Al-Maghrib al-Aqṣá (The Farthest West)

In 1974, Mohamed Melehi presented The Farthest West at the first edition of the Arab Biennale in Baghdad. An initiative of the Union of Arab Artists, the event gathered 14 countries and displayed 600 artworks, showing the immense diversity of Arab artistic production. The unprecedented event was established as an attempt to challenge cultural Western hegemony and revealed the political motivations that predominated in the wake of the Six-Day War. Instead of emulating Western biennales, the First Biennale of Arab art hoped to become relevant to regional audiences and to serve the Arab cause, also by seeking to unite the Arab populations even as colonisation tried to divide them.