Artist whose sculpture replaced Saddam's statue dies

23rd September 2007, 11:45 WST

Iraqi artist Bassem Hamad al-Dawiri, whose sculpture replaced Saddam Hussein's statue after it was toppled in central Baghdad following the US-led invasion, has died in a car accident, the Association of Iraqi Artists said today. He was 34.

Al-Dawiri was driving on the road from Baghdad to the southern city of Kut, 160km south-east of Baghdad, to visit relatives on Wednesday when a tyre blew out, causing his car to flip over, said association chief Qassim al-Sabti.

Al-Sabti did not provide more details on the circumstances of the sculptor's death.

Images of US Marines hauling down Saddam's statue on Firdos Square on April 9, 2003, and jubilant Iraqis pelting it with garbage and shoes defined the moment Baghdad fell to US-led forces, a prelude to what many hoped would be democracy and freedom in a new Iraq.

Within a month, Baghdad's interim authorities erected the sculpture created by al-Dawiri and a group of artists he assembled on top of a concrete cylinder where the larger-than-life replica of Saddam wearing a suit, his right arm stretched out, once stood.

Al-Dawiri's work - a modernist structure, with branches reaching toward the sky and a crescent moon shape balancing a ball - was supposed to represent the freedom and unity among Iraq's Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds.

But many criticised the sculpture, saying it has little meaning when fear, violence and uncertainty dominate their lives.

After Saddam's ouster, al-Dawiri, a 1993 graduate of the Baghdad College of Arts, set up an artist association called the Survivors' Group, which created a number of statues in Baghdad, al-Sabti told AP.

In 2005, al-Dawiri erected a memorial statue for 18 children killed in a suicide car bomb attack earlier that year in Baghdad's mostly Shi'ite impoverished eastern New Baghdad area. The bomber blew up his four-wheel drive as US troops were distributing lolly and toys to the children.

Months later, that statue was blown up by explosives planted underneath.

Painter Mustafa al-Taweel, a close friend, called al-Dawiri's death "a great loss to Iraq".

The sculptor is survived by his wife, who is expecting the couple's first child.

BAGHDAD