The Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea is proud to present on 7 October 2019 the first European retrospective dedicated to the Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz (Great Neck, NY, 1973), winner of the prestigious 2020 Nasher prize. living artist whose body of work has had a tremendous impact on our understanding of sculpture. Previous winners have been Doris Salcedo, Iza Genzken, Pierre Huyghe and Theaster Gates.

The exhibition, created in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery in London, is curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Iwona Blazwick together with the curators of their respective institutions Marianna Vecellio for the Castello di Rivoli and Habda Rashid for the Whitechapel Gallery and will travel to the Jameel Foundation in Dubai. in the spring of 2020. On 7 October the large retrospective will be inaugurated in the spaces of the Manica Lunga of the Castello di Rivoli.
The exhibition is concomitant with the large public sculpture Lamassu , 2018, the Assyrian winged bull with a human face created by the artist for the 'Fourth Plinth' project currently located in Trafalgar Square in London and visible until March 2020.

Rakowitz creates sculptures, drawings, installations, videos, as well as collaborative and performative projects. The exhibition presents a preview of the most important works created by the artist in over twenty years of activity inspired by architecture, archeology, cuisine and geopolitics from antiquity to today. The works narrate the great historical transformations caused by wars and other traumas, denouncing the contradictions of globalization.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art says: "Particularly sensitive to human suffering, Rakowitz is known above all for his relational and participatory projects, also conceived to exist outside the traditional contexts of museums and galleries" . Reviewing the exhibition in 'The Guardian', art critic Adrian Searle commented, “Michael Rakowitz's fascinating exhibition at Whitechapel is full of surprises. It is also a grueling experience. Rakowitz's work feeds on background and explanations. […] You may learn something and find yourselves moved, angry and overwhelmed by the pain and destruction of the world ”.