We are proud to announce Michael Rakowitz’s first major retrospective in Norway: Proxies for Poets and Palaces at Stavanger Museum.
Drawing upon his Arab-Jewish heritage, Rakowitz critically examines Western interventions in the Middle East, foregrounding the significance of cultural heritage in times of war and probing how societies negotiate the relative value of human life and cultural monuments. At the center of this exhibition are eight reliefs conceived for the Stavanger Art Museum, part of the artist’s ongoing series The invisible enemy should not exist, which “reappears” destroyed Assyrian sculptures using discarded materials—ghosts that haunt rather than replace. Other works revisit the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the controversies around Leonard Cohen’s concerts, weaving film, sculpture, and collected objects into nuanced examinations of history. This marks Rakowitz’s first major retrospective in Norway, underscoring art’s potential to disrupt entrenched imperialist thought.
Exhibition runs through March 15, 2026.
Until September 8, a monumental sculpture by Rakowitz, The invisible enemy should not exist (Lamassu of Nineveh) (2018), a recreation of the guardian deity Lamassu from an ancient Assyrian temple and previously presented in The Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square in 2018, was installed in front of Stavanger Cathedral.
