Walid Raad
- Walid Raad
- Work
Kunsthalle Hamburg, 2023
Walid Raad (b. 1967, Lebanon) is an artist and a Professor of Art in (the still-charging-tuition) The Cooper Union (New York, USA).
Raad’s works include The Atlas Group, a fifteen-year project between 1989 and 2004 about the contemporary history of Lebanon, and the ongoing projects Scratching on Things I Could Disavow and Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut). His books include Walkthrough, The Truth Will Be Known When The Last Witness Is Dead, My Neck Is Thinner Than A Hair, Let’s Be Honest The Weather Helped, and Scratching on Things I Could Disavow.
Raad’s solo exhibitions include the Louvre (Paris), The Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), ICA (Boston, USA), Museo Jumex (Mexico City, Mexico), Kunsthalle Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland), The Whitechapel Art Gallery (London, UK), Festival d’Automne (Paris, France), Kunsten Festival des Arts (Brussels, Belgium), The Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany). His works have also been shown in Documenta 11 and 13 (Kassel, Germany), The Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), Whitney Bienniale 2000 and 2002 (New York, USA), Sao Paulo Bienale (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Istanbul Biennal (Istanbul, Turkey), Homeworks I and IV (Beirut, Lebanon) and numerous other museums, biennales and venues in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas.
Raad is the recipient of the Aachener Kunstpreis (2018), ICP Infinity Award (2016), the Hasselblad Award (2011), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009), the Alpert Award in Visual Arts (2007), the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2007), the Camera Austria Award (2005), a Rockefeller Fellowship (2003), among other grants, prizes and awards.
Raad is also represented by Sfeir-Semler Gallery (Hamburg / Beirut) and Paula Cooper Gallery (New York). His video works are also distributed by Video Data Bank (Chicago) as well as V-Tape (Toronto).
| Selected Solo Exhibitions | |
| 2024 | Another Festival of (In)gratitude, Sfeir-Semler Gallery Karantina & Downtown, Beirut, Lebanon Cotton Under My Feet: The Zurich Chapter, Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland |
| 2023 | Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter, Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany |
| 2022 | We lived so well together, Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany |
| 2021 | Walid Raad.Cotton Under My Feet, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional, Madrid, Spain Walid Raad, Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain, Chapelle des Jésuites, Nîmes, France Walid Raad: We can make rain but no one came to ask, La Maison des Arts Brussels, Belgium |
| 2020 | Sweet Talks, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany Let's be honest, the weather helped, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden |
| 2019 | Let's be honest, the weather helped, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| 2017 | Yet Another Letter to the Reader, Fondazione Volume!, Rome, Italy Better Be Watching the Clouds, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon |
| 2016 | Walid Raad, The Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston, USA Walid Raad, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico Letter to the Reader, The Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA Those did are near. Those that are far., SITU Studio at Stomein Synagogue, Germany Walid Raad: Section 39_Index XXXVII: Traboulsi, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong |
| 2015 | Walid Raad, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA |
| 2014 | Walid Raad: Preface, Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain, Nîmes, France; Museo MADRE, Naples, Italy Walid Raad: Postface, University Museum of Contemporary Art, Amherst, USA Postface, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany 31st Sao Paulo Biennial: How to Talk About Things That Don’t Exist, Sao Paulo, Brazil |
| 2013 | Walid Raad. Preface to the First Edition, Louvre, Paris, France Art Basel Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland |
| 2012 | Scratching on Things I Could Disavow, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon |
| 2011 | Walid Raad – 2011 Hasselblad Award Winner, Hasselblad Foundation, Hasselblad Center at the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden Scratching on Things I Could Disavow. A History of Art in the Arab World, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria Walid Raad: Miraculous Beginnings, Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden Walid Raad: Miraculous Beginnings, Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland |
| 2010 | Miraculous Beginnings, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK; Bildmuseet, Umea University, Sweden; Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland SweetTalk: Comissions (Beirut), Camera, Austria |
| 2009 | Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World _ Part I _ Volume 1 _ Chapter 1: Beirut (1992-2005), Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA The Atlas Group (1989-2004), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World, Part 1_Volume 1_Chapter 1, (Beirut: 1992–2005),REDCAT, Los Angeles, USA |
| 2008 | A History of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art: Part I_Chapter 1: Beirut (1992-2005), Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon I might die before I get a rifle, Kunstverein Heidelberg, Germany We Can Make Rain But No One Came To Ask, David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, Rhode Island, USA |
| 2007 | We Decided to Let Them Say "We are Convinced" Twice (It was More Convincing this Way), Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA The Atlas Group (1989-2004): A Project by Walid Raad, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico-City, Mexico The Atlas Group (1989-2004: A Project by Walid Raad), Culturgest, Lisboa, Portugal |
| 2006 | Walid Raad, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany The Atlas Group (1989-2004): A Project by Walid Raad, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Germany The Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs: Documents from The Atlas Group Archive, The Kitchen, New York, USA We Can Make It Rain But No One Came To Ask: Documents from The Atlas Group Archive, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada We Decided to Let Them Say "We are Convinced" Twice (It was More Convincing this Way), Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, USA |
| 2005 | I Was Overcome With a Momentary Panic, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario, Canada Funny, How Thin The Line Is: Documents from The Atlas Group Archive, FACT, Liverpool, UK |
| 2004 | My Neck is Thinner Than a Hair: Engines, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany I was Overcome with a Momentary Panic, AGYU, York University, Toronto The Truth Will Be Known, Prefix Institute, Toronto The Truth Will Be Known, Krannert Art Museum, Illinois, USA |
| 2003 | The Truth Will Be Known, La Galerie, Noisy-le-Sec, France The Truth Will Be Known, World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Selected Group Exhibitions | |
| 2024 | A Model, MUDAM, Luxembourg |
| 2023 | So it appears, Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA TOP SECRET: Cine y Espionage, CAIXA Forum, Barcelona, Spain TOP SECRET: Cine y Espionage, CAIXA Forum, Madrid, Spain Moving Images in the Arab World, Art Explora Festival Photo Pavillon, Various stops across the Mediterranean region, Marseille, France (forthcoming) |
| 2022 | Think We Must – düsseldorf photo + Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media, Akademie-Galerie – Die Neue Sammlung, Düsseldorf, Germany Based on a True Story. . ., Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, United States Give and Take. Bilder über Bilder. 8. Triennale der Photographie 2022 – Currency, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany Homosphäre, Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany Temporary Atlas: Mapping the Self in the Art of Today, MOSTYN, Wales, United Kingdom Flowers Forever. Flowers in Art and Culture, Kunsthalle München, Munich, Germany |
| 2021 | Enjoy - die mumok Sammlung im Wandel, mumok, Wien, Austria ARTIST'S LIBRARY: 1989-2021, MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, Italy |
| 2020 | A sun yellow with anger, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany Faces: a Look at the Other, Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France A Bottomless Silence, Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, New York, USA |
| 2019 | Home Is a Foreign Place, The Met Breuer, New York, USA Time, Forward!, V-A-C Zattere, Dorsoduro, Venice, Italy Konkrete Gegenwart, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, Switzerland |
| 2018 | Possibilites for a Non-Alienated Life, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India Camera Austria International. Laboratory for Photography and Theory, Camera Austria, Mönchsberg, Austria Revolution Generations, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar SHINE ON ME. We and the sun, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, Germany Truth is black, write over it with a mirage’s light, Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan Acts of Translation, Mohammad and Mahera Abu Ghazaleh Foundation, Amman, Jordan The Dictionary of Evil, Gangwon International Biennale, South Korea Ausstellen des Ausstellens, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany Statues Also Die, Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino, Italy Mobile Worlds On the Migration of Things in Transcultural Societies Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Germany General Rehearsal: A Show in three acts from the collections of V-A-C, MMOMA and KADIST, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia |
| 2017 | Mario Merz Award Shortlist (with Suha Traboulsi), Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy What We Know that We Don't Know, Kadist, San Fransisco, USA The Principe of Uncertainty, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea Ways of Seeing, ARTER, Istanbul, Turkey Home Beirut. Sounding the Neighbors, MAXXI Rome, Italy Many Tongues: Art, Language, and Revolution in the Middle East and South Asia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA The Truth of Uncertainty: Moving Image Works from the Hall Collection, Schloss Derneburg Museum, Derneburg, Germany A Thousand Roaring Beasts: Display Devices for a Critical Modernity, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, Spain Field Guide, Remai Modern Museum, Saskatoon, Canada Hämatli & Patrice, MUSEION of Modern and Contemporary Art Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy Manipulate the World, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden |
| 2016 | Nothing but blue skies, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France The Eighth Climate (What does art do?), 11th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea Question the Wall Itself, Walker Arts Center, Minnesota, USA Transcultural Flux, TrAP, Oslo, Norway WITNESS, Kent Fine Art, New York, USA The Sun Placed in the Abyss, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio, USA Centennial Exhibition: The Arts Club of Chicago at 100, Arts Club of Chicago, Illinois, USA Nothing but blue skies, Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France Those that are near. Those that are far, with Situ Studio, Stommeln Synagogue, Pulheim, Germany |
| 2015 | An Imagined Museum Works from the Centre Pompidou, the Tate and the MMK, Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK; MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Germany; Centre Pompidou-Metz, Paris, France Gallery 3010, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon A Republic of Art – French Regional Collections of Contemporary Art, Van Abbemuseum, Endhoven, Netherlands SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms, 14th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey Too Early, too late. Middle East and Modernity, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, Italy How to (...) things that don’t exist, Serralves Museu De Arte Contemporãnea, Porto, Portugal Future Light: Escaping Transparency, MAK, Vienna, Austria The Biography of Things, Australian Center for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia Conflict, Time, Photography, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, Germany America is Hard to See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA Dissolving Margins, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA Lest The Two Seas Meet, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland On Remote Control 1, Lothringer 13 Halle, Munich, Germany |
| 2014 | How to (...) things that don’t exist, 31st São Paulo Biennial, Brazil Where Are We Now?, Biennial 5, Morocco Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, USA Histories: Works from the Serralves Collection, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal A Guest Without a Host is a Ghost, The Kadist Collection in Residency, Cairo, Egypt La Disparition des Lucioles, Prison Sainte-Anne, Avignon, France Blue TimesKunsthalle Vienna, Austria |
| 2013 | Art Basel: Art Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland In progress - Works from the MUMOK Collection, MUMOK, Vienna, Austria Home Works 6, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, Lebanon Awakening – Where Are We Standing? – Earth, Memory And Resurrection, Aichi Triennial 2013, Japan A Different Kind of Order, The ICP Triennial, International Center of Photography, New York, USA Reality Fiction, Villa Schöningen, Potsdam, Germany |
| 2012 | dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel, Germany The Shaping of New Visions: Photography, Film, Photobook, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA Ray: Making History, MMK Frankfurt, Germany Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, USA springerin – Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, KUB Arena, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria Abstract Possible: The Stockholm Synergies, Tensta Konsthall, Spanga, Sweden |
| 2011 | ATLAS. How to carry the world on one’s back?, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in collaboration with Sammlung Falckenberg, Spain The Uncanny Familiar. Images of Terror, C/O Berlin, Germany WUNDER (miracles), Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Germany; Art Festival Krems, Austria Wild Sky, Edith Russ House for Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany 10th Sharjah Biennial, UAE The Luminous Interval: The D.Daskalopoulos, Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain Collection Art Festival of the Arts / Hall of the Schaerbeck, Brussels, Belgium |
| 2010 | Festival d'Automne, Paris, France Told | Untold | Retold, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar |
| 2009 | Dream and Reality. Contemporary Art from the Near East, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, Switzerland Taswir – Pictorial Mappings of Islam and Modernity, Berliner Festspiele, Germany Darkside II: Photographic Power and Violence, Disease and Death Photographed, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich, Switzerland |
Selected Performances | |
| 2020 | Kicking the Dead and/or Les Louvres, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden |
| 2019 | Les Louvres and/or Kicking the Dead, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands Les Louvres and/or Kicking the Dead, International Festival of Contemporary Theatre “Homo Novus”, Riga, Latvia Les Louvres and/or Kicking the Dead, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany |
| 2018 | Les Louvres and/or Kicking the Dead, Festival d’Automne à Paris, France Les Louvres and/or Kicking the Dead, Theater Spektakel, Zurich, Switzerland Les Louvres and/or Kicking the Dead, Fast Forward Festival 5, Onassis Cultural Center, Athens, Greece |
Public Collections | |
| Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol; Carré d’Art - Museum of Contemporary Art Nîmes, Nîmes; Centre National d´Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, Paris; FNAC, Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, France; FRAC Languedoc Roussillon, Montpellier, France; Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Hirschhorn Museum, Washington DC; IFEMA, Madrid, Spain; Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich; Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; MUMOK, Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; Museion, Bolzano; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt/Main; Museum of Contemporary Art, Athena, Greece; MOMA, Museum Of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California; Serralves, Porto; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; TATE Modern, London; The British Museum, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. | |
| Awards | |
| 2018 | Aachener Kunstpreis 2018 |
| 2016 | Infinity Award: Art |
| 2011 | Hasselblad Award |
| 2007 | The Alpert Award in the Arts (First Prize) Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (First Prize) |
| 2004 | Vera List Center Fellow, The New School |
| 2002 | Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival (First Prize) Vidarte 2002 Festival, Mexico City, Mexico (First Prize) Oneiras Film and Video Festival, Lisboa, Portugal (First Prize) Media Arts Awards, ZKM, Karlsrhue, Germany (Special Prize) Black Maria Festival (Juror Citation Award) |
| 2001 | Video Ex, Zurich, Switzerland (First Prize) Oberhausen Film and VideoFest, Germany (Rhineland Award) |