Michael Rakowitz

Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz (b. 1973) has an ambitious project: he seeks to preserve stories and memories associated with places and objects that no longer exist. Since 2007, he has worked on reappearing the cultural artifacts lost or destroyed in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq. Rakowitz highlights the many layered effects of centuries of imperialism and the ways the destruction of art and culture parallel the destruction of life.

The exhibition takes us to the ancient Assyrian Northwest Palace of Kalhu. Rakowitz has recreated a series of reliefs from this palace, built by King Ashurnasirpal II and likely completed between 869 and 865 BCE. Kalhu is the Assyrian name for the ancient city known in English as Nimrud, near present day Mosul, Iraq. The palace had undergone looting and destruction since the 1850s, when British excavators first began removing panels and portions of panels to ship back to the West. It was common practice to saw off the heads of the guardian-figure relief sculptures, since a human face would be the most saleable and desirable to collect. Waves of colonial extraction took place before ISIS destroyed what remained in 2015.

The film The Ballad of Special Ops Cody (2017) is another work that examines various manifestations of imperialist power. The film is based on an incident from 2005, when an Iraqi insurgent group posted an image online of a captured American soldier named John Adam. The group threatened to kill him unless the U.S. released prisoners it was holding in Iraq. The American military took the ultimatum seriously but was unable to identify anyone by the name of John Adam in its ranks. It turned out that this "soldier" was Special Ops Cody, an American infantry action figure. These toys were sold exclusively on U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Iraq and were often sent home to the children of active-duty soldiers.

The film builds on this story, bringing the figure to life through a stop-motion animation filmed at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, which has collaborated with Iraq’s National Museum since the 1930s. In the animation, Special Ops Cody enters the institute’s display cases, which contain Mesopotamian votive statues taken during Western colonial expeditions. Although Cody offers the statues freedom and encourages them to leave their open cases and return home, they remain—petrified and fearful, unable to return in the current context. The work touches on issues of repatriation, a pressing topic across the Western world, while also addressing the complexities of American warfare in other countries.

In 2018, Rakowitz reappeared a destroyed sculpture of a lamassu – a protective deity with the head of a human, the body of a bull, and the wings of a bird. Once found in the ancient city of Nineveh, the new version was installed on The Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, facing Iraq, its back turned to Parliament. This powerful work, The invisible enemy should not exist (Lamassu of Nineveh), will be placed outside Stavanger Cathedral in the summer of 2025. The nearly three-thousand-year-old guardian figure is made from the packaging of empty tin cans that once contained Iraqi date syrup. The colourful surface recalls the original hues of the sculpture, while the choice of material serves as a commentary on the devastating effects that war and imperialism has had on the once legendary Iraqi date industry. In Stavanger, the sculpture will guard the city’s medieval cathedral, a stone structure from the 12th century that has shaped the cityscape for 900 years. The connection between the guardian figure and the church will be explored through an opening event that will take place on 23 May in the Stavanger Cathedral.

Michael Rakowitz explores complex relationships between people, cultures, and power structures, and the exhibition will feature both older and newer works. With the installation I’m good at love, I’m good at hate, it’s in between I freeze (2009–), Rakowitz delves into Leonard Cohen’s stance toward occupied Palestine. Through a film with footage from the Alhambra Palace Hotel in Ramallah, Palestine, and a collection of Cohen memorabilia, the project maps the historical context and aftermath of a concert that never took place.

In 2009, Leonard Cohen was scheduled to perform in Israel. Due to increasing pressure from pro-Palestinian voices urging him not to perform there, a parallel event was organized in Palestine. Amid protests voicing dissent that the Palestinian concert was merely a symbolic gesture of solidarity and a hollow attempt to appease demonstrators, the concert was boycotted and ultimately cancelled. This story highlights Cohen’s personal struggle with art and politics. The work is a strong example of Rakowitz’s ability to show the interconnections, threads, and resonances that a close reading of idiosyncratic events can reveal.