The One Dimension Group ( Al Bu'd al Wahad) was a modern art collective founded in Iraq, by Shakir Hassan Al Said in 1971 which attempted to combine medieval Sufi traditions with contemporary, abstract art. Although the One Dimension Group was founded in Iraq, its members originated from across Arab nations, and its influence was felt across the Arab art world.
Background
One Dimension is one of a number of art groups that formed in 20th-century Iraq. During the first world war, a small group of European officers and artists settled in Iraq, exposing young artists to Western art traditions and techniques. While local artists and middle classes developed an appreciation for European art, the arts community searched for ways of synthesising indigenous art with international trends. In effect, these groups were seeking to forge an Arabic art aesthetic and to use art to help their nations reassert a sense of national identity.
Between the 1930s and the early 1970s, more than six different art groups were formed: The Pioneers formed in the 1930s; The Avantgarde Group formed in 1950; The Baghdad Modern Art Group formed in 1951; The Impressionists formed in 1953; The Corners Group founded in 1961; The Innovationists founded in 1963; The New Vision founded in 1968 and One Dimension founded in 1971. Some of these groups endured for decades, while others were short-lived and abandoned within a few years of their formation.
Each of these groups developed different ideas about how to combine heritage and modernity and developed a different vision for a national art aesthetic. Although there were tensions in the different visions of these groups, collectively, they actively searched for new national vision which would enable the country to develop internally, as well as take its place on a world stage.
Of these art groups, the Baghdad Modern Art Group and the One Dimension Group are the most frequently cited.
Brief history and philosophy
The One Dimension Group was established formally in 1971 by the prominent Baghdadi artist and intellectual, Shakir Hassan Al Said, when he published a manifesto for the group. Al Said had previously been a founding member of the Baghdad Group for Modern Art (Jama'at Baghdad lil-Fann al-Hadith) together with Jawad Saleem (1919-1961) and Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (1919-1994), but he along with several high profile artists, had withdrawn from that group when it lost its sense of direction, following the death of its founder, Jawad Saleem in 1961.
The One Dimension manifesto gives voice to the group's commitment to both heritage and modernity and sought to distance itself from the modern Arab artists which they perceived as following European artistic traditions. One Dimension's objectives are complex and sophisticated; it is philosophy, technique, style and a relationship between time and space, between the visual and the non-visual. The "one dimension" is an oblique reference to Sufism, which has been described as "the inner dimension of Islam." The objectives of the One Dimension Group were multi-dimensional and complex. At the most basic level, the group rejected two and three-two dimensional artwork in favour of a single "inner dimension". This approach was influenced by both the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and the traditions of Arabic calligraphy and associated Sufi movements. In practice, a single inner dimension was difficult to realise because most artworks are produced on two-dimensional surfaces. At a more profound level, one dimension refers to "eternity". Al Said explained:
Al Said actively searched for relationships between time and space; and for a visual language that would connect Iraq's deep art traditions with modern art methods and materials. The incorporation of callij (calligraphy) letters into modern artworks was an important aspect of this relationship. The letter became part of Al Said's transition from figurative art to abstract art. Arabic calligraphy was charged with intellectual and esoteric Sufi meaning, in that it was an explicit reference to a Medieval theology where letters were seen as primordial signifiers and manipulators of the cosmos.