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Print B - Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month,
2021
by Michael Rakowitz
Print : fine art print 16.5 x 11.7 inch
$436
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About the artwork
Numbered and limited to 100 copies
100 copies available
Hand-signed by artist
Sold with certificate of Authenticity from Sketched
Invoice from the gallery
Artwork sold in perfect condition
Artwork location: United Kingdom
Sketched is a new way to understand an artist’s work; a chance to explore their notebooks, sketchbooks and even i-Pads to discover their motivation, process and inspiration. The Iraqi-US artist Michael Rakowitz, who achieved widespread acclaim for his Fourth Plinth statue in Trafalgar Square, started sketching ideas for a new commission from Turner Contemporary and England’s Creative Coast, when he was in the UK for a major retrospective of his work at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2019. These ‘April is the Cruellest Month’ limited-edition prints chart the work’s inception and provide a unique insight into the Rakowitz’ creative process. Indeed, how can we ever truly separate an artist’s process from the “final product”?
Drawing inspiration for the sculpture’s material from the nearby White Cliffs of Dover, ‘April is the Cruellest Month’ is situated just steps away from the shelter where the line was written; T.S. Eliot wrote part of The Wasteland, while recuperating alongside many of the WW1 soldiers who were convalescing in Margate in 1919. Beyond its modernist allusions, Rakowitz’ title invokes April 2003, when the US-led invasion of Iraq occurred; when Baghdad fell, and Basra was occupied; “an articulation of what that month means for a place that’s far away but is directly affected by the decisions that a country like Great Britain makes,” the artist said.
Intended as an anti-war memorial, ‘April is the Cruellest Month’ also draws on one unveiled in Basra, installed in 1989, consisting of 80 bronze sculptures of Iraqi soldiers who were killed in the Iran-Iraq War; each sculpture pointing across the Shatt Al-Arab river to Iran. When the British Army invaded Basra in 2003, many of the statues were dismantled and thrown into the river. Instead of recreating one of the 80 original sculptures, Rakowitz has reimagined an 81st statue, modelled on the likeness of Daniel Taylor, a British soldier standing in solidarity with the Iraqi people. He is depicted pointing towards Parliament and the Foreign Office in London, where the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was made. Meanwhile, Margate’s Grade-II listed ‘Surfboat Memorial’ sees a Lifeboat crew member point in the opposite direction out to sea.
Each A3 series of limited-edition prints can be purchased singly or as a portfolio complete with a text from the artist.
50% of the net sales proceeds of this limited edition will be paid to Turner Contemporary charity number: 1129974.
A3 photopolymer print on matte 315gsm. Edition of 100 (with signed and numbered Certificate of Authenticity)
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Drawing inspiration for the sculpture’s material from the nearby White Cliffs of Dover, ‘April is the Cruellest Month’ is situated just steps away from the shelter where the line was written; T.S. Eliot wrote part of The Wasteland, while recuperating alongside many of the WW1 soldiers who were convalescing in Margate in 1919. Beyond its modernist allusions, Rakowitz’ title invokes April 2003, when the US-led invasion of Iraq occurred; when Baghdad fell, and Basra was occupied; “an articulation of what that month means for a place that’s far away but is directly affected by the decisions that a country like Great Britain makes,” the artist said.
Intended as an anti-war memorial, ‘April is the Cruellest Month’ also draws on one unveiled in Basra, installed in 1989, consisting of 80 bronze sculptures of Iraqi soldiers who were killed in the Iran-Iraq War; each sculpture pointing across the Shatt Al-Arab river to Iran. When the British Army invaded Basra in 2003, many of the statues were dismantled and thrown into the river. Instead of recreating one of the 80 original sculptures, Rakowitz has reimagined an 81st statue, modelled on the likeness of Daniel Taylor, a British soldier standing in solidarity with the Iraqi people. He is depicted pointing towards Parliament and the Foreign Office in London, where the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was made. Meanwhile, Margate’s Grade-II listed ‘Surfboat Memorial’ sees a Lifeboat crew member point in the opposite direction out to sea.
Each A3 series of limited-edition prints can be purchased singly or as a portfolio complete with a text from the artist.
50% of the net sales proceeds of this limited edition will be paid to Turner Contemporary charity number: 1129974.
A3 photopolymer print on matte 315gsm. Edition of 100 (with signed and numbered Certificate of Authenticity)
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Professional art gallery • United Kingdom
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Print A - Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 16.5 x 11.7 inch
$436
Print C – Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 16.5 x 11.7 inch
$436
Print D – Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 11.7 x 16.5 inch
$436
Print E – Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 11.7 x 16.5 x 0.4 inch
$436
Works in prints from Michael Rakowitz
Print C – Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 16.5 x 11.7 inch
$436
Print A - Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 16.5 x 11.7 inch
$436
Print D – Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 11.7 x 16.5 inch
$436
Print E – Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month
Michael Rakowitz
Print - 11.7 x 16.5 x 0.4 inch
$436
MICHAEL RAKOWITZ (b. 1973, New York) is an artist living and working in Chicago. In 1998 he initiated paraSITE, an ongoing project in which the artist custom builds inflatable shelters for homeless people that attach to the exterior outtake vents of a building's heating, ventilation, or air conditioning system. His work has appeared in venues worldwide including DOCUMENTA (13), P.S.1, MoMA, MassMOCA, Castello di Rivoli, the 16th Biennale of Sydney, the 10th and 14th Istanbul Biennials, Sharjah Biennial 8, Tirana Biennale, National Design Triennial at the Cooper-Hewitt, and Transmediale 05. He has had solo exhibitions at Tate Modern in London, Lombard Freid Gallery in New York, Alberto Peola Arte Contemporanea in Torino, and Kunstraum Innsbruck. His public project, Return, was presented by Creative Time in New York in 2006.
He is the recipient of a 2012 Tiffany Foundation Award; a 2008 Creative Capital Grant; a Sharjah Biennial Jury Award; a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Grant in Architecture and Environmental Structures; the 2003 Dena Foundation Award, the 2002 Design 21 Grand Prix from UNESCO, the 2020 Nasher Prize, and the 2020 Public Art Dialogue Award for Achievement in the Field of Public Art. His work features in major private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; Van Abbemuseum, Endhoven, Netherlands; The British Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Kabul National Museum, Afghanistan; and UNESCO, Paris. His solo exhibition, The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one's own was on view at Tate Modern in London in 2010. Rakowitz was commissioned by Creative Time in 2011 for his project, Spoils, a culinary intervention at New York City's Park Avenue restaurant that invited diners to eat off of plates looted from Saddam Hussein's palaces.
The project culminated in the repatriation of the former Iraqi President's flatware to the Republic of Iraq at the behest of current Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki on December 15, 2011—the date Coalition Forces left Iraq. Enemy Kitchen (2003-ongoing) is a food truck serving Iraqi food to Chicago's hungry public, staffed by veterans of the Iraq War working under Iraqi refugee chefs. His first US museum survey, Backstroke of the West, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in September 2017. He has also been awarded the Fourth Plinth commission in London's Trafalgar Square which was unveiled in 2018. Rakowitz is Professor of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.
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Michael Rakowitz
Print B - Michael Rakowitz, April is the Cruellest Month, 2021
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$436
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