Walid Raad
Views from inner to outer compartments: Louvre, 2012
Overall: 462 5/8 x 165 x 55 1/2 in. (1175 x 419 x 141 cm.); element 1: 55 1/2 x 114 1/8 in. (141 x 290 cm); element 2: 41 3/4 x 90 1/8 in. (106 x 229 cm); element 3: 34 1/4 x 94 1/8 in. (87 x 239 cm); element 4: 34 1/4 x 68 7/8 in. (87 x 175 cm); element 5: 40 1/8 x 69 1/4 in. (102 x 176 cm); elemento 6: 21 1/4 x 81 1/8 in. (54 x 206 cm); element 7: 48 3/8 x 112 5/8 in. (123 x 286 cm); element 8: 22 x 50 3/8 in. (56 x 128 cm); element 9: 42 1/2 x 71 5/8 in. (108 x 182 cm)
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WALID RAAD was born in Chbanieh, Lebanon in 1967. Lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon, and New York where he is Associate Professor of Art at the Cooper Union. He is a versatile visual artist, whose work includes textual analysis, video, and photography projects, concentrating on the Lebanese civil wars, the Arab-Israeli conflicts, and documentary theory and practice. In addition to numerous individual and group shows at major venues throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North America Raad’s works have been included in Documenta 11 (Kassel, Germany), Art Basel (Switzerland), and the Venice Biennale (Italy). Raad was the winner of the 2007 Alpert Award for Visual Arts from the Herb Alpert Foundation. He is also a member of the Arab Image Foundation, started in 1996 to promote historical research of the visual culture of the Arab world and to promote experimental video production in the region. Raad presented a free public lecture on his work at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on October 21, 2009, and conducted studio visits with graduate students in the Art Department at the University of Hawaii.
The Museum’s Mirage of Walid Raad - Adrastus Collection proudly presents its most recent acquisition: Walid Raad’s Views from inner to outer compartments: Louvre (2012). This artwork was displayed in a three-year project entitled “Preface to the First Edition” hosted by The Louvre Museum in Paris.
Through metal stencils that hang from the ceiling and the projection of white lights onto them, linear silhouettes are created on the walls of Salle de la Maquette, resembling doorways and corridors. This exercise of simulating contours the illusion of a museum space, as shadows and interstices device a mirage of an exhibition room. The phantasmagoria architecture levitates over the spectator, who becomes a witness of the construction’s disintegration into abstraction.
In fact, Views from inner to outer compartments: Louvre (2012) is the deconstruction of the institutional space. However, for Jaques Derridá deconstruction is not synonymous with destruction. In fact, “it is, much closer to the original meaning of the word analysis itself, which etymologically means to undo. […] a virtual equivalent for to de-construct.” Specifically, in this a r t w o r k, W a l i d R a a d v i s u a l l y deconstructs the 18th-century idea of the “universal museum”.
Moreover, “Raad occupies a hitherto non-existent critical space for re-interpreting personal and collective memories, and for reimagining the future of his home country.” That is to say, the Lebanese artist questions the massive financial and cultural investments that are being made in the Arab world. Furthermore, this artwork concretely queries the recently opened wing for Islamic Art at the Louvre Museum and its satellite venue in Abu Dhabi, which is envisaged to be open in 2016. For Walid Raad, this artwork unveils his critical look at the increasing enthusiasm for heritage and exposes his confrontation with cultural politics. Just like an archive, the museum is a repository of history that is being devoted to the displacement of objects and the globalization of art.
Born in 1967, Walid Raad’s artwork has been presented at Documenta, Kassel (in 2002 and 2007), the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennials, the 2003 Venice Biennale, the Kitchen, New York (2006) and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2006), and numerous other museums and venues in Europe, the Middle East and North America. Raad is also the recipient of the Alpert Award in Visual Arts (2007), the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2007) and the Camera Austria Award (2005).