Walid Raad at Paula Cooper Gallery | 524 W 26th Street
Walid Raad continues his sly and destabilizing interventions throughout the exhibition area at Paula Cooper Gallery. By way of wall texts, the artist created fictional personages and histories to direct the viewer’s interested by the assorted items on show, basically shaping how the pictures will likely be learn. As all the time, Raad reminds us that grand narratives are ceaselessly subjective, and sometimes veer extra intently to fantasy or outright fabrication than we’re keen to confess.
Epilogue II: The Constables, 2021, presents a set of images depicting the backs of work that we’re informed had been found behind a gaggle of unidentified old-master canvases bought by the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The work’s title and imagery recommend the cloud research of English painter John Constable, whose surname can be the British phrase for a police officer. And the work’ seen stretcher bars think of the bars of a jail cell: a visible barricade that retains the viewer at a take away. Raad’s wall textual content discusses this obstacle to remark, claiming that “Abu Dhabi has forbidden anybody from trying on the work’ fronts” and has banned show of the objects fully, solely permitting these curious photographs to be seen.
Symbols of imperial energy and status are additionally examined within the pest-infested treasures of Epilogue: The Gold and Silver, 2021, that includes ten photographs of elaborate goblets and animal collectible figurines. A particular invertebrate gathers in numbers upon the floor of every vintage decorative object; ants crawl over a golden goat, whereas slugs encroach upon a tarnished swan. These aristocratic baubles are introduced low, remodeled into habitats for vermin.
The luminous video set up Comrade chief, comrade chief, how good to see you, 2022, is among the strongest items right here, because it turns giants of world politics—resembling Yasser Arafat and Margaret Thatcher—into paper dolls (fairly actually) who stand earlier than projections of colossal waterfalls. Right here, Raad humorously factors out that even the biggest and most necessary figures of historical past are nothing within the face of nature’s mighty, overwhelming powers.
— David C. Shuford
