Appendix XVIII: Plates

2009 - Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)
Variable dimension

“The Lebanese wars of the past three decades affected Lebanon’s residents physically and psychologically: from the hundred thousand plus who were killed; to the two hundred thousand plus who were wounded; to the million plus who were displaced; to the even more who were psychologically traumatized. Needless to say, the wars also affected Lebanese cities, buildings and institutions. It is clear to me today that these wars also affected colours, lines, shapes and forms. Some of these were affected in a material way and, like burned books or razed monuments, are physically destroyed and lost forever. Others, like looted treasure or politically compromised artworks, remain physically intact but are removed from view, possibly never to be seen again. And yet other colours, lines, shapes and forms, sensing the forthcoming danger, deploy defensive measures: they hide, take refuge, hibernate, camouflage and dissimulate. I expected them to do so in the artworks of past artists. I thought their paintings, sculptures, films, photographs, and drawings would be their most hospitable hosts. I was wrong. Instead, colours, lines, shapes and forms took refuge in unexpected places. They hid in Roman and Arabic letters and numbers; in circles, rectangles and squares; in yellow, blue and green. They dissimulated as typefaces, covers, titles and indexes; as the graphi lines and footnotes of books; they camouflaged as letters, price lists, dissertations and catalogues; as diagrams and budgets. They hibernated not in, but around artworks.” Walid Raad in “Miraculous Beginnings”, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2010, p.94.

Walid Raad is a Lebanese artist whose work investigates the way historical events of physical and psychological violence affect bodies, minds, culture, and memory. Spanning across photography, video, installation and performance, Raad’s practice critically addresses biases of representation and story-telling in historical discourses and narratives, especially in a Middle-Eastern context. His works have been concerned with historical omissions and unaddressed narratives in relation to the political and socio-economic realities that structure contemporary Lebanon and the other countries from the region. In 1989, he notably founded the Atlas Group to research and document the recent history of Lebanon, with the emphasised aim to shed light on and confront alternative narratives to the coverage and documentation of the 1975 and 1990 Lebanese wars.