Walid Raad's Postscript to the Arabic Edition at the 61st Venice Biennale

Key facts

• Walid Raad's Postscript to the Arabic Edition (1938-2025) is a mixed-media installation at the 61st Venice Biennale, curated by Koyo Kouoh for In Minor Keys in the Arsenale.
• The installation reconstructs five wooden pallets that were shipped from Lebanon to Ljubljana, Slovenia, during the Yugoslav Wars.
• After the Lebanese Civil War ended in October 1990, militias were ordered to disarm; many soldiers sold weapons privately, and crates traveled from Lebanon to the Balkans.
• Paintings were discovered on the reverse of pallets in crates sent to Ljubljana; they reproduced works by Arab artists whose originals were lost or stolen in the early 1990s.
• The identity of the painter, the reason for using the crates, and how the original works were seen remain unknown.
• The pallets were given by the army to the Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana, which stored them in an off-site depot for analysis.
• In 1993, Walid Raad visited the depot and later replicated each painting and the depot's display, including the scattered rubbish.
• The five pallets reproduce works by Hassan Sharif, Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar, Inji Aflatoun, Fahrelnissa Zeid, and Ibrahim El-Salati.