US sculptor focuses London exhibit on Iraq, Syria conflicts
EVANSTON, Ill. — A replica of an Assyrian statue destroyed by Islamic State militants in Iraq in 2014 will soar over tourists in London’s Trafalgar Square beginning in March, courtesy of a vision from American artist Michael Rakowitz.
The 15-foot high statue of an lamassu — a human-headed winged bull — reflects the “mass migration that’s happened out of Iraq and Syria in the past few years,” and is a “kind of placeholder for those lives that can’t be reconstructed and for those people who have not yet found refuge,” Rakowitz said in an interview at his Evanston, Illinois, studio.
His sculpture is a continuation of “The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist” series, a decade-long recreation of nearly 700 of the over 7,000 archaeological artifacts still missing after being looted, stolen or declared missing from the National Museum of Iraq. It’s a project Rakowitz predicts will outlive him and his studio, as thousands of artifacts are still missing and more are being lost every day in archaeological sites throughout Iraq and Syria.
Using databases from the University of Chicago and Interpol to get exact dimensions of missing works, he and his team work with recycled Middle Eastern food packaging and Arabic newspapers to create versions of the original pieces.