Walid Raad's Myth-Filled 'Cutouts'

The story of the Middle East today is one of cutouts. In the aftermath of World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the arbitrary borders drawn by European powers created an impossible geopolitical reality. This is how Lebanon was formed – cut out of its surroundings, ensuring a Christian Maronite majority. It was during the ensuing Lebanese Civil War (1975–90) that Beirut-born artist Walid Raad began taking photographs. From exploding rockets to burning cars, his ten-year-old gaze was drawn to these powerful yet terrifying images. Through the lens, he could face an unintelligible catastrophe and extract from it a fragment, a frame, a cutout. Many years later, his extensive solo show, ‘We Lived So Well Together’, at Kunsthalle Mainz makes it evident that Raad’s artistic toolset has invariably remained that of a photographer, regardless of the medium with which he works.

Throughout the exhibition, fact and fiction constantly interpenetrate. In the entrance hall, two massive silhouettes made of wooden crates reimagine public monuments allegedly disassembled and moved to safety from the streets of Beirut in 1975 (I long to meet the masses once again_XVII and XXII, both 2019). On the walls alongside hang two collages of images, purportedly showing the monuments pre-war, from which the main subjects have been excised (I long to meet the masses, 2017). This contrast of absence and presence – like a film negative and a developed print – is a gesture that stretches across the entire exhibition. Which version holds the truth of the event captured? My guess is that Raad would say neither. Both are equal parts truth and fiction, much like the detailed fables he writes to accompany each series of work.

In Another Letter to the Reader (2015/22), silhouettes in the shape of Iznik motifs have been cut out of an array of crates aligned against the museum’s wall, as if the patterns held inside have broken free. Developed during the 16th century in modern-day Turkey, these floral ceramic tile designs were the pride of the Ottoman Empire. Across the room, the patterns repeatedly resurface – eaten out of leaves stored in a botanical archive or as faded markings on the back of an old canvas. In Note to the Reader (2022), a blown-up black and white photo reveals the same motifs yet again, this time on the barren walls of the Louvre’s Grand Gallery. The adjacent wall text tells us that this photo was taken in the early days of World War I as artworks were being evacuated in preparation for a German assault. It’s hard not to see this desire to crate and protect symbols – which seem to have a life of their own – as a reflection of Raad’s biography: aged 16, he was placed on a boat and sent away to the US to escape the ongoing conflict.   

In the adjacent darkened room, small cut-out figures of different political leaders affiliated with Middle Eastern politics are placed along the gallery’s baseboards, at the foot of vignetted projections of six flowing waterfalls. Considered the most beautiful in Lebanon, these waterfalls were repeatedly renamed by local militias based on the countries and leaders backing them at a given moment. Comrade leader, comrade leader, how nice to see you_V, VI, VII, VIII, IX (2022) humorously and endlessly attempts to wash these men and women from history and exposes how dispensable and transient they are in comparison to these majestic waterfalls. This is just one of many narratives flowing through this symphonic exhibition, which is full of sleek and mischievous artworks that are never quite what they seem. Raad’s work reminds us that truth and fiction are far closer to one another than we sometimes think – as every photograph reveals just as much as it conceals.

Walid Raad's ‘We Lived So Well Together’ is on view at Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany, until 15 May 2022.

_{Main image: Walid Raad, Another Letter to the Reader, 2015/22, installation view. Courtesy: the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg; photograph: Norbert Miguletz}