Iraqi artist's lost works recovered in Miami Beach

[seafan]

Source: Miami Herald

After six years of thinking her series of bronze sculptures were irretrievably lost, an Iraqi artist was reunited with them Friday in Miami Beach.

Set atop a table inside the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens were five figures of women in different poses: one held her child above her head with outstretched arms, another cradled her baby against her chest.
How the art and its creator got to Miami Beach is a strange tale, featuring a con artist, police and embarrassed city officials.

While she was living in Jordan in 2001, a Miami Beach resident persuaded Iraqi sculptor Lamia Jamal Talebani, 60, to send him the series of elongated, sensuously curved bronze sculptures depicting Iraqi women holding their children.

''He said he was a gallery owner. He even paid for the shipping and insurance for the pieces,'' Talebani said.

Little did she know her client was a con artist who had swindled several artists of their work and kept them for himself. Posing as FedEx delivery men, undercover Miami Beach police arrested him in 2002.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/229769.html

[seafan]

1. More about the artist:

.....

Today, Talebani, a cousin of Iraqi President Jalal Talebani, teaches science and technology at Baghdad University and heads the Voice of Independent Women Organization, which teaches women about their rights, voting and the political process.
An activist since her student days, Talebani rallied for women's rights and Kurdish rights. As a result, in 1963 Saddam Hussein and his Baathist party jailed her for 45 days, two months after she gave birth to one of her four children.

''Anyone who believed in democracy and freedom was imprisoned. I was not alone,'' she said.

After leaving prison, Talebani and her late husband, Hikmet Kazim, fled Iraq. As they moved throughout Africa and the Middle East, she turned to sculpture as a way to express her views.

After years in exile, she returned to Iraq alone in 2003.

Life, though difficult, has its rewards. Talebani moves around Baghdad in Western clothes and earns the same amount of money as a man in her job.
Still brimming with political ambition, she may try a third time to win elected office, she said.
Meanwhile, Talebani sees a role for American women in ensuring women's rights in Iraq.
''Women's rights are one of the first bargaining chips used by Americans when trying to accommodate the Islamic agenda,'' she said to the group of about two dozen gathered at the Botanical Gardens on Friday.

``I hope you can influence women in Congress to include women's rights in their speeches when they discuss Iraq.''

[Kagemusha]

5. Knew she'd have a connection to a high official. No chance of this otherwise.

But, oh well. Even if it's a drop in the bucket, a good deed is a good deed.

[whistle]

2. Just like the Nazi looting from 1940 to 1945, do we know how many of the 1.0 million

...dead Iraqis had gold in their teeth?

[seriousstan]

3. Shall we check the Swiss?

[whistle]

4. Not a bad idea

[datadiva]

6. Mr. Barry Ragone must be an honest and caring person

To find out who the artist was and to work so hard to make sure she got her art back.