Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
As a child, the US artist Michael Rakowitz was visiting the British Museum in London when his mother, who is of Iraqi-Jewish heritage, asked him a troubling question: why were priceless Assyrian artefacts displayed here, of all places? Rakowitz’s ensuing epiphany – that ‘it was a museum, but it was also a crime palace’ – has informed his work as an artist ever since. This short documentary details how Rakowitz is inspired by his desire to make Western institutions confront colonisation as both a historical and a contemporary reality. The film focuses on his project ‘The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist’ (2006-), work on which was still ongoing during the COVID-19 lockdown. Calling his artworks ‘ghosts’ that have returned to haunt the halls of Western museums, Rakowitz and staff from his studio recreate artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq after the US invasion in 2003, as well as archeological sites subsequently destroyed by ISIS. ‘In this moment when we’ve lost the close proximity to one another,’ Rakowitz says, ‘we’re making these lost objects … where we can locate one another and feel like we’re not alone.’
Video by Art21
Producer: Ian Forster
video
Personality
Why one man spent 15 years in ‘self-imposed’ island exile
7 minutes
video
Nature and landscape
Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece
6 minutes
video
Design and fashion
The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays
14 minutes
video
Physics
A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet
9 minutes
video
Architecture
Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China
16 minutes
video
Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
6 minutes
video
Thinkers and theories
Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged
14 minutes
video
Animals and humans
An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’
5 minutes
video
Mathematics
How a curious question about colouring maps changed mathematics forever
9 minutes