Walid Raad
Preface / Prefazione
October 11, 2014–January 19, 2015
In collaboration with Carré d’Art – Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes
Museo d’arte contemporanea
Donnaregina–Madre, Napoli
Via Settembrini 79
80139 Naples
Italy
Curated by Alessandro Rabottini, Andrea Viliani
The Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina-Madre, Naples is hosting the first solo exhibition in an Italian public institution dedicated to the work of Walid Raad (b. 1967, Chbanieh, Lebanon). Since the early 2000s Raad has emerged internationally as one of the most influential artists on the Middle Eastern art scene. Oscillating between the documentary and the fictional, Raad’s exhibition explores intensely relevant and deeply urgent issues, such as the impact of war in a public and private context, the dynamics that govern the formation of individual and collective memory, the way both history and intellectual meanings are written, displayed and negotiated, the veracity of historical documents, the intimate nature of artistic experiences compared to the pervasive influence of politics and economics, and the role of museums today, with particular reference to the Arab context. The division of the exhibition into two different sections reflects the distinction between the two principal groups of works making up the exhibition itself. Presented on the ground floor is a broad selection of works from the cycle Scratching on Things I Could Disavow (2007–ongoing), which grows out of a series of artistic, political and economic phenomena that have emerged in the Arab world in recent years: being populated with hypothetical and phantom images, shadows and reflections, oblique and superimposed visions, fluctuating between different spaces and times, this section of the exhibition shows us that works of art are objects in constant mutation, true receptors of multiple relationships, aesthetic but also social, and by acting in this way their meanings, as well as their forms, colors and their very consistency is continuously transformed. The second-floor galleries present photographic series from the The Atlas Group project (1989–2004), one of the best known projects of the artist, in which Raad has explored the political, social, cultural, psychological and aesthetic effects of the civil war that has plagued his homeland Lebanon in recent decades. As a whole Preface develops as a fascinating exhibition narrative, combining video, photography, installation, sculpture, books, performance and an engaging, committed and layered storytelling on the contemporary institutional sphere. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes, and co-curated by Jean-Marc Prevost (Carré d’Art, Nîmes).
Per_forming a Collection # 3
October 11, 2014–in progress
Curated by Alessandro Rabottini, Eugenio Viola
Per_forming a collection #3 (which opens on the same day) is a new chapter that extends and continues the project devoted to the progressive formation and the process-based activation of the Madre museum’s permanent collection. Per_forming a collection various chapters present historical works and new commissions by Italian and international artists of different generations and confirm the twofold vocation, historical and prospective, as well as the narrative and performative matrix of the dynamic and constantly evolving Madre’s collection. The gallery previously devoted to the relationship between gesture, sign and language, which also features works by artists belonging to the Visual Poetry research, now hosts the photographic work of Shirin Neshat. Alongsidepresentingtwo videos by Francis Alÿs (REEL-UNREEL and the connected Children’s Game #7), the exploration of the fields related to sculpture, painting and photography is enriched, in this chapter, by the four large paintings by Lawrence Carroll premiered at the first Vatican Pavilion (55th Venice Biennale, 2013), as well as paintings and installations by Mimmo Paladino, Antonio Biasiucci, Roberto Cuoghi, Giulio Delvè, John Henderson, Mario Schifano, and Pádraig Timoney.
