THE GUARDIAN
By Claire Armistead
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| From the rubble … Rakowitz’s fourth plinth work, The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, is unveiled this week. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty |
Michael Rakowitz used 10,000 tin cans to rescue a treasure destroyed by Isis. The Iraqi-American, who once made a work out of Saddam Hussein’s dinner plates, explains why he likes causing trouble. The 14ft-long statue is both a one-off statement and part of an ambitious long-term project by Michael Rakowitz, a 44-year-old Iraqi-American who has become one of the world’s most political – and powerful – artist-provocateurs. The idea was born as Rakowitz watched flickering green images of surgical strikes on Baghdad by the coalition – the invisible enemy – shortly after which the looting began. Until that moment, the suffering of the Iraqi people had been objectified, he explains. [
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| ‘It was a loss for the whole of humanity’ … Michael Rakowitz. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian |
