Michael Rakowitz, April is the cruellest month, 2021
A Waterfronts commission with Turner Contemporary for England’s Creative Coast
Michael Rakowitz, April is the cruellest month (detail), 2021
Michael Rakowitz, April is the cruellest month (detail), 2021
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (Lamassu of Nineveh), 2018
10,500 Iraqi date syrup cans, metal frame
Approx. 309.88 x 60.96 x 276.86 cm
Commissioned for Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth, London
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (Lamassu of Nineveh), 2018
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (Lamassu of Nineveh) (detail), 2018
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist
(Room H, Northwest Palace of Nimrud), 2018
Middle Eastern food packaging and newspapers, with glue on panel
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist
(Room H, Northwest Palace of Nimrud) (detail), 2018
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist
(Room H, Northwest Palace of Nimrud) (detail), 2018
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist
(Room G, Northwest Palace of Nimrud), 2018
Relief from Middle Eastern packaging and newspapers, glue, cardboard on wooden structures, museum label
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist
(Room G, Northwest Palace of Nimrud) (detail), 2018
Michael Rakowitz, Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist
(Room Z, Northwest Palace of Nimrud), 2018
Middle Eastern packaging and newspapers, glue, cardboard on wooden structures
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist, 2007- ongoing
Drawings, Arabic newspaper and food packaging cardboard sculptures, museum labels, sound
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (detail), 2007- ongoing
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist, 2007 - ongoing
Wall-mounted vitrine with perspex cover; 7 objects from found Middle Eastern packaging and newspapers, glue, museum labels, 23 x 110 x 23 cm
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (detail), 2007- ongoing
Michael Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (detail), 2007- ongoing
Michael Rakowitz, May the obdurate foe not be in good health, 2011- ongoing
Arabic newspapers, food packaging, cardboard, museum labels
Michael Rakowitz, May the obdurate foe not be in good health, 2011- ongoing
Arabic newspapers, food packaging, cardboard, museum labels
Michael Rakowitz, May the obdurate foe not be in good health (detail), 2011- ongoing
Michael Rakowitz, May the obdurate foe not be in good health (detail), 2011- ongoing
Michael Rakowitz, The Ballad of Special Ops Cody (still), 2017
Stop-motion video
Director of photographer and editor: Robert Chase Heishman
Michael Rakowitz, I’m good at love, I’m good at hate, its in between I freeze (still), 2018
Multimedia installation: two-player video archival channels, objects and artifacts
Directed by Michael Rakowitz and Robert Chase Heishman
Michael Rakowitz, The flesh is yours, the bones are ours (frottages), 2015
Michael Rakowitz, The flesh is yours, the bones are ours (frottages) (detail), 2015
Michael Rakowitz, The flesh is yours, the bones are ours (plaster casts) (detail), 2015
Michael Rakowitz, The flesh is yours, the bones are ours (plaster casts) (detail), 2015
Michael Rakowitz, Imperfect Binding: A Homage to Francesco Federico Cerruit, 2019
Damaged and unbound Iraqi Jewish prayer books, printed in Livorno, repaired in Turin, Dimensions variable
Michael Rakowitz, Imperfect Binding: A Homage to Francesco Federico Cerruit, 2019
Damaged and unbound Iraqi Jewish prayer books, printed in Livorno, repaired in Turin, Dimensions variable
Michael Rakowitz, What dust will rise?, 2012
Bamiyan travertine, glass, vitrines, bullets, shrapnel, meteorites, Libyan desert glass, trinitite, fragments of the destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan, books burned during the Second World War
Michael Rakowitz, What Dust Will Rise? (Prayer Book of Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg), 2012
Hand carved Bamiyan travertine, 35.6 x 48.3 x 7.6 cm
Michael Rakowitz, What dust will rise? (detail), 2012
Michael Rakowitz, What dust will rise? (detail), 2012
Michael Rakowitz, Spoils, 2011
Culinary performance
Park Avenue Autumn Restaurant, New York, September 2011
Michael Rakowitz, John (Egypt), Ringo (Jordan), Paul (Palestine) and George (Iraq) (The Breakup Series), 2010-2012
Vintage satin, medals, lacquer pen writing, Dimensions variable
Michael Rakowitz, John (Egypt) (detail), 2012
Vintage satin, medals, lacquer pen writing
132.6 x 55.9 cm
Michael Rakowitz, Ringo (Jordan) (detail), 2012
Vintage satin, medals, lacquer pen writing
125.2 x 55.9 cm
Michael Rakowitz, Paul (Palestine) (detail), 2012
Vintage satin, medals, lacquer pen writing
134.6 x 55.9 cm
Michael Rakowitz, Study for The Breakup – Maps II, The Summer of Setback, Fantasy Objects, The Moment(s) (The Breakup Series), 2010-2014
Mixed media
Michael Rakowitz, Study for The Breakup – Maps II, The Summer of Setback, Fantasy Objects, The Moment(s) (The Breakup Series) (detail), 2010-2014
Michael Rakowitz, May the arrogant not prevail, 2010
Found Arabic packaging and newspaper, glue, cardboard, and wood
493.4 x 597.5 x 95.3 cm
Michael Rakowitz, May the arrogant not prevail (detail), 2010
Michael Rakowitz, May the arrogant not prevail (detail), 2010
Michael Rakowitz, May the arrogant not prevail (detail), 2010
Michael Rakowitz, The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own, 2009
Mixed-media installation, Dimensions variable
Michael Rakowitz, The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own (detail), 2009
Michael Rakowitz, Zabiba, The King, The Dragon & Jonathan Earl Bowser Installation, (Strike the Empire Back Series), 2009
Michael Rakowitz, The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own (detail), 2009
Michael Rakowitz, White man got no dreaming, 2008
Mixed media installation
Demolished aboroginal houses, wires, copper wire, wood, pencil on vellum drawings
465 x 336 x 336 cm, 4 drawings: 61 x 198 cm
Michael Rakowitz, White man got no dreaming (detail), 2008
Michael Rakowitz, White man got no dreaming (detail), 2008
Michael Rakowitz, White man got no dreaming (detail), 2008
Michael Rakowitz, Olympic Stadium (Proposal for Flexible Architecture), 2006
Miniature plastic stadium, 9 x 11 x 7 cm
Michael Rakowitz, Dull Roar, 2005
Drawings on paper and vellum, inflatables, motors, wooden platform, mixed media
Michael Rakowitz, Dull Roar, 2005
Michael Rakowitz, Positive Agitation, 2005
Hoover 150 vacuum cleaner (vintage, Henry Dreyfuss),
exhaust pipe, motor with timer, 121.9 x 152.4 x 152.4 cm
Pencil on vellum, 61 x 110.5 cm
Michael Rakowitz, Minaret, 2001-ongoing
(Performance) Mosque alarm clock, megaphone
Michael Rakowitz, Minaret, 2001-ongoing
(Performance) Mosque alarm clock, megaphone
Michael Rakowitz, paraSite, 1997-ongoing
in corso, shelter for Joe H., Battery Park City, New York, 2000
Plastic bags, polyethylene tubing, hooks, tape, dimensions variable
Michael Rakowitz, paraSite, 1997-ongoing
shelter for Bill S., Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 1998
Plastic bags, polyethylene tubing, hooks, tape, dimensions variable
Michael Rakowitz perfoming Minaret, 2001-ongoing
Concerned with history and current events, Michael Rakowitz uses his work to explore pressing issues and to invite others into the conversations fostered by his public projects, installations, and events. He engages in fact-finding and makes connections with people at all opportunities, focusing on individuals involved in situations that range from the personal to the local to the geopolitical. Among his first projects is paraSITE (begun 1997), a series of inflatable homes built in consultation with the homeless people who would occupy them. Rakowitz’s own Iraqi-Jewish heritage figures prominently in many of his works, reflecting his deep connection to the country. Since 2004, with his ongoing project, RETURN, he has been attempting to import Iraqi dates into the U.S., the centerpiece of a multipart project that illustrates the cultural richness of this country in crisis.
Food truck of Enemy Kitchen, 2003- ongoing
Michael Rakowitz (b. 1973, New York) is the recipient of the 2020 Nasher Prize, the 2018 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (Visual Arts category), a 2012 Tiffany Foundation Award; a 2008 Creative Capital Grant; a Sharjah Biennial Jury Award; a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Grant in Architecture and Environmental Structures; the 2003 Dena Foundation Award, and the 2002 Design 21 Grand Prix from UNESCO. He was awarded the Fourth Plinth commission (2018-2020) in London’s Trafalgar Square. From 2019 - 2020, a survey of Rakowitz’s work traveled from Whitechapel Gallery in London, to Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Torino, to the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, marking his first major museum retrospective in the region. He has shown regularly at Sharjah Art Foundation including mostly recently in Sharjah Biennial (2019 and 2023) and Unsettled Objects (2021) at the Flying Saucer.
Rakowitz’s work has appeared in various museums and biennials including: The Life of Things, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, Austria (forthcoming); Choosing to Portage, Tephra ICA, Reston, VA (2023); In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination Rises, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE (2023); Surviving the Long Wars, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL (2023); Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023), Sharjah, UAE (forthcoming); In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination in the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2022); Air, Utah Museum of Fine Art, Salt Lake City, Utah (2022), Mardin Biennial, Mardin, Turkey (2022); Beyond Codex: Living Archives, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY (2022); ARS22, Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland (2022); Visual Nature: The Politics and Culture of Environmentalism in the 20th and 21st Centuries, Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology (MAAT), Lisbon, Portugal (2022); Portals, NEON, Athens, Greece (2021); Les Flammes, Musée d’Art moderne de Paris, France (2021); A Boundless Drop to A Boundless Ocean, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL (2021); Our world is burning, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2020); Assyria to America, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME (2019); and I Am Ashurbanipal King Of The World, King Of Assyria, The British Museum, London (2019) among others.
His works are featured in major private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia; Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; Van Abbemuseum, Endhoven, Netherlands; The British Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Kabul National Museum, Afghanistan; UNESCO, Paris; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE; Art Jameel Collection, Dubai, UAE and Tate, London, UK.
He lives and works in Chicago.
A living installation at the Baltic Centre in Gateshead uses horticulture to send a political message while also offering solace.
The Iraqi-American’s intricately-labelled planters and models form a repository for stories on everything from the destruction of Palestinian olives to homesick migrants.
Michael Rakowitz uses everyday objects to render lost artifacts into ghostly new forms.
The Iraqi-American artist brings his 'The invisible enemy should not exist' exhibition to Green Art Gallery.
In Réapparitions, on view from February 25 to June 12, 2022 at FRAC in France, Michael Rakowitz recreates or “re-appears” the missing and destroyed artifacts taken from the National Museum of Iraq after the American invasion in the early 2000s.
Michael Rakowitz's artwork on the cover of Mizna 22.2: The Experimental Issue.
An in-depth podcast conversation on the artist's big influences, from T.S. Eliot to Leonard Cohen.
Daniel Trilling writes about Michael Rakowitz's latest work for England’s Creative Coast.
The Iraqi-American artist connects the Kent coast to Basra in an inspired condemnation of war.
The Iraqi-American’s Margate commission is a monument to the folly of the Iraq conflict — and of monuments themselves.
ARTnews live with artist and professor Michael Rakowitz.
Rakowitz has installed at the Wellin a partial reconstruction of “Room H” within the Northwest Palace of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud.
STIR investigates the multifaceted art-activism of Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz, who is showcasing his first solo exhibition at the Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai.
Assyria. Babylonia. Persia. These ancient empires covered an area generally consisting of modern-day Iraq and Iran. Museum goers can learn more about these cultures through exhibitions of their artistic expressions across North America.
Through playful, outraged interventions, a sculptor seeks to reclaim a lost Iraq.
Micheal Rakowitz’s thought-provoking work straddles the realms of contemporary art, politics and society.
The exhibition Michael Rakowitz. Imperfect Binding presents major artworks envisioned in the artist’s over-twenty-year practice traversing architecture, archaeology, ritual cooking practices and geopolitics.
Los Angeles’s city-funded triennial, Current:LA Food, has been hosting community meals that are open to the public throughout the city, though the events are still dominated by art world figures.
Conversation between Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz and Jonathan Rinck.
Rakowitz is the fifth winner of the coveted award, and will take home $100,000 to work on future projects.
Throughout his career, Rakowitz has been making artful reconstructions of lost heritage.
An Interview with Michael Rakowitz by Marisa Mazria Katz.
Michael Rakowitz’s work makes the invisible visible – whether it’s the victims of war or those made homeless by the economic downturn.
The artist behind London’s current fourth plinth sculpture has published a cookbook for date syrup.
The Beatles play a presidential funeral while Nimrud’s Palace is rebuilt with sardine cans in this angry, thought-provoking journey though time.
What counts as a cultural artifact? Chicago-based artist Michael Rakowitz turns the concept inside-out.
A review of Michael Rakowitz's exhibition at REDCAT, Los Angeles.
Enemy Kitchen makes Iraqi culture visible in the US beyond war, producing an alternative discourse and social space.
The latest fourth plinth commission is a full-scale recreation of a winged bull sculpture from 700 BCE entirely clad in Iraqi date cans.
With his fourth plinth commission unveiled in London, the artist talks archaeological magic tricks and Saddam Hussein’s obsession with Star Wars.
A reconstruction of an ancient statue of a winged bull destroyed by ISIS is the latest public art installation to sit on a sculpture platform here known as the Fourth Plinth, on Trafalgar Square.
Michael Rakowitz used 10,000 tin cans to rescue a treasure destroyed by Isis. The Iraqi-American, who once made a work out of Saddam Hussein’s dinner plates, explains why he likes causing trouble.
Food plays an interesting role in Rakowitz’s work, existing as a symbol for hospitality, while also carrying an intricate history of trade, travel and economic motives.
From war loot to Saddam Hussein's Star Wars obsession, an exhibition at MCA Chicago considers the costs of power and destruction.
A review of Michael Rakowitz's exhibition, Backstroke of the West, by Jordan Martins.
Kaelen Wilson-Goldie reviews Michael Rakowitz's show at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
Whether through food, baseball memorabilia, looted Iraqi artefacts or Star Wars, Michael Rakowitz reappropriates and probes to raise questions about ancient history, popular culture and personal identity. Sarah Hassan speaks to the Iraqi-American artist about the bittersweet paradox of displacement and belonging.
Michael Rakowitz speaks about his work for the Istanbul Biennial.
