Michael Rakowitz Reconstructs Assyrian Palace Reliefs with Food Packaging in Dubai Exhibition

Michael Rakowitz presents his ongoing project The invisible enemy should not exist at Green Art Gallery in Dubai through 23 November. The exhibition features polychromatic papier-mâché reconstructions of sculptural reliefs from the ancient Assyrian Northwest Palace of Kalhu near present-day Mosul, Iraq. Rakowitz creates these works using West Asian food packaging and Arabic-English newspapers, including fragments from the quarterly publication Nineveh donated by the Assyrian Foundation of America. The original reliefs were excavated by European and US institutions since the mid-1800s, with remaining panels destroyed by ISIS in 2015. The installation includes a section of 'Room S' from the palace, which served as the administrative center for King Ashurnasirpal II during the Assyrian empire. Museum labels placed on the gallery floor indicate empty spaces left by panels held in private collections or Western institutions. Another work, Charita Baghdad (2020), features digital prints of pages from a 1936 Passover Haggadah belonging to Baghdad's Jewish community, with stains transformed into sketches of maps and votive sculptures. Rakowitz's project began in 2007 to 'reappear' threatened Assyrian cultural heritage, with the title translating from 'Aj ibur shapu', the processional way through Babylon's Ishtar Gate. The exhibition offers a sensitive reconstruction of ancient Iraqi history that moves beyond nostalgia.