artist

Abstract

ABSTRACT What happens when an Iraqi artist is commissioned by the US military in the middle of military conflict? This article examines the self-contradictory characteristics of the unexpected artist-patron relationship in 2003 between Iraqi sculptor Khalid Alussy and the 4th Infantry Division amid the Iraq War (2003–2011). This academically unexamined case presents an extraordinary relationship that merges destruction, creativity, mourning, cooperation, and subjugation. Alussy ultimately created a monument which elegises the deaths of US soldiers, for the division's base in Fort Hood, Texas using bronze harvested from statues of Saddam Hussein. These Hussein statues had also been made by Alussy. The article traces how this US Iraqi, artistic collaboration snowballed into a heart-warming myth online, before delving into the far more complex and unpleasant realities. The memorial may look straightforward and realistic, but it is a mirage of comfort, containing layers of conquest and suppression. Whilst there is ample scholarship on military aesthetics, propaganda, and art from conflict zones, this contribution presents an extraordinary case of military patronage of a local artist in the midst of warfare. This article uncovers the contradictory and exploitative processes that transform invaders into supposed benefactors and (potential) enemies into creators through art.