Doha, October 25 (QNA) - Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art opened Saturday 'What Lingers in the Artist's Mind,' a major exhibition exploring more than seven decades of Iraqi artistic thought and experimentation through the story of the Baghdad Modern Art Group and the ideas that transformed modern art in Iraq.

On view until Feb. 6, 2027, the exhibition immerses audiences in the creative and intellectual world of the artists through artworks, archival material and original research to trace the development of a distinctly Iraqi artistic language.

Organised across 17 thematic sections, the exhibition gathers paintings, sculptures, sketches, photographs and archival documents to explore Mesopotamian heritage, Islamic traditions, folklore and how contemporary life intersects with international modernist ideas, revealing how artists drew on multiple sources to reimagine what modern Iraqi art could be.

Founded in 1951 by Jewad Selim and Shakir Hassan Al Said, the Baghdad Modern Art Group approached modernism as a space for experimentation. Drawing on Iraq's cultural and visual histories while engaging with international artistic movements, its members developed new forms of expression addressing questions of identity, heritage and modernity that continue to resonate in contemporary artistic practice.

Drawn extensively from Mathaf's internationally significant collection of Iraqi art, What Lingers in the Artist's Mind moves beyond a linear history of the group to explore its changing membership, exhibitions, ideas and influence. Works from the 1940s to the present day show how the questions explored by the group have been revisited and transformed by successive generations of artists.

The exhibition also makes visible how art history itself is constructed as its archival fragments, photographs and curatorial research sit alongside works of art, while missing works and documentation shaped by conflict and displacement are deliberately acknowledged. Together, these elements invite visitors to consider art history as an evolving process of discovery, interpretation and recovery.

Nada Shabout, exhibition curator, founding president of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World, Iran and Turkiye, and founding director of the Modern Art Iraq Archive, said: "What Lingers in the Artist's Mind is not intended to present a fixed or complete history of the Baghdad Modern Art Group. The exhibition places artworks into conversation with sketches, photographs, archives and, importantly, the gaps that remain within the historical record. By tracing these connections across different moments and generations, we can begin to understand the group not only through what its artists produced, but through the ideas, relationships and circumstances that shaped their practice. The exhibition embraces this sense of incompleteness as part of the history itself, opening new possibilities for how Iraqi modernism can be studied, interpreted and understood."

Presented as part of Qatar Museums' Fall/Winter 2026 programme, What Lingers in the Artist's Mind contributes to a season of major cultural experiences highlighting Qatar's role as a crossroads of people, cultures and ideas, creating opportunities for discovery, dialogue and exchange.

What Lingers in the Artist's Mind is on view at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art from Oct. 25, 2026, to Feb. 6, 2027. (QNA)