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An antique-looking object made of yellowed glass in the form of bubbles and metal plant elements, reminiscent of a goblet or a lamp, with centipedes and worms crawling on it.
© Walid Raad
An antique-looking object made of yellowed glass in the form of bubbles and metal plant elements, reminiscent of a goblet or a lamp, with centipedes and worms crawling on it.
© Walid Raad
International Summer Festival 2023
Performance / Visual Arts

Walid Raad

Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter

A performance tour through the Kunsthalle's collection – and into the abysses of the art and finance world, including angels and the undead.

Tickets:

18 Euro (conc. 12 Euro, Performance incl. entry to Hamburger Kunsthalle)

Past dates

Walid Raad @ Hamburger Kunsthalle

In 1992, Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, owner of the second-largest private art collection in the world, transferred his art collection to Spain. Prior to this transfer, the Baron considered Hamburg as a destination, to reunite his Caspar David Friedrich painting titled “Ostermorgen“ (Easter Morning) with its artistic twin titled “Frühschnee” (Early Snow) located at Hamburger Kunsthalle. Unable to reunite the twins, the Baron nonetheless donated several artworks to Hamburg – so bizarre that the museum never displayed them. That is, until Lebanese-American artist Walid Raad requested to see and was permitted to exhibit them for the first time. Raad’s exhibition merges several historical and fictional realms, revealing images of clouds that appeared mysteriously on the back of several Old Masters, cups that attract specific types of arthropods, and angels that self-restore.

WALID RAAD (*1967 in Lebanon, lives in New York) works in performance and visual arts. He exhibits in major museums worldwide and engages the images and stories made possible by historical and violent events in the “Arab world”. First developed for the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, COTTON UNDER MY FEET is now being adapted for the Hamburger Kunsthalle and can be experienced both as an exclusive live performance with Walid Raad and independently with an on-site audio guide.

A person in a black outfit walks through a projection. It shows a collage of two bookcovers overlayed by a photo of a research facility and a portrait of a man, smiling. A person in a black outfit crosses through the projection.
© Jörg Carstensen
Several people are standing in a blue-orange room, in front of them hangs a collage of six picture frames. The group listens to a person who gestures explanatorily.
© Jörg Carstensen
The viewer looks down on a group of people from above. In front of them is a construction of two free-standing walls, lined with pots of paint and construction lights. A person walks through the group and points to the installation in an explanatory manne
© Jörg Carstensen
A group is looking at the large printout of an unfolded book page on the wall in front of them, a landscape golden carpet can be seen. Butterflies are pinned to the top edge. A person stands in front of it explaining.
© Jörg Carstensen
Overhead, one sees an installation of book spines, with keywords such as vampires, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Jalal Toufic. One person points to a spine of a book by the author Dostoyevsky.
© Jörg Carstensen
On a wall with a printed wallpaper hangs a painting with a golden decorated frame. A sheet of paper hangs out of the picture. The paper, the painting and the wallpaper have the same motif: a dreary moorland landscape with small bushes and swamps.
© Walid Raad / Moritz Bernoully
On a wall with red patterned wallpaper, a landscape painting hangs in a wooden frame, that has its rough back, covered with stickers and metal parts, exposed. A yellow and white delivery note is stuck on the painting,
© Walid Raad
In a poorly lit, orange exhibition room, there is a cardboard display of several smiling men in basketball jerseys, suits or kufiyas. Underneath is a large red Persian rug and on the wall are small cardboard figures stuck all around
© Walid Raad / Moritz Bernoully
An antique-looking object made of yellowed glass in the form of bubbles and metal plant elements, reminiscent of a goblet or a lamp, with centipedes and worms crawling on it.
© Walid Raad

Walid Raad (*1967) während der Performancetour zum Projekt WALID RAAD Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter (10.8. bis 12.11.2023 an der Hamburger Kunsthalle, in Kooperation mit dem Sommerfestival Kampnagel 2023)

Walid Raad (*1967) während der Performancetour zum Projekt WALID RAAD Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter (10.8. bis 12.11.2023 an der Hamburger Kunsthalle, in Kooperation mit dem Sommerfestival Kampnagel 2023)

Walid Raad (*1967) während der Performancetour zum Projekt WALID RAAD Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter (10.8. bis 12.11.2023 an der Hamburger Kunsthalle, in Kooperation mit dem Sommerfestival Kampnagel 2023)

Walid Raad (*1967) während der Performancetour zum Projekt WALID RAAD Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter (10.8. bis 12.11.2023 an der Hamburger Kunsthalle, in Kooperation mit dem Sommerfestival Kampnagel 2023)

Walid Raad (*1967) während der Performancetour zum Projekt WALID RAAD Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter (10.8. bis 12.11.2023 an der Hamburger Kunsthalle, in Kooperation mit dem Sommerfestival Kampnagel 2023)

Walid Raad (*1967) Epilogue IX: The Gremlins, 2021. Mixed media. Courtesy: Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

Walid Raad (*1967) Epilogue II: The Constables, 2021. Pigmented archival inkjet print. Courtesy: Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Walid Raad (*1967) Frontispiece IIIa: The Peaces (installation view / Installationsansicht Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza, Madrid), 2021. Mixed media. Courtesy: Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza

Walid Raad (*1967) Epilogue VII: The Gold and Silver, 2021. Pigmented archival inkjet print. Courtesy: Sfeir-Semler Gallery.

More dates in fall 2023

Performance / Visual Arts

Walid Raad

An antique-looking object made of yellowed glass in the form of bubbles and metal plant elements, reminiscent of a goblet or a lamp, with centipedes and worms crawling on it.
Archive

Cotton Under My Feet: The Hamburg Chapter

29.08. - 12.11.2023

Press photos for download

Press photos Walid Raad – Cotton Under my Feet at Hamburger Kunsthalle
© siehe Dokument im Zip-Ordnerapplication/zip, 5.87 MB
With: Walid Raad

Original Commission TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (Kuratorin: Daniela Zyman) Hamburg Chapter Commission Hamburger Kunsthalle in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Internationalen Sommerfestival Kampnagel Concept and Performance Walid Raad Curation Hamburg Chapter Dr. Petra Roettig, Leona Marie Ahrens (Hamburger Kunsthalle), András Siebold (Kampnagel), Selvi Göktepe (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin Hamburger Kunsthalle).

Funding Rudolf Augstein Stiftung und Hubertus Wald Stiftung. With Thanks to Galerie Sfeir-Semler Hamburg/Beirut. A project within the framework of ACT (Art, Climate, Transition) funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union and the Alliance of the Internationale Produktionshäuser by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

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