ISAW Hosts Enemy Kitchen Project by Artist Michael Rakowitz

A first for ISAW, the Spring 2015 exhibition "From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics" featured works by both modern and contemporary artists who drew inspiration from the ancient aesthetic. Michael Rakowitz's series "The invisible enemy should not exist (recovered, missing, stolen)" was featured in the exhibition, as his ongoing series is directly influenced by artifacts stolen from the National Museum of Iraq, Baghdad, in the aftermath of the US invasion of April 2003. Rakowitz, based both in Chicago and New York City, is an internationally celebrated artist who "creates large-scale works, many of which explore issues related to Iraq - from where his grandparents emigrated in the 1940s - and its perception in the West."

ISAW was honored to host another of Michael's works in May, his project entitled "Enemy Kitchen." As part of this project, in collaboration with his Iraqi-Jewish mother, Michael prepares recipes and cooks traditional Iraqi food, sharing it with different public audiences. Enemy Kitchen was performed as a barbecue at The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum on Memorial Day, 2009. Together with members of the Chicago chapters of Iraq Veterans Against The War (IVAW) and Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW), they cooked Iraqi kofta on the grill instead of traditional hot dogs and hamburgers. In winter 2012, the Enemy Kitchen mobile food truck made an appearance in Chicago as part of FEAST, an exhibition that opened at the Smart Museum of Art. The food truck featured a different Iraqi cook every day, serving cuisine from different regions of the country, and was staffed by American veterans of the Iraq War who acted as servers and sous-chefs.

At ISAW, with the help of collaborators from the Moving Museum, Michael prepared traditional dishes including Masgouf, a fresh carp "fished from the Tigris River, split open from the back, gutted, and impaled on two wooden stakes next to an open fire of apricot logs, fig logs, or reeds." In addition to the multiple traditional Iraqi courses, curator Regine Basha provided traditional music to accompany the meal from her web-based archive of "stories, recordings, and vintage performance footage related to the history and subsequent diaspora of Jewish Iraqi musicians." Regine is a daughter of an Iraqi-born oud player, Brooklyn-based curator and writer, and producer of the online archive, Tuningbaghdad.net. "Her twenty-plus years as a curator of contemporary art involves an investigation into sound art/sound cultures, as well as site-specific exhibitions and interventions into public spaces."

Artist Michael Rakowitz prepares the traditional Iraqi carp, "Masgouf"

Michael Rakowitz with members of the Moving Museum, the ISAW Exhibitions team, and curator Regine Basha

Rakowitz with members of the ISAW community during his presentation of "Enemy Kitchen"