Introduction - Shubbarialism  

Introduction

Between the documents of art and its documentation, a huge gap was marked that had obstructed the history of art criticism. The defect lies in the quality of the art completion with its competing potentials. It also resides in the textual criticism that determines how and how much the art incorporates isolated and distant shadowy spaces that weren’t able to form a viable and authentic spectacle as a critical discourse that would upgrade either to the Contemporary Thought and its evolution or to Fine Arts themes that trigger criticism despite the significant experience in the fine art movement.

As a matter of fact, the professional scientific approach is required on both sides of fine arts production. The first side represents the production mechanisms of contemporary content of fine arts along with their technical, conceptual and practical institutes, whereas the second side represents the mechanisms of reading, analysis and classification of fine art in terms of contemporary epistemological facts. Objective conditions from outside the field of fine arts contributed to this approach. They were incorporated with distinct original styles, while fostering an individual element with irrelevant leverage, i.e., the capacity of their competing power of influence is unquantifiable in terms of adjustment, guidance, reading and development of fine arts. One of the most notable aspects was the reading of the contemporary facts of fine arts and its transformation to an event that reviews the readers’ knowledge-boosting terminologies as opposed to shedding light on the contemporary qualifications of fine arts. These qualifications are represented by the conceptual instead of the corroborative elements, as well as declaring the presence or absence of publicity, advertisement and communications channels. Such channels are considered a basic requirement for contemporary fine arts as they were critically marginalized despite their high efficiency. This denounced the significance of fine arts and made it lose the chance to partake in the desired cultural sphere.

Additionally, the documentation, considered as the pillar of any cultural approach, became peripheral and overlooked, while a considerable history of fine arts passed without being documented and analyzed, otherwise it would have contributed to fostering the true journey and image of fine arts. The most significant missing phase of such history resides in the absence of publications that usually allocate either the individual or group experiences of artists. This phase is a central prerequisite for the establishment of a critical cultural base for fine arts as a movement on one hand, and of the artist as a growing individual experience who should sow the fruits of his/her cultural achievements on the other hand.

Based on the above argument, our present attempt is hoped to be as a foundational contribution to build a strong basis for the history of fine art. This would be achieved through a tireless experience of a diligent artist for years of dedication, exhibitions and consecutive participations, through which he selected the target audience, artists and critics savoring his material. From this point, he declared Shubbarialism that became fully-fledged and paved the way to the documented mobility of concepts, so he unearthed untold stories and unveiled his contemporary vision for his new artwork that is going to be incorporated with a novel conceptual approach. Hence, we realize that he incessantly and remarkably contributed to the enlightenment of the conditions of contemporary painting.

Eventually, this book was born.

Shubbarialism
A thorough reading of Mahmood Shubbar's experience
Written by Salam Jabbar